My friend Brittany shares part 2 of her story. When comparison was robbing her of joy, she found a unique way to help change her perspective. This tool helps her celebrate the differences we have as moms and I think it will help you too.
Brittany Hamilton is a parent to 2 kids and is passionate about joy, art, and cross-cultural family life.
In processing differences in parenting amongst our many friends with my husband, I was feeling mom guilt over the many areas of child-rearing that I am not strong in. Take hygiene for instance. If my kids’ teeth get brushed a few times a week we are doing great. My second child had his first bath when he was 3 months old. Take gross motor skills. I haven’t taught my kids how to ride a bike or swim. They can’t catch a ball either. So many of my friends were good at prioritizing these values for their kids.
On the other hand, there were things that we were thriving at. Things we are proud of in our parenting. My kids thrive at fine motor skills and we put a really high value on creativity. We care a lot about relational skills and invest a lot of our time in working on cultivating emotional maturity. I found myself looking at parents who didn’t prioritize the things we cared about and judging them and their children’s behavior.
Comparison was kicking me in the butt and robbing my joy. When I thought about other families I often felt a whirlwind of shame, judgment and insecurity.
As our conversation continued I shared that “I feel like there are thousands of excellent values we could focus on in our parenting and they would all be important and valid.” After a lengthy discussion, we concluded that we couldn’t instill thousands of values. We probably couldn’t even instill ten values – at least not well. In the end we came to the realization that we only had the capacity to help our kids truly master three values. Yup, three – out of thousands. So we created the ‘Three Things Game’.
The Three Things Game goes like this:
- When we spend time with other families we take time to notice what they value.
- Based on our observations my husband and I try to guess what their Three Things are.
- We explain the Three Things Game (and share our Three as an example) and ask them to share their Three Things.
- We celebrate and affirm their Three Things and share some of our observations of seeing their Three Things in action.
Playing the game has had some interesting results. I find myself celebrating other moms’ Three Things instead of judging them. I’ve also found freedom in knowing that I don’t need to have the same Three Things as someone else. I think of the Three Things as our family’s heart characteristics – and just as individuals have different heart characteristics, so do families – and that’s a good thing.
Finally, I’m finding that playing the Three Things Game causes me to use more Godsight, keeps my relational circuits engaged, and keeps joy at the forefront even when I’m with a family that is living out wildly different values to my own.
Now I want to ask you my favorite question to ask other moms… what are your ‘three things’? And who are you most excited to play the Three Things Game with?`
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- Learn more about Godsight: www.thrivetoday.org/skill13
- Learn more about Relational Circuits: www.thrivetoday.org/skill0
Wow, I love this idea, thank you for sharing!