The SOVA Project is happy to feature this blog post written by one in our team of fantastic SOVA Ambassadors—these are young people who help create meaningful blog posts from adolescents’ perspectives. We hope you can use their post to start a conversation with your adolescent.
We are human, not perfect.
To see that and believe it, there is a great exercise you can try: set two jars by your bed, one labeled “positives,” and the other “negative.” At the end of each day, write down on a small piece of note paper each positive and negative thing you did and place them into the corresponding jar.
A positive example could be: completed most of the homework on my agenda, ate a healthy breakfast, and shared a new song with my friend.
Negative: Didn’t go to office hours.
Some days there may be more negative than positives, but do not hold back on writing them down and placing them into the jar. By the end of the week, you will notice an accumulation of notes in each jar. However, now you can take those negative notes and throw them into the trash. Do this every week and watch your positives pile up. Not only does this allow you to see your constructive progress, but it also provides a medium of understanding what to work on and what to be proud of. Keep the positive notes and look back on them when you feel like you’ve had a tough day. Understand that the positives can and will outweigh the negatives.
Hope this helps 🙂
What do you think about gratitude jars? Are positive and negative jars an idea you’d recommend with your child? What about as a family activity?