Change the atmosphere

Christine Whitehead
Nov 27, 2022
3 min read

I am not a morning person. To be honest I’d prefer to not talk to anyone for at least the first hour of the day. This is not helpful when I am trying to get 4 children out the door with nursery bags packed, book bags packed, water bottles filled, 2 socks and 2 shoes each, coats, wearing correct uniform, what day is it, is it PE, my work bag, lunch, work pass (nightmare when I forget this!)… So when we get in the car I feel like I’ve already done a morning’s work.

One morning recently I had been really shouty with Sophie and then we got in the car and she was trying to do her seatbelt herself and I just snapped "just let me do it – we need to go now" Not my finest moment and I knew it. I decided to pray and say sorry. When we say amen we sometimes punch the air so I did this and hit the car ceiling. The kids found this hilarious and the atmosphere immediately changed. I’ve done it a few times now on purpose and they still finding it really funny!

It got me thinking about the atmosphere in our house and how to change it when its not good. I love Rend Collective’s song ‘We are the church’ about building God’s kingdom here on earth and there’s a line in there

"Change the atmosphere"

I think I use music quite a lot to set or change the mood in the house. My go to background music is spotify lists like Calming Christian or Worship music piano. If the kids need a bit of dance then hillsong kids or similar. We’re not always ‘holy’ we like a bit of George Ezra, Disney obviously among others!

Trying to make mundane things like getting dressed into games is also great when things are a bit serious or someone’s a bit grumpy – Tim is often much better at this than me. I’ll be like “get into bed” and Tim’s “do you want to go into bed head first or bottom first” - producing giggles. I use tickling a lot or funny voices to try and get any of the kids out of a bad mood.

I had an incident yesterday where I was the cause of bad atmosphere. I was trying to print out the craft activity for kids group at church today and the printer was having none of it. I was ready to throw the printer out the window. Tim asked me if I was ok and I burst into tears. I’d not had the best sleep the night before and we were trying to get on the road as we were going to a family get together so I really wanted the session sorted (I know day before not the best time…) The next thing I see is a little note Harry had just written to me saying 'Mummy I hope today goes well' and 'I hope you get a good sleep tonight' with hearts and kisses

That was what stopped my spiralling negative thoughts… I still wanted to throw the printer out though. But it was a little act of kindness that changed the atmosphere.

So in conclusion I’ve come up with four things that have helped make for a positive atmosphere in our house prayer, music, humour and kindness.

Though you'd never think any of these faces could ever be grumpy... :)