How many times has it come to mind to discuss things with your partner that are of importance to your family, only to find out at the end of the week you are exhausted and just cannot find the time and indeed the one life skill that is critical in keeping us connected, communication.
This can also be said for us when raising teenagers, getting on busy with our lives, and not creating opportunities for our children to be able to reach out to us and sometimes they are worried about how we may react. So, those thoughts and feelings are kept in a box inside ourselves. This technique allows us to get into practice having daily and weekly conversations that may not always be comfortable but, allows us to resolve challenges that arise in our own home, so that we may foster truer, deeper, relationships with our family members.
- Create or buy a box and fill it with blank cards with a pen on hand in a communal space. Encourage both you and your partner to get busy discussing topics using one card per issue.
- This is where you dedicate 30 minutes each night going through the box. You will need to cap the time so that you don’t waste any going around in circles. Your goal is to listen, work together towards resolution, solidify your plan of action, and move onto the next card.
- There is no cheating here! This is the real game of life, you do not get to put the card down and pick another up. Issues kept under the rug fester.
- By focusing what is written on the card together it objectively allows you to look at the issue as a team in how you will resolve the problem and takes away the blame game.
- The children might feel comfortable on a landing near their room or in their room. When they are ready for you to receive them, they can place the into a communal space where you get to look at and receive them.
Copywritten by Jo Frost