A Sprinkle of Hope Connects Us

With A Sprinkle of Hope, your young family can enjoy interactive music play that you may use to create family rituals for celebrating, and building HOPE together.

As we kick off 2021, let’s connect with each other through peace, cooperation, and creativity. As we sing, dance and make music together we’ll focus on embracing our individuality while learning from one another. We can do more when we combine our talents and work together.

What does “hope” mean to you? In this article, I’ll share some perspectives and ideas and hopefully provide you with more tools to support what you are already doing with your family. AND, you are invited to join us for an EVENT in which you will gain easy joyful ways to build hope & resilience in your children.

Hope is a desire and belief that something GOOD will happen. It may be a little thing, like hoping for a smile from a loved one, or a bigger thing, like hoping for independence from diapers, or the ability to ride a bike, or play music we love on an instrument.

HOPE is tied to a positive attitude: Hope can give us a spark of positivity. Gratitude for what we have and celebrating even LITTLE positive steps builds more hope. Hope shared within our family connects us as we move forward together. HOPE can guide us to choose to ACT in ways that make progress toward our mutual goals.

From my heart to yours, discover life lessons you gave your child in 2020, and how to build hope in this new year.

Emotionally, we all need A Sprinkle of HOPE to be motivated, and to be more resilient through the tough times. This is a GIFT we give our children, and they GIFT it to us. But how?

1. Recognize and be grateful for the unique characteristics of each person, and find ways to let strengths shine. (Do not move on until this is firmly established.)

2. Talk with joy about your hopes & visions of the future, as well as the delight in the little journeys that can get you toward what you hope for.

3. Be all IN the process together. Nurture the mutual DESIRE. Admire work on PROCESS and PROGRESS over performance or perfection.

4. Celebrate little steps in the process frequently, both improvements and set backs. Take joy in discovering what can be learned from mistakes.

Below, I’ll share simple little ideas for each of these.

Your family can join us for A Sprinkle of Hope Playdate to make it EASY for you, as a parent, make this kind of magic happen all year. We will start with many options in January, and will sprinkle more opportunities throghout the year.

A Sprinkle of Hope

ALBUM & PLAYDATE

Click Here to See the Schedule & Register

During the first week of January, your family can join Ms Debbie and other families virtually through ZOOM, no matter where you are, for a week of exploring ways for your family to consistently create A Sprinkle of Hope throughout this year.

Being part of our PLAYDATE is the ONLY way to gain access to this amazing album of music, with enjoyable renditions of favorites like “Auld Lang Syne” and “This Little Light of Mine”, as well as inspirational new music like “It’s Time to Celebrate”, and “A Sprinkle of Hope”.

Being a part of our Playdate gives your family opportunities:

to share our celebrations and hopes with others,
to experience simple playful ways to interact with our children that build this hope and resilience as part of their inner speech.

As you begin this new year with hope, consider your answers to the following questions:

What is a characteristic of your child that you love about them, that you want them to have always? How about a characteristic about yourself… and each member of your family?
What is something your family HOPES for?
How does your family Celebrate Progress?
And what is a recent personal development you celebrate today?

During “A Sprinkle of Hope” event, there will be opportunities for you to share your answers with our group, as we engage in our delightful activities, and it helps to have a little time to think about them in advance.

A Vision Celebrating our Best Selves

As we Recognize and share our gratitude for the unique characteristics of each person, we build a strong sense of self that is valued. We can consider so many more options to let that light shine. There is so much value in doing this for yourself and each adult as well as each child.

Build a delightful connection with your child by singing a few rounds of the song, “This Little Light of Mine”. Then you can adapt the song lyrics to highlight what you love about each member of your family.

“Emma is so silly, Yes… she’s gonna let it shine.”

“James is so creative. Wow! He’s gonna let it shine.”

“Kinley loves to read, oh yes… she’s gonna let it shine.”

“Ian loves to help clean up, He’s gonna let it shine.”

You may even create a “Vision Board” for each person, adding pictures, words, etc. to the board over time that highlight the characteristics you LOVE about them, things they LOVE, and what they love to DO, the abilities to be proud of, people who love them. This visual is a continual reminder for the child of the many ways they shine so bright.

Your child’s confidence and their perspective of themselves as a capable person gives rise to hope for learning and doing more.

A Vision of the future with A Sprinkle of Hope

What is it that you HOPE for… for yourself… for your children? What are the mutual desires that your family shares? This may be something small that you hope for each day, such as just wanting to laugh more often, or create a few moments of genuine connection with your child, or improve the positive flow of your morning routines. Or it may be a bigger goal, such as moving toward independence from diapers (potty training success), or learning to create music on an instrument.

For the best results, we choose what is most important to HOPE for TOGETHER. When only ONE person is driving the hope, it can be quite difficult to move toward it. Even though children may not understand your BIG Picture view, your creation of joy and enthusiasm in the PROCESS will be a great help in getting them on board. The more moments you are joyfully working together on the process, you are establishing the feeling of connection and teamwork. A strong feeling of connection is likely to reduce the frequency and/or intensity of power struggles.

For example, you may HOPE your morning routines flow better. A child may not get that full concept, but they are more likely to get into that flow if the morning starts with something that makes them happy, such as a morning soundtrack to accompany the routines, including music for stretching and moving around in bed. An upbeat dance song gets your body moving out of bed and getting dressed, then you can dance for the rest of the song. You can even end with a song to gather up the stuff needed for the day and head out the door. Young children really respond well to a routine with visual images so they can build that image in their head of what to expect next, building their confidence as capable beings. Check out more ideas about making musical mornings rock in this article.

Article: School Mornings with Music can Reduce Stress

Celebrate little increments of improvement

Isn’t it true for you that your HOPE grows as you are successful in moving toward what you desire? Taking a moment to appreciate PROGRESS builds the desire to persist.

How does your baby know you are excited about what they can do? How do you celebrate improvement in your family? Do you CLAP and cheer? …Give a High Five & a smile? … Do a little happy dance? … Make serious eye contact and exclaim “You DID it!” These are easy ways to celebrate the spontaneous moments of progress that occurs naturally as a child plays and goes through their daily routines.

Every time your child experiences this happy feeling with you, the emotional part of their brain connects that feeling of joy, and connection with you, with the action they just completed, and they want to feel that way again, encouraging them to keep trying.

Does your child understand the joy in the process and what it will take to Celebrate? For example, perhaps in the process of potty training, they know that when they stop what they are doing to go to the potty, they will get to dance a congo line with you on the way, that when they stay on the potty you will stay with them and read a book, and they will get to see you do a silly happy dance after they pee in the potty.

When working together on a bigger process, it is helpful to describe the improvement and recognize desired natural consequences. “Wow, this morning was so much fun, singing and dancing with you as we got ready. You got your shoes on all by yourself. And look, we got here early enough you can play with your friends before the teacher starts class.”

When you have bigger successes, you may want to create your family’s own unique ways to celebrate. For example, when anyone in the family reaches their next step in the process, you may have a special BELL they can RING. Or you may choose a special piece of music to play and dance along with. “Celebrate… good times… Come ON!”

Hope is best served with Joyful Persistence, and regular celebrations of improvement.

May this year begin and continue with a sprinkle of hope in your heart, mutual desires that you can work toward, a joyful process, and many opportunities to celebrate.

You may find this process easier with the music and ideas you gain in Kindermusik. We’d love to have you join us as we work together toward our mutual goals of giving our children opportunities to blossom and thrive in their own unique ways, and for creating joy as we learn and thrive together.