Mommy Finger, Baby Finger

We celebrated my daughter’s 9^th birthday last weekend!

This birthday celebration was honestly the least stressful for me. I’m finding that I don’t do well with planning birthday parties. No, seriously. I LOVE celebrating my child, but I HATE planning birthday parties. It’s too much unnecessary stress for me. I want to create memories and live out new adventures with my little one. I have learned that this brings us closer. So, this year, we skipped a big birthday party celebration and went to Candytopia, a candy-infused interactive art adventure. It was filled with colorful photo opportunities. But, this post isn’t about her birthday celebration, it’s about the special gift I made for my daughter this year.  

So what did I maker her? I made my daughter a DIY jar of customized positive affirmations to uplift her every day. Affirmations began as mirror work for me in the process of healing and learning to love myself.

What are affirmations?

Put simply, affirmations are positive statements that can help you to challenge and overcome self-sabotaging and negative thoughts. All the things you say to yourself in your head, is a stream of affirmations. Initially, I wrote myself positive notes and quotes which I stuck on my bedroom and bathroom mirrors, my vision board and even my car mirror. My daughter would often read these notes aloud, too. So, I began pouring positive affirmations to her as soon as she was ready to recite them. We started when she was in kindergarten. Every morning on our way to school she’d repeat, “I am strong, I am smart, I am brave, I am beautiful, I am kind, I am a child of God.”

The start of this new school year presented some challenges when I learned that she was experiencing bullying. I immediately felt the need to bring out the strongest, most confident side of my child. While I can’t physically be there to protect my child in every situation she faces, I believe positive affirmations will empower her in every moment of her life. Without getting too deep into science, at birth, a child’s brain is unfinished. A child’s brain develops as they experience the world. Children’s brains have more plasticity than adults, making their brains more “flexible” to learn and adapt. This is why creating a healthy habit of positive affirmations can be a powerful tool for them to practice.

Examples of Affirmations

These can be short, simple statements. The easier they are to repeat and remember, the better. I shared a reel in my Instagram page of the affirmations jar I gifted my daughter.

• I am strong
• I am important
• I am powerful
• I believe in myself
• I am doing my best
• I am proud of myself
• I love myself
• I am enough
• I am loved
• I am the boss of my own happiness

I look for creative ways to talk about mental health with my little one, too. For example, for her birthday, she received this reversible octopus mood plushie. When she gets home from school she lets me know how her day was with this octopus. One day she asked me to show her my mood with this octopus plushie and I showed her both sides at the same time then I explained why. Part of talking about mental health means being transparent about how I manage my own emotions and stress. If you were to ask her why I like to sit with myself and journal, she’ll tell you it’s my way of meditating. I wrote a blog on what self-care looks like for me and how meditating has changed my life. I also talk about changing habits of my own.

Sometimes I have to cancel out my tricky brain. I’ve gotten so much better at recognizing triggers, feelings of disgust, anger, etc. and redirect how I respond to those things. I know many things get passed down through families, like heirlooms, traditions and genetic conditions, but I think a lot of times, we fail to realize that trauma can be inherited, too. In my own traumatic childhood experiences, I learned that the things we say to our children stick with them for the rest of their lives.

Before I became a mother, I was so unhappy with my life. So, I worked up the courage to create the necessary changes in my life. I wasn’t so sure what I was doing at first when I began writing affirmations to myself. But, the more time I spent empowering my thoughts, the more positive and confident I felt.

In short: Your thoughts create your beliefs about yourself, which then become your actions, which then become habits, which ultimately create your lifestyle.

There is so much I’m still learning about myself, my child and how to be a better parent. But, I try to take all these lessons and share them. If you are interested in following our journey and gaining more positive encouragement follow my Instagram in addition to my Mommy Finger, Baby Finger blog.