I would like to define joy as I understand it. Joy is an emotional state where you are living in the moment. It does not have to be loud, entertaining or purposeful. It is a state of being that prevents us from feeling stressed and focusing on the negative.
Experiencing feelings of joy comes from within you – from your heart. It does not come from an external event for example, if my child is behaving well, if they clean their rooms or get good grades.
For me, when I am feeling joy with my child I am living in the moment. Joy for me is when my child looks deeply in my eyes and says “I love you Mummy” or when I see them having a big belly laugh or when I enter their play world, get down on their level and let them lead the play.
When we are in a state of joy it benefits our bodies, mental health and our relationship with others.
Joy is something that adults can lose along the way. As a child we had the ability to experience joy on a daily basis – we still have that innate ability. Sometimes, with life perceived struggles and occurrences we lose this ability. When we lose this we can disconnect from ourselves.
As adults I believe that somewhere along the line we have replaced joy with external happiness. For example, when I achieve that goal I am happy; when I have completed that task I am happy.
I question myself regularly if my behaviour is teaching my children to experience joy and live joyously or if I am teaching them to disconnect from experiencing joy and associate happiness to completed tasks.
An example comes to mind. I was participating in an under 5 year old disco. This was a fantastic disco with all the trimmings that come with a disco. Disco ball, streamers, flashing lights, music, balloons. The children’s faces as they arrived said it all – lots of smiles, excitement and giggles.
Some children needed time to adjust to the environment while others danced and ran around immediately – it was lovely to see them all experiencing joy in their own time and way.
As a parent how do you behave and what level of participation do you take whilst attending these functions with your child? Would you get up and dance with them or would you sit and watch your children?
How can we confirm to our kids that it is ok to ‘let go’ and be joyous if we do not do it with them?
I realise that dancing may not be your thing and my example is not intended to tell you to show your moves if you are not comfortable. My example is only an example. Maybe there are other activities where you can let your own inner child out and experience joy in its true form with your children.
Teaching them and showing them that you too can have fun and let go is confirming that it is good to experience joy. There is no attachment to the outcome or a goal / task to be completed or accomplished.
So the next time you attend a child’s function will you experience joy with them and let the inner child come out for a play? I hope you do – you will feel much better for it!
How can you implement joy in your daily life with your children?
Write down all the things that bring you joy with your children and try to implement these consistently in your daily lives.
Another thing you could do is ask your children the best thing they like doing with Mummy and Daddy and while you’re at it collect the answers e-mail me their responses so I can include them in my book.
One reason why I am writing this book is to give children a voice and to give us (parents) ideas on how we can do simple, fun things with our kids that bring them joy. By sharing all of our experiences we can gather ideas, learn from each other and implement joy into our daily lives.
I’d like to share with you one more example of how I shared a moment of joy with my son.
I was playing with him and I cannot even remember what it was. I was enjoying the experience – I was experiencing joy. I am glad I noticed that moment immediately and I said to him “Jacob, I really like playing this with you” He looked up with a big smile and said “Aww, thank you Mummy” Jacob is 4 years old. My heart was filled with love.
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