I’m so glad to have you as part of The Chaos and The Clutter Community!

Most of what you’ll find here is fun family connection activities, sensory tips and ideas, and special needs parenting help and encouragement.

I’m Sharla, the mom of 7 children, 5 of whom are adopted and have special needs. I’m passionate about helping other parents find joy amidst the chaos of everyday life.

Our most popular posts:

Fun Family Connection Activities:

People love our Minute to Win it Games because they are easy to set up and so much fun for people of all ages. You can find a listing of all of our Minute to Win It Games here.

Family Game Night Ideas

The Flour Game

The Bag Game

Activities to Promote Eye Contact

Sensory Tips and Activity Ideas:

Overcoming Sensory Meltdowns Digital Course

Unique Slime Recipes

Printable Playdough Mats

Sleep Solutions for Your Child with Sensory Needs

Is my Child Having a Sensory Meltdown?

DIY Sensory Wall

Sensory Bins

Sensory Bottles

Sensory Bags

How to Make Sensory Balls

How to Make Squishies

Special Needs Parenting Help and Encouragement:

The Waves of Grief in Special Needs Parenting

What I Wish You Knew about Parenting a Child with RAD

Create a Calm Down Kit for Your Child

Activities to Teach Kids About Emotions

Calming Your Child’s Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response

An After School Meltdown Strategy that Actually Works

Transition Strategies for Kids

 

Words are a powerful thing. They can alter your mood, build bridges in relationships, encourage, breathe life, and transform. I’ve shared with you how two words transformed our family for the better. Those words are an example of what extraordinary power what you say and think has. Words also have the power to destroy, to tear down, to defeat nations, and to break bonds.

A few months ago, I noticed a general pattern in my moods. I was feeling less content with my life and with my circumstances. I was restless and negative. I was pretty darn unhappy to be frank. What especially scared me was that it seemed to be trending in a downward spiral. Each day, I felt worse than the one before.

Nothing in particular had changed about our circumstances. Our life has been challenging for at least the past ten years and I don’t expect that those challenges will lessen in the next five years or so but I had usually managed to maintain a mostly positive attitude despite life’s circumstances and ups and downs. I spent some time analyzing why it was that I was becoming such a negative person. I didn’t want to be the person I now saw staring back at me in the mirror. I wanted to be that person I had been, the one who could find the humour or at least the silver lining in every situation.

As I analyzed this state I was in, I could find only one difference between the me of present and the me of the past. I had allowed two seemingly innocuous words to creep into my vocabulary. The words were not a phrase that I was accustomed to using so at first, they felt strange fumbling around in my brain and even stranger when they escaped my lips.

As with most things, once I had said them out loud, they became easier and easier to say and they were in my brain, embedded like a persistent houseguest who outstays their welcome and becomes more and more at home in your dwelling.

What were these powerful words that could almost debilitate and discourage me even in a whisper?

I deserve…

“I deserve a break.”

“I deserve things to go my way for once.”

“I deserve some peace.”

“I deserve for you kids to listen to me.”

“I deserve some chocolate and a glass of wine.”

“I deserve time alone.”

“I deserve a new dress.”

“I deserve to eat out.”

“I deserve more.”

I understand that an argument could be made that I work hard and that I deserve all of those things. An argument could also be made that everyone in the world (including those in abject poverty or in developing countries) deserve those things and are not likely to get them, so I shouldn’t think that I am more worthy of those things than others.

Whether or not I actually deserve those things isn’t the point. By speaking those words, even just in thinking them, I was significantly contributing to my own unhappiness. I was focusing on the negative rather than the positive.

Instead of feeling blessed because I got five minutes to myself, I lamented about why I didn’t get an hour. Instead of being grateful that I have a house to live in, I perseverated on the thought that I deserved more help with keeping it clean. Instead of choosing thankfulness, I chose to reserve a seat to my own daily pity party and was sitting longer and longer at that table.

Thinking about how you deserve more instead of looking for all the blessings in front of you is a recipe for unhappiness. It can lead to procrastination, divorce, weariness, anger, and dismay.

One day, I said to my son who was being rude to me,”Try that again. I deserve respect.” I’m not debating that he should have been more respectful as I am his mom, but what came out of his mouth was, “I deserve to get anything I want.” Obviously, that’s laughable as none of us get whatever we want and certainly not when we are living in our parents’ home not paying rent, but the statement shocked me because I realized immediately that I had created that attitude in him. He had been hearing me talk for weeks about all the things I deserved and he had begun to let those two words seep into his brain and infect his thoughts.

The “I deserve” virus was in fact spreading throughout our whole home. It had become an epidemic, all these little people running around asking themselves what others could do for them instead of what they could do for others because you know, they deserved the best of everything and the easiest of chores or no chores at all for that matter! The only way to stop the spread of the virus was to immediately eliminate that toxic phrase from my vocabulary.

Those words had become a habit, so it wasn’t easy to get them out of our home, but as I have consciously grabbed hold of them when they come into my mind and reminded myself of what a lie they are and how dangerous that thinking is, I think them less and less. I hear them escape my lips even less often and I’m beginning to hear them less from everyone in the family.

I read somewhere once that deservedness is a currency of shame. The idea of deserving something positive also leads to thinking of deserving negative for not measuring up. Using the words “I deserve” sends the message to our children that they can be good enough or not good enough to have positive or negative results. This could translate into things or into love. When we remove the idea of deservedness from our minds, we can have things and love and attention whether or not we did anything that amounts to “enough”. This new framework allows for gratitude and for grace.

