The Happy Bear Approach: How We Tamed Our Morning Struggles

A lot of the time, we get a little stuck in patterns of negative thinking... But we easily forget that we get to choose happiness. - Kayla Taylor

My son started Kindergarten a month ago and it’s been a BIG adjustment. Every parent knows the struggle - their children come home tired and emotional after long days filled with new ideas, learning, and social dynamics. Many children (and teens) will come home experiencing “after-school restraint collapse.” This term was coined by Andrea Loewen Nair (a counsellor in Ontario, Canada) and describes the phenomenon in which children hold it together all day at school and come home tired, angry, and emotional. We have been experiencing this in varying degrees, but I also noticed that our mornings started becoming combative - my son would basically wake up annoyed! This made getting out of bed, dressed, eating breakfast and all the morning jobs much more difficult. We tried several things (earlier bedtime, different choices for breakfast, etc.), but to no avail. Finally, one day, after a big meltdown (on both our parts), I decided we needed a mindset shift. I said to my son:

 “We have so much to be grateful for and happy about when we wake up each day. First, we are alive! And next, we are healthy and well. And finally, we have wonderful family and friends around us daily.”  

I elaborated a little on each of these, but only a little. I then said: 

“Let’s not be a cranky bear in the morning when there’s so much goodness around. Let’s be a happy bear. We get to choose!”  

He didn’t say much. But you know what happened? The following day, he woke up and smiled as he got ready for his day. He wasn’t argumentative or agitated. And before he went to school, he hugged me and said, “I wasn’t a cranky bear today, Mommy.” And I smiled and said, “No, you are a happy bear!” And off he waltzed out the door, bounding down the sidewalk to the car to go to school.

A happy bear. 🐻

Well, would you look at that? A very simple conversation about choosing happiness was all that was needed to shift my little guy's mindset and emotional state. Now… is that going to happen every single day? No. But it helped today, and it might help tomorrow, too. 

Why did this work? 

I think this worked for three main reasons:

1. Awareness. I always say that you have to be aware of a problem before you can change it. In this case, that simple awareness and intention setting was enough to shift those early morning snarls. Think of it much like biofeedback. We made something more noticeable and then my son could do something different with his behaviour. It’s what we do when we are training the brain with neurofeedback, too. Sometimes, the basic phenomenon of the brain noticing itself and its operations can help create change. 

2. Motivation. In this case, my son was motivated to exhibit a happier attitude not only because it sounded like a nicer way to start the day but also because he was motivated to please me, as many children are and many adults are, too (for another conversation about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, see HERE).

 3. Perspective / Gratitude. A lot of the time, we get a little stuck in patterns of negative thinking. Our default mode is to focus on problems and surviving difficulties and hardships. But we easily forget that we get to choose happiness. We can prime ourselves to focus on different aspects of our life or the world around us by paying attention to things in the moment or practicing gratitude. Let’s talk about that piece next. 

Gratitude: What does it do? 

There is a ton of research about gratitude's helpfulness for perceived stress and overall happiness. I am not even going to cite any here; just know it exists. If you want to do your own research, please do! Even more informative than a Google search is doing your own research by trying it out yourself, in your own life. 

Gratitude helps us see the positives instead of the negatives. It can be thought of as perspective-taking or perspective-shifting. For example, my mom always highlighted the silver linings of my problems, especially when I was younger. She often reminded me that while my concern was valid, others had it worse. And although comparisons aren’t always helpful, for me, they frequently were. It helped me see that it wasn’t all that bad and there was still much to be grateful for. Gratitude can also be perspective shifts in your own life. Like in the current example – helping my son recognize how much we had to be grateful for simply waking up well each day (because there was a time when health and wellness weren’t always as easy to come by). 

A Disclaimer about Simply ‘Choosing’ Happiness 

I want to make mention of this: I am not saying that everyone all the time can simply ‘choose happiness.’  I am not downplaying the impact of clinically significant anxiety, depression and other mental health disorders that may be at play. I am simply talking about how easily we can get stuck in the same looping patterns and habits and how a simple act of initiating a mindset shift can improve circumstances and feelings. 

In our case, my little chat with my son gave him permission to see the world differently when he opened his eyes the next morning, and that helped today. I hope we can continue to create positivity in our mornings in the days to come as well. 

Are you struggling with a grumpy bear in the mornings or after school? Try the ‘Happy Bear’ strategy and see what happens! We hope you notice a shift as well! 😀

If this is an area where you could use support, connect with us HERE or by calling

587-333-6349. 💙

Disclaimer

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