5 Reasons To Have A “happiness Jar”: Your Kids Will Love It!

The bottle of happiness is a simple and effective strategy to work on motivation, gratitude, affection and emotional intelligence in children. Often they say that happiness is as fragile as glass.

However, the glass that is well cared for every day shines and shines, and if we also cover it with the varnish of affection and dedication, it can become as strong as graphene.

Now, to take care of that valuable material that is your own well-being and that of ours, you need acts full of will, good care and that know-how that does not follow spontaneous acts, but has everything right planned. One way to achieve this is through the proposal that we now want to make to you.

The bottle of happiness

It is the “bottle of happiness”: a motivational technique that usually achieves good results in small groups of people, whether in a school classroom, in a labor department and, above all, in the nucleus of a family.

The goal is simple: fill you daily with positive thoughts about others. The best thing is that they are authentic, heartfelt thoughts and phrases, full of motivation, love and encouragement for our own. We explain below how to do it and what benefits you can get.

1. We work on emotional intelligence

In our day to day we do not always find the right time to tell how much we love our parents, children or partner.

It always costs a bit, it is always difficult to “start” that inner emotion in words. Thus, studies such as the one carried out at Boston University and published in the Journal of Happiness Studies reveal a series of data on which to reflect:

• One way to make children happy is not just by telling them how much we love them. It also means thanking them for things.
• Likewise, it is also important to highlight what they do well, reinforce their worth and their ability to be better.

It is essentially about giving “positive reinforcement”. Therefore, if we have this bottle of happiness at home, it will be very easy for us to work on these and other aspects.

In addition, we will exercise that emotional intelligence daily with which to learn to manage the world of emotions a little better.

What is the bottle of happiness?

Every day, and always depending on the dynamics of the home and the experiences that are lived in the present, we will introduce in the jar a series of sheets with short and brief messages for our children.

Some simple examples of the phrases that we can put in the bottle are the following:

• ” I am proud of you for how you have dealt with that problem you had.”
• “I love it when you smile, you are someone very special.”

• “Thank you for that detail that you had with me yesterday, you are very important in my life.”
• “Today at work I remembered a lot about you, I really wanted to go home to see you.”
• “Sorry if yesterday I made you angry, sometimes I speak without thinking and then I regret it. I just want you to know that you are the most beautiful thing in my life ”.

2. The bottle of happiness, an aid in the education of our children

The bottle of happiness is a very appropriate strategy in the education of children. It will help you in the following:

• Every day you will receive positive reinforcement from us that will help you grow, mature:

“I’m proud of how you make an effort at school”, “I like how you take responsibility for your things”, “don’t worry about that mistake you’ve had, mom and dad trust you and they know that next time you will do better” …

• In turn, they themselves should also leave their cards with phrases for us. In this way they are obliged to do exercises of reflection, emotional expression and analysis.

Also, the fact that the bottle of happiness emphasizes “the positive” is something very appropriate, something that gives them motivation and security when they need it most.

3. We revalue the small details of the day to day

The small details are what build happiness, they are acts full of intention where love, authentic affection and the dedication of that look that attends and knows what we need, what we like is appreciated.

The bottle of happiness is the home where the small everyday details will live, where we will receive a “thank you for being like this” or “I like how you are” or “I love being by your side” …

They are simple, short and elementary phrases that will brighten our day, that will brighten our day, motivate our hearts …

4. We will cultivate gratitude

As various works and studies indicate to us, such as the one published in The Journal of Positive Psychology and carried out at Hope University in the Netherlands, cultivating gratitude is a way to improve our mood and gain happiness.

When we live as a family, we often take things for granted. We think that our partner doing this or that is normal, that it is to be expected.

• We tell ourselves that our mother, grandfather or siblings do us such a favor because it is common in the bosom of a family …
• However, the moment we take things for granted, the magic is lost, and even the person who performs these acts may feel disappointed and even undervalued.

• Therefore, it never hurts to give them a “thank you”, write a “I love you”, a “what would I do without you …”.

It is a simple strategy that can go a long way.

5. We focus on the positive

In our day to day criticism, fatigue, that stress that forces us to hurry without focusing on who is in front of us, on what is essential to the heart and that sometimes we neglect abounds in excess.

• The purpose of the messages that we will leave written every day in the jar of happiness is to focus only on the positive.
• By doing so, we will change the chip, we will stop giving so much relevance to what bothers us or worries us to perceive the beauty of ours, to remember what it is we really love, and what makes us happy.

To conclude, we recommend you to do it, we invite you, at home, and with the help of the little ones, to choose a beautiful glass jar, decorate it, and start writing your positive messages today.