Roses And Thorns

I wanted to take a moment to give some great family advice. About a year ago, I happened to pick up one of the parenting magazines I have laying around. It's funny that I even picked it up at all, every few months I get these things and I'm not sure why since I never subscribed. But even though I randomly get them and never read them- I still keep them for a rainy day. I picked up this magazine and flipped through it finding mostly ads for diapers and baby clothes and whatever else they promote to parents.  Annoyed by all the ads, I was about to set it down when I saw a short article about Roses and Thorns.  I started to read and little did I know that this article was not only about to change my life, but the life of my family.

Roses and Thorns is a simple concept that a family sit down together at dinner time every night (or during some other moment when you are all together) and take a turn discussing their Roses and Thorns for the day.  What is a Rose?  A Rose is something good that happened to you today.  It is as simple as: "I took the kids to the park and we had a great time"or "My son helped me with the dishes today." Anything that made you happy that day--there are no right or wrong answers.  AND tell all Roses--ever day should have many.

A Thorn is not necessarily something that occurs every day.  If you haven't figured it out yet, a Thorn is something bad that happened.  Like "I spilled my drink all over my shirt" or "I wasn't feeling good today." You get the general idea. 

As soon as I read this article I told my family that evening, while we sat around the table eating our dinner, that this was our special new thing. My children embraced it way more than I could have imagined. I realized that many nights my husband and I would have a conversation that may not have always included our children and many times our children were forced to just sit and listen to us talk.  In other words, we weren't talking TO our children enough. 

As months passed, I saw a significant change in my family by applying a simple, but very important concept. We explained to our children that every day should be filled with lots of Roses and sort of discourage thinking of a Thorn.  If they have a Thorn, they of course share it, but we try to teach them to focus on what makes you happy instead of what makes you sad.

My family has grown so close by this small, simple concept.  This works for young children or old children. We even make people who come to our house for dinner share their Roses and Thorns and it helps us to get to know them even more too.  So here is my advice/challenge to you. Try this in your house even for just a week and I PROMISE the results will be amazing. You will learn things about your children that you never knew before. It really opened up a new level of communication in my family and we are stronger and closer because of it.