I truly believe that there is someone for everyone. But I also believe that you have to make the choice to recommit yourself to loving that someone, every single day. Love does not regulate itself. It needs constant attention, regular maintenance and daily reaffirmation to continue to thrive in a relationship. In honor of Valentine’s Day, the B5 bloggers are paying tribute to all things romantic, chocolaty and heart shaped. Here is my contribution to the celebration of love.

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With Valentine’s Day quickly approaching, I thought that it might be nice to focus on ideas that inspire parents to spread a little more love and positivity around the home. Being a disciplinarian doesn’t mean you have to be mean. In fact, acting kindly on a regular basis, makes it easier to enforce discipline and create a greater respect for parental authority. My Peer Leadership teacher once gave a lecture on the importance of feeding each other with positivity. He made the point that all people walk around with an emotional collection bin. Every action or comment that is made toward them, during the day, goes into the bin. As the day wears on, the bin gets full and overflows. Everything that was put into the emotion bin spills out into the atmosphere. If the bin was filled with mostly negativity, then that negativity will spill out and effect others. But if we fill each other’s bins with positivity and love, then our bins will overflow with good things and create a positive chain reaction.

I have never forgotten his words and I find that positivity starts in the home. When I spend the day barking at my children and spewing negative commentary, it causes my kids to become negative Nellies, in turn. I have realized that I can greatly affect the mood of this house and all who dwell within, just by speaking and acting in love. Here are a few ideas that may help to create a more positive home environment and take very little time and effort.

1. Cut out paper hearts and laminate them. Once a day, use a dry erase marker to write a little word of appreciation or positive observation to each child. Pass out the hearts at the dinner table or any time that you are all gathered together. Make sure that they read them aloud, so that the positivity gets verbalized.
2. Write a love note and stick it in your child’s backpack, lunchbox or pocket.
3. Sit with them at bedtime and tell the story of the day that they were born. Make sure you include your feelings of joy and excitement, so that they know how special their birth was.
4. Make up a song about each child. It can be sung to a familiar tune. Be sure to sing their praises whenever they look glum.
5. Sit in a circle and have each family member say something nice about everyone in the circle. My kids were surprised to learn of the nice things that their siblings thought about them.
6. Make a collage out of magazine pictures that depicts the great things about each child. Hang it on their wall, above their beds, as a constant reminder of why you love them so much.
7. Go through old pictures and talk about the memories of when they were young. Include lots of reasons why you love each memory. It will flatter them that you actually remember things that happened so long ago!
8. Hang a picture of each family member on a poster board. Write positive adjectives on sticky labels and hand them out to each family member. Let them take turns at applying each label to the member that they feel best fits the label’s  description. Display the board for all to see.

What are some ideas that your family uses to spread a little love around?