What if I told you that you could instantly improve your family life with a simple tool that you could pick up from the dollar store… for less than a buck?
Would you like to see a positive change in your home over the course of the next year… for less than $1.00? Would you like to see praise and encouragement become a regular part of your home life? Would you like to “feel the love” even more around your home on a regular basis?
Sure, who wouldn’t, right!?
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just go to the store and buy a “box of encouragement” for your family?
Well, here’s an idea… get yourself and your family a “box of encouragement” by picking up a package of 3×5 cards on your next trip to Walmart. They’re the world’s smallest and cheapest form of encouragement.
The Challenge
Here’s The Challenge for both you and your kids – leave a box of 3×5 cards on your kitchen counter or dining room table, and everyday, grab a card, and write a positive or encouraging note to someone else. It doesn’t have to be long and filled out from corner to corner, it just needs to be sincere, even if it’s just a phrase, or a sentence or two.
Here are multiple ideas for how you could do this:
1. Make it a rule that every day every person in the family is to write out at least one card for someone else in the family and give it to them or leave it somewhere for them to find.
2. If you are a parent who leaves for work before the rest of the family is up and around, this is a great way to let someone know from the very start of their day that you love them and are thinking about them throughout the day.
3. Write a note and intentionally leave it somewhere that it will be found later… on someone’s pillow, in a dresser drawer, or in between the pages of a Bible… you decide.
4. When kids in the family get in trouble for arguing, require them to sit down and write something positive about the other person before their discipline is complete.
5. Encourage your family to write these notes regularly to other people outside of the family as well. Maybe set a goal of going through an entire package (usually 50 or 100 cards) each month.
6. Use them to recognize acts of kindness throughout the day or simply to express thanks to someone for unique things that they add to the family. Also, use them to share an encouraging verse of scripture.
Get Creative
Try to get creative with what you could do to motivate your family to make this a reality:
- Keep track of how many cards your family uses, and give an incentive when they’re all gone or when a goal is reached. You could designate .10 cents per card that goes into a family ice cream fund. Or, if there are 100 cards in a package, once a package is completed, the family goes out for ice cream to celebrate before starting on a new box.
- Instead of plain white cards, use the bright neon 3×5 cards to add more excitement or to have a color code for different members of the family.
- Put them in a plastic notecard box on the dining room table and label it “Box of Encouragement.”
- Be as creative as you want to be.
The ideas could be endless, but hopefully you see how this could be an easy tool with some great results in training your children to be encouragers and to intentionally find and acknowledge the best in others.
The Benefits
Our family did this challenge a number of years ago when we were in a unique season of transition and needed to infuse some positivity into our home. We loved it! Here are some of the benefits we noticed in our family:
- It’s really easy to be an encourager when you set yourself up for success.
- Our kids actually woke up looking forward to both giving and receiving encouragement.
- It boosted the general morale in our family by fostering a positive daily attitude of praise and encouragement.
- It taught our family the value and power in hand-written notes and words.
- And… our family really enjoyed the ice-cream outing :).
Notes of encouragement are such a small way to make a big difference. They’re easy and they’re cheap, but have great potential to make an impact on someone else’s heart and life. Because who doesn’t enjoy finding a personal hand-written note? It’s actually encouraging to both the giver and the receiver.
Are you up for the challenge? Try it out for just a week, and see if it doesn’t improve the morale of your home and family.
What have you got to lose? (A dollar? Lol.) I’ll guarantee you this, you’ll get more value in return for your family than a dollar’s worth for your money.
What are some other ways that your family fosters intentional encouragement in your home?
