A month ago I posted “Who Have You Helped Today,” about my attempt to help the girls conclude each day with two thoughtful questions:

• Who have you helped today?
• Who has helped you?

My hope was that these questions would make space in our day to both celebrate the kindness others have shown us and develop the habit of looking for ways to help.

Since that post, I rededicated my efforts to start this conversation each evening at the dinner table. While it certainly slips my mind from time to time and occasionally we’re all too tired to do more than chew (like when daylight savings time inspires the girls to wake up at 5am), most evenings we find time to raise these questions.

As a result, both Miss Kindergarten and Little Miss Three look for ways throughout their day to be helpful. They look forward to sharing their stories with us at the end of the day. In fact, they often  bring the questions up themselves, so I don’t have to worry about forgetting.

Our dinner conversations have greatly benefited from this new routine. For the first time, the kids are hearing concrete stories about their dad’s work. It gives them a window into his life on the weekdays, and makes it clear that helping is a shared responsibility. Hearing our adult answers one night often inspires the girls to do something similar the next day, like pay a compliment or hold the door for someone.

Except when they don’t, because of course some days they (and we) can’t think of any good examples. Some days we barely even help each other. Those days make for an interesting conversation as well. We talk about our plans for being helpful tomorrow. Or we talk about how things might have been different.

Little Miss Kindergarten told us one day, “I know a way I didn’t help today.” Apparently she had fought with a little boy over a seat in one of her classes. She was fairly forlorn about the ordeal. I asked her how things could have gone differently. She insisted passionately, “He could have let me have the seat next to N!”

Ha! As you can see, these questions are no magic bullet for eternal “niceness.” But in just a month of nurturing the habit, they have become a treasured part of our daily conversation.

Has anyone else tried it? Will you? Report back if you do!

Tags: Building Community, Free, Improving Lives, Strengthening Our Family

About Sarah

Sarah Aadland is striving to make family volunteering a meaningful habit for her family of five. Join the conversation as she ponders what they may (or may not have) learned and looks for helpful information about raising compassionate kids.Though she plans to one day put her Masters in Public Policy back to work for social justice, she sees family volunteering as a way to build a stronger community, a better world, and a more connected family. In addition to her children, Sarah tends a large garden, a small flock of chickens, and a habit of mindfulness amid the necessary rituals of parenting.

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