Making Faces

At some point in everybody’s life, your parents have said to you, "If you keep making faces, you’re going to get stuck looking like that!" However, making faces doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In fact, one of our favorite family activities is literally ... making faces.

Besides being a family favorite, this activity has lots of good points:

• It is something all ages can do, from my youngest son Grant (age 4) to my oldest son Carter (age 9) to my college daughter (age 19) to me (age undisclosed).
• It is low cost or no cost.
• It allows for lots of creativity.
• Everybody laughs.

The activity is something we simply call "Post-it Note Faces." Here’s how it works:

• First you need a pack (or several packs) of Post-it Notes and some markers.
• Now on each Post-it Note draw an eye or a mouth.
• Be sure to have the kids draw them as well.
• Try to come up with as many different eyes and mouths as possible, such as happy, angry, sad, scared, scary, silly, monster, pirate (patch), animal and more.
• Now everyone places the Post-it Notes on their own faces. Put one note on each of your eyes, and put one note on your mouth.
• Encourage everyone to act out the emotion or character they have created.
• Mix and match the Post-it Notes to make other interesting combinations.
• Take lots of pictures!

Besides always being a lot of fun, "Post-it Note Faces" has other benefits. First, it is a great way for kids, especially boys, to talk about and express emotions. The better they can make the faces and act out the characters, the better they will be at understanding emotions in others.

Secondly, this can be a good opening for a discussion about emotions and our responsibility for them. Just as each child can choose the Post-it Notes they want, and put them on their faces to make an emotion, they also get to choose their emotions in real life. It is important for kids to realize that in the end no one can make us feel a certain way, but that we each must decide how we will feel about what happens to us.

Sure they can’t stop a toy from breaking, but they can choose if they will throw a fit about it. Yes, siblings will mercilessly tease them (it is a law of nature, like gravity), but it is their choice to ignore them or start a fight.

A phrase we try to use is "Your response is your responsibility."

We can’t control the world, but we can control how we respond to it. Sure, it is fine (and healthy) to get sad and mad and work through our emotions. However, it is not fair for Mason to say, "Grant is making me sooooo mad!" No, Grant is making some bad choices, but it’s Mason’s choice to get mad or not.

Of course this is a difficult lesson for even us (supposed) grown-ups to learn. The good news is we can all play the "Post-it Note Faces" game, be creative, have fun, laugh a lot and learn a little something as we are making faces.