How do you keep it cosy as a family in quarantine? A burning question for many families.
Yesterday evening, I attended an interesting webinar of Breekjaar on this theme, given by Anke van Dondergoed and Wessel te Winkel. They shared with us three important elements that always work wonders in the Breekjaar program: play, share and appreciate.
Play
For the first element, 'play', all participants (consisting of mothers, young adults and a family with a mother, father and two daughters) had to find all kinds of crazy attributes in the house as quickly as possible, from toilet roll to favourite book to headgear. After playing, the ice was broken and we sat down in front of the screen with a very familiar feeling. We felt connected despite the large age differences and we felt relaxed despite the fact that some participants were following this webinar because of tensions at home. The tips for us and for all families: think and play games together, be creative! Because playing works wonders!
Share
In order to make "sharing" understandable, Anke explained to us a beautiful iceberg with an upper and lower part. The upper part contains visible elements such as behaviour and knowledge; consciously and unconsciously we share a lot from this part with others and with our family members. But the underwater part contains inner processes, beliefs, mission, norms and values; these are invisible elements that become visible by consciously sharing about them.
In this corona time, sharing this invisible inner world between parents and children can be very connective and enriching. By doing a check-in round with a simple question: "How are you today?" you can share frustrations, sadness, worries, joys, pride and much more with each other. The "sharing" round of this webinar has remained unforgettable for me until this afternoon.
Appreciation
As human beings, we are conditioned to pay attention to what is not going well with ourselves, our lives, our environment, our families and our children. We constantly ask ourselves many "why" questions in order to find out how we can find solutions to these problems. By replacing the "why" question with "what am I grateful for?" we can increase gratitude for ourselves, our partner, our parents, our children, our colleagues and so many other people. Gratitude makes you happy!
The Break Year webinar concluded with a round of gratitude. I left my Zoom session feeling very happy! I am grateful for this beautiful evening spent with my special Zoom companions!