Tea Time!

We’ve been doing something in our home for the last couple of months that has been transformative in our relationship with our daughters. We have TEA TIME everyday! Ok, well almost everyday. It started on a cold rainy afternoon when we were all stuck in the house with not much to do. My husband and I both work from home and the kids were running around like maniacs. WE WERE LOSING OUR MINDS! So I told the girls to put on their favorite dress up dress and we would have a tea party! We’ve had tea parties before and I’m sure you have too, but they usually consisted of fake tea or lemonade and we were usually pretending to be princesses.

This particular time I made actual HOT TEA IN REAL CHINA CUPS! The girls were so excited to have a REAL TEA PARTY! They were also thrilled that I trusted them to hold my very breakable cups that my grandmother gave me. Then we decided to go around the table and ask everyone what they wanted to talk about. We discussed those topics for the next few minutes. I believe that day we talked mostly about rainbows, then butterflies, and that turned into a conversation about how caterpillars became butterflies. We had so much fun and we had great conversation. Even my two year old was captivated enough to sit still for half an hour!

The next day when I picked my four year old up from her preschool she asked when tea time was. I was thrilled! We have tried to have tea time every day since. We have dinner together every night and we catch up then of course, but our tea time is such a good way to get everyone to slow down during the day and refocus. I don’t know about your house but ours gets a little out of control in the afternoon. The kids are more rambunctious, everyone wants a snack, and we can all get on each others nerves a little. Sitting down together and having conversation and deciding together what to do with the rest of our day has been so AWESOME! I realize my oldest actually looks forward to her tea time as more of a down time or quiet time when she is over stimulated from school. My husband even joins us now! I knew we had something good going when he walked through the house a few weeks ago and asked when tea time was!!! YAY!

However you want to go about it in your home, maybe tea time or maybe another way, getting everyone to slow down and refocus and just talk has done worlds of good for our family

Love,

Kate