The Threes

It was an assignment from Colin’s kindergarten class last year that first got me to thinking about the general lack of tradition that we have in our family.  And it was partly with this in mind that we started “The Threes” at Chez Baker.

Each night at dinner, we sit down and share our “threes” — one good  thing that happened that day, one bad thing, and one new thing that we learned.  I’m actually a bit surprised that it’s been as big a hit as it has been.  Young people, it turns out, dig ritual.  Who knew?

I did have other motives too when I dreamed this up.  Yes, it’s great for structuring conversations at those oh-so-important family dinners, but I had also hoped that it would help the boys in recognizing that each day has good and bad, and each day is an opportunity to learn.  If I had to generalize, I’d tag Charley with being the glass-is-half-empty guy, while I’m sure he’d pin me with the Pollyanna label. So the idea is to get the boys used to seeing things more completely…  Nothing’s all good.  But nothing’s all bad either.

Interestingly, I’ve found this to be a useful exercise for me too.  Even Charley has gotten into it. The grooves in our brains, the ways that we’ve learned to look at life, are pretty engrained.  So it can be a bit of an effort to see things from perspectives that are unfamiliar.  And the whole “one new thing I learned today” thing is actually more difficult to identify than one might imagine.  How sad is it, though, to imagine that a day goes by when we don’t learn at least one new thing…?

Each night at dinner, the boys work on defining the ways that they look at the world, and each night at dinner, their parents work on redefining the ways that they see their world too.  It’s kind of cool.