Positive Self-Affirmation Blossoms

Like the trees around us, the branches of Isla’s Connection Tree started the new year bare, but are now beginning to bloom! Inspired by the gorgeous cherry blossoms everywhere, Isla’s tree is filling with cheerful color and positive self-affirmation blossoms— a beautiful visual she can look to whenever she needs a reminder of just how darn awesome she is!

We developed seasonal Connection Tree activities to help our family bond and provide opportunities for our children to grow through reflection and discussion. We look for ways to mirror the natural world whenever possible with our activities, so each season focuses on something different— the first months of the new year are all about setting personal goals, and spring will focus on building confidence through the use positive self-affirmation blossoms. It is so important to help our children learn to recognize their gifts, believe in themselves, and develop the tools to overcome the negative thoughts that try to creep into their minds.

Supplies:

• Water color paper
• Water colors
• Craft sponges
• Tooth brush (Brand new, for art projects ONLY. We picked ours up at Dollar Tree)
• Scissors
• Scotch tape

Instructions:

• Use craft sponges to dab the water color paper with two or more tones of pink watercolor paint. Leave little white spaces and allow the different colors to blend together. We painted 3 full sheets of paper.
• When the paint dries, load the toothbrush with a darker pink/red water color and splatter it all over the painting. It’s a good idea to test your splattering out on an extra piece of paper first.
• When the paper is dry, cut it into blossom shapes. Ours are cloud-like, to mimic a cluster of flowers.
• Discuss the concept of positive self-affirmations with your child and encourage them to think about what they do well. Write the affirmations on the blossoms and add them to their connection tree with a small roll of tape.
• Refer back to the blossoms regularly, such as during your child’s bedtime routine, when they first wake up in the morning, or when you see them displaying the positive characteristics they identified.

Painting the blossoms is definitely fun, but the conversations you will share as your child comes up with their positive self-affirmations are definitely the best part of this project! When starting out, you will likely need to define affirmation, and perhaps help your little one generate ideas about what they do well. I told Isla that positive self-affirmations are encouraging statements you make to yourself about yourself. They can highlight something you know, something you do well, a way you have improved, etc. I also explained that it is SO important for us to recognize our gifts and acknowledge what we do well to keep our hearts and minds strong.

Writing positive self-affirmation blossoms can be part of your nightly bedtime routine or something you do a couple of times a week. It’s up to you! The only thing we suggest is that it be an ongoing practice during the spring months, rather than a one time event. This encourages numerous opportunities for connection, reflection, and confidence building.

The amount of time you spend on this activity may vary. One day your child may come up with several positive self-affirmations, another day they may struggle and you can step in and share something you admire about them. You can also use guiding questions to help them identify personal strengths:

“What is something you do well?”
“What is something you have worked hard to improve?”
“How do you help our family?”
“What is a way you show kindness?”
“What is something you are proud of?”

As your child shares their thoughts and reasoning with you, be sure to continue the conversation. Point out times you have seen the behavior, ask them to elaborate or give specific examples, ask how it makes them feel to know they have strength in a particular area.

I am truly grateful to be able to support Isla’s confidence in such a fun and creative way, and I am SO excited to see all of the different strengths she identifies in her positive self-affirmation blossoms over the coming weeks! We’ll be sure to check back in to share her tree at the end of the season and will also share an adapted project for toddlers later this week, so be sure to check back in!

If you’d like to see how we use our connection tree throughout the seasons, you can click the links below:

Winter

Summer

Fall

Christmas (Yes, we know it’s not a season, but we give the tree a special makeover for our favorite holiday and hang all our advent activity ornaments on it!)