If you aren’t convinced at the negative impact these two little words have, I hope you will be willing to humour me with a bit of an experiment. Would you go with me on a one month journey to discover how much happier you feel when you eliminate these two toxic words from your life? Would you be willing to go a little further with me in this experiment and consider replacing those two toxic words with these transformative two words that will encourage and strengthen your family? Let me know what you find.

Family connections aren’t made in the big momentous times like holidays and vacations and theme parks. They are made in the almost imperceptible milliseconds of day-to-day life. They form when a boo-boo is kissed or covered with a band-aid, when a momma sings her baby to sleep, when siblings make up after a quarrel, when memories are recalled, when an inside joke sends everyone into fits of giggles. They are made in the living.

Image Copyright: get4net / 123RF Stock Photo

There is something about family that cannot be found anywhere else. The feeling of belonging, of knowing that you can be accepted for who you are, in your worst and in your best. Family connection is crucial for laying a foundation for our children for their future relationships and how they interact with the world.

If you ask someone about their family traditions, they most likely think of holiday traditions for Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving or Hannukah. Those traditions help shape how we view those holidays and can even impact how we view ourselves as they can help give us that sense of belonging, but everyday family traditions can be just as impactful.

When I was thinking about this idea of everyday family traditions, at first, only a few came to mind, but I soon realized that we have all kinds of little things we do that set us apart from other families, little habits or games that we’ve invented that help define us as a unit.

Guess how many seconds – this is our waiting game. When we are in a restaurant or doctor’s office and we notice the kids getting a bit antsy, we ask everyone to guess how many seconds they think it will be until the food comes or the doctor arrives. When everyone has put in their guess, we s-l-o-w-l-y, slowly count all together. What the kids don’t realize is that this act of counting slowly together is actually very calming and they also keep their minds of their impatience or hunger. The person who is closest in their guess without going over wins. Their prize=just being the winner and yet, this game totally works.

Family language – all families develop their own language over time. It often stems from words a small child can’t pronounce properly that other family members think is adorable and they all begin to refer to it using that word. In our family, there are several words that came about that way and there are also quite a few Amharic words (two of our children were born in Ethiopia), some Dutch words (my husband is Dutch), and some shortened words that everyone understands the meaning of even if they make no sense to anyone else. Oddly enough, no French words have made it into our family language even though I am fluent in French. We all know that the “backie” is the “backyard” for when Jonah was little and couldn’t say the full word. We all call washcloths “dookies” for the Dutch word even though we now know that word also means something else less pleasant.

Photo albums – I used to scrapbook a lot prior to blogging and we have over 50 photo albums. The kids spend hours poring over them. Although this may not exactly be a family tradition, it contributes to our family culture and feeling of unity as we reflect on memories together.

The You Are Special plate – We were given two You Are Special plates as a gift after our last adoption. We set one out for the birthday boy or girl on their birthday of course, but we also use them to celebrate things like a child getting their driver’s license or first job, completing a project they worked hard on or another accomplishment that needs to be celebrated.

Family Fun Nights – A few times a year, I plan a really fun family fun night with themes like Minute to Win It, Just for Laughs and The Tooth Fairy Forgot. We also have smaller family fun nights that I throw together at the last minute where we may just play board games together or snuggle up and watch a special movie.

Bedtime – When we tuck the kids in, we have a routine that we follow that is very simple but consists of things like asking them about their day, praying with them and sometimes giving them a back scratch or reading them a story.

Suppertime – Every day at supper, we go around the table and answer the question “what is the best thing that happened to you today?”. We used to also ask what the worst thing was but it turned into a sibling tattling fest so we stopped that years ago! We also don’t allow cell phones at the table. It is supposed to be a time of family connection.

Birthday supper – On our kids’ birthdays, we have a family birthday supper where the kids get to pick anything they want to eat. And I really mean anything. They can choose items that don’t go together at all or an all dessert supper. They’ve chosen some pretty creative combinations over the years!

Friday night dance party – This is something we used to do every Friday night. Now we only do it once in awhile but the kids all have fond memories from it and sometimes have their own dance parties with each other. We would just put music on and dance or sometimes use Just Dance (which is super fun in a group) or watch how-to videos on YouTube.

Vacation ornaments – This one is somewhat related to our Christmas traditions but when we go on a big family vacation, I buy a Christmas ornament to help us remember the trip. When we put up our tree, we can reminisce about those holidays as we hang the ornaments.

Image Copyright: patriziatilly / 123RF Stock Photo

Other ideas for family traditions:

• secret handshakes
• quote notebook – a journal where you record cute things your kids say and the date
• annual family portrait
• family walk
• weekly pizza and movie night
• weekly board game challenge
• watch home videos together
• plant a tree to commemorate special occasions such as graduation
• have brunch together every Sunday
• family sing-along
• choreograph a dance together and then pull out your moves at weddings and parties
• write notes in their daily lunches
• group hugs
• family motto or theme song
• mother-child or father-child dates
• annual family time capsule
• serving together in the community
• annual measurements on the door frame or wall

I asked some of the bloggers that I know what their family traditions were to help give you even more ideas. 

“We have family nights every Friday. We have a big slumber party, watch movies, play games, have a special dinner or snacks. We stay up late too! Weekly vacation!” ~ Alison, Pint-Sized Treasures

“With the change in every season, on the equinoxes and solstices, we always celebrate by getting outside and connecting with nature. We also light candles and talk about what we did in the previous season and our hopes for the next season.” ~ Shelley, STEAM Powered Family

Looking for more ideas for family fun or resources to help you connect with your child? Join our free 5 Days to Better Family Connection email series.