Before Everyone Runs Out the Door… One question. One connection.
Years ago, someone shared a simple family tradition with me that I’ve never forgotten.
Every morning, before everyone heads out the door, each person answers one question:
“What is one thing you’re looking forward to today?”
Everyone answers.
Not just the kids.
The adults too.
Maybe it’s something at school. Maybe it’s seeing a friend. Maybe it’s a meeting. Maybe it’s recess.
Then everyone heads out the door.
But the conversation doesn’t end there.
At dinner, they ask the follow-up:
“How did that thing you were looking forward to go?”
Maybe it went wonderfully. Maybe it didn’t happen. Maybe it was a complete disaster.
And that’s okay.
Everything is on the table.
I love this simple tradition because it isn’t really about the question.
It’s about what the question creates. It creates a reason to talk.
It tells children:
What happens in your day matters to me.
Years ago, someone shared a simple family tradition with me that I’ve never forgotten.
Every morning, before everyone heads out the door, each person answers one question:
“What is one thing you’re looking forward to today?”
Everyone answers.
Not just the kids.
The adults too.
Maybe it’s something at school. Maybe it’s seeing a friend. Maybe it’s a meeting. Maybe it’s recess.
Then everyone heads out the door.
But the conversation doesn’t end there.
At dinner, they ask the follow-up:
“How did that thing you were looking forward to go?”
Maybe it went wonderfully. Maybe it didn’t happen. Maybe it was a complete disaster.
And that’s okay.
Everything is on the table.
I love this simple tradition because it isn’t really about the question.
It’s about what the question creates. It creates a reason to talk.
It tells children:
What happens in your day matters to me.
Research on parent-child conversations about setbacks gives us a reason to think about this. In a study of 231 mother-child pairs, researchers found that when mothers acknowledged their children’s emotions and discussed ways to work collaboratively on future problems, this was associated with less fear of making mistakes in children. [1]
But there is another piece of this that I think is especially important.
Children are watching us.
If we expect children to be able to say:
“That didn’t go the way I hoped.”
“I made a mistake.”
“I’m disappointed.”
“I don’t know what to do next.”
Then perhaps they need to see that we can say those things too.
Not because children need to carry our adult problems. They don’t. But because they need to know that being human isn’t the same thing as being perfect.
Research on parental emotion socialization has found that the ways parents respond to, discuss, and express emotions are connected with children’s emotional and social development. [2]
Additional research by Haimovitz and Dweck found that parents’ views of failure were related to their children’s developing beliefs about learning and intelligence. In other words, children notice how we think and talk about failure. [3]
That matters.
Because I don’t want children to grow up believing that success means never getting it wrong.
Sometimes we get it right. Sometimes we get it wrong. Sometimes we don’t know. Sometimes we have to try again. And sometimes the thing we were looking forward to doesn’t turn out the way we imagined.
That’s life.
Our job isn’t to remove every disappointment. It’s to help children know that they can move through it.
And perhaps that’s what I love most about this family’s morning question. It starts before anything has gone wrong and creates connection when things are good.
And then, when the day doesn’t go according to plan