Good morning!

In the busyness of life, we can sometimes miss meaningful opportunities or even accidentally ruin a good time with others when wrapping up activities with them.

When you’ve just finished an activity with someone else—whether your child or spouse—how do you usually end it?

• Shrug and move on

• Say something vague, like “That was fun…”

• List the other activities going on that day

• Announce your personal to-do list

•  Assign the other person a task

• Stare at your phone

These responses can waste an opportunity to improve and deepen our relationships. Yet, there are worse responses.

For example, if we’ve been having a rough time with our kids or our spouse and finally experience a positive time with them, we might let down our guard and inadvertently shame or scold them by saying, “See! That was fun! Why can’t we do this more often?”

Saying something like that is often worse than saying nothing at all. It can cancel out the other person’s enjoyment of the activity and make them regret doing the activity in the first place.

Expressing gratitude: the one step to “lock in” a good time

Any activity you do together (meals, games, walks, or movies)—no matter how mundane or seemingly routine—is an opportunity to communicate genuine gratitude to your loved ones.

A simple step to frame a positive activity is to take a moment to tell the other person that you had a good time with them. It takes less than 15 seconds to do it right.

1. As you are wrapping up your activity, stop what you are doing.

2. Get their attention.

3. Touch their arm or shoulder (or be within a few feet of them).

4. Make eye contact with them and smile as you tell them: “Thank you for __________ [doing this activity with me]. I had a great time with you.”

5. Move on to whatever you have to do next.

Over holidays and vacations, there are often many opportunities to practice showing gratitude to your kids and loved ones. But you can do it every day. You will see positive results in your relationships and increase your own enjoyment of activities through showing gratitude. You might even discover other areas of life to show appreciation and experience more joy in each day.

Warmest regards,

Len

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