The purpose of education is to prepare children for adulthood. Optimism is the lever that helps us push ourselves into a positive future. So if you are homeschooling your children and want them to be happy and well adjusted adults, it would make sense to give them the tools that allow them to be optimistic and hopeful about what happens next in life. What better belief than this one -“Life is Good and More Good Things Will Occur in the Future.”
The 3 Good Things Exercise
It is possible to build up the belief that good things happen all the time if we use this simple exercise with the homeschool students. At the end of the day ask them to think of three good things that happened during the course of the day. Initially they may find it difficult to think of things to say. Here you need to guide them about not just the gifts or treats that they got, but also the positive experiences that they had, new and interesting things that they learnt, and a whole lot more count towards these three points.
Have them write down these three points in a journal. If they wish to, they can add more than three things, but minimum three must be jotted down. Now ask them to give gratitude for the good things happening. Explain that by being thankful they send out the vibrations for more good things to happen for them in the future. Now also have them analyse and explain why they think the three good things happened to them. Let them come up with reasons, chain of events, and other stuff that led to the occurrence of these three good things.
There are no right or wrong answers in this exercise. What they see as a good thing may or may not be considered as such by you. However the idea is to get them thinking about how small incidents in life affect them in a positive manner. This builds up their optimistic character. As with anything else in life, the more you practice the better you get at it. So if you can have your homeschool children practising optimism in smaller things every day, they are sure to continue to do it later on as well.
