The most important 30 seconds of the day?

Here’s a simple way to round of the day with your children – I read about it somewhere years ago, and it genuinely works a treat.

Bless your children – or as we refer to it in our home, give them a goodnight “whisper.”

By the end of the day, it can be tempting to cart of the children to bed and get some much needed and well-deserved free time. We could be frustrated, disappointed, stressed, hoarse with shouting “teeth!,” “PJs!”, “Stop chasing each other around the house or we’ll get cross!” (maybe the last one is just us?!) It can take a marathon effort to get children into bed at night and we may not be keen to linger anymore than absolutely necessary.

Enter the “whisper”.

The whisper is the way to bring some closure to the day, to make sure we part on good terms, to help the children wind down, to make lasting memories and to recall the ways in which your children haven’t simply been little terrors throughout the day.

The whisper is very simple.

You simply whisper a blessing in the child’s ear before they go to sleep. It’s a moment between just you and them (that’s kind of important in our home where we have three children with large egos and small age gaps) – for them to know that they are individually valued.

It doesn’t take long.

We usually recall some funny/kind/brave/hardworking things that they have done during the day, some good things that we see in their character, we tell them we love them, God loves them and we’re so glad that Jesus made them and put them in our family. And the jobs a good’un.

And it’s not the reason why we do it – but the reward is SO great.

As we say encouraging, kind things to our children (which let’s be honest is very much needed given that we’re British, and parents and therefore spend much of our communication time in instruction and gentle correction) our children almost always want to give us a whisper too. Our little 3 year old girl gave me the most special whisper the other day “Mummy, I love you too, and I like whispers.”

Which is why I decided to write this post.

Because the words of affirmation, the little rituals that we make with our children, those moments of connection and recalling areas of progress, add up.

They can become the voice inside our children’s head, and the disposition that they feel we have towards them. As we bless them we mirror what God the Father is like towards his children.

So give it a go. It will only take 30 seconds, but as a habit, those affirming words in your child’s childhood will last them a lifetime.

They will recall those whispers once you’ve gone to meet your saviour.

They will remember that you loved them for you stooped down to whisper so in their ear. And one day they may just stoop down to whisper in your grandchild’s ear “I love you so much, I’m so glad Jesus made you and put you in our family.”