I do believe in gratitude and by reminding yourself daily of your blessings, it will benefit your well-being and resiliency. So, the goal is how to ask my kids for their “good thing” each night before bed. However, they are boys. So my attempts have been met with “eh, nothing”, “it was terrible” or even total b.s. answers like “I met John Cena today.” I kept asking, the boys just kept sighing and rolling their eyes while giving me dispassionate responses.

Enter an idea from a friend, a friend who I greatly respect for her brain and her spirit. A friend who is a Montessori educator and fabulous mom. She suggested asking my boys each night about the Rose, the Thorn and the Unicorn of their day.

So, I started.

What is your Rose…

a GREAT thing about your day

Tell me a THORN about your day….

Something that wasn’t so great or just downright bad

Now, tell me if you had a Unicorn today….

Something unexpected and great, like finding something you lost, a wonderful surprise, etc. 

That’s it. Easy peasy. I’m trying to get them to see the good things about their day while not totally neglecting that a bad thing may be in there too. I also truly recognize that it couldn’t hurt my kids to replay the day a little while allowing them to open up a little.

To be honest, it’s not going flawlessly quite yet. My soon-to-be-10-year-old-macho-son refuses to play this game and thinks it’s totally lame. However, his little brother looks forward to it as I tuck him in at night. He won’t let me get away with saying goodnight without having our Rose, Thorn and Unicorn talk.

Maybe it will catch on with the older one if he hears it enough as he’s rolling his eyes on the top bunk. As for me, it is a good reminder for me to review my own Roses, Thorns and Unicorns daily.