Why I no longer say have a great day.

A little while ago I said to my daughter as she clambered out of the car in front of her school “have a great day honey”, she said “I will, I always do”. When I picked her up that afternoon I said “Did you have a great day?”. “Yep” she said. Always wanting more information I pushed “So, what did you do?”. “Nothin’ mama”. “So did you learn anything”. “Nope”. “Who did you play with?”. “Don’t remember”.

I was deflated, she either didn’t have fun, she didn’t want to tell me or she simply could not be stuffed mustering the effort to involve me in her day.

So, my new plan was hatched.

The next morning we pulled into the illegal bus zone and as she collected her belonging I said “Honey, have a great adventure today”. She paused and inquisitively looked at me. “what did you say mama?”. I smiled at her and said, “Have a great adventure”. She giggled, kissed my cheek and her skinny, lanky little legs climbed over the front seat and out the door. 

When I pulled up that afternoon, she came running to the car. She was almost breathless and said “mama, I had a great adventure, today I had a great adventure!!”. She then went onto to tell me the story of her adventure “Well, this morning I dropped all my library books but a girl I didn’t know from year 4 helped me pick them up. Then my teacher, you know ma, that lady that is like you but at school? Yeah her well, she sang a song about a goanna and made us pretend to be goannas. Do you know how hard it is to be a goanna mum?? Then at lunch we found a lizard in the back oval, but we didn’t touch it cause Finn said they can bite. Then I drew a picture of an owl, it was funny because I thought the blue crayon was actually purple! But it wasn’t HA! Then it was time to come home and you are here!, so a pretty interesting adventure today”.

I was shocked to see the same blonde haired babe who yesterday barely managed to mumble two words remembering in such detail what she had experienced that day. 

I realised she had done nothing new or vastly different from her normal days at school, but instead just paid more attention to the mundane everyday adventure of her life so she could tell me all about her ‘great adventure’. 

So, I tried it the next day and the next.

Every single day it worked. She would collect into her little memory bank the list of stories to tell me about her great adventure each day. It was like the way she looked at her day had changed, she all of sudden paid a little more attention to each small adventure she experienced each day.

So in our family we no longer do “have a great day”, we are a family of “have a great adventure”.

Give it a try, you might be surprised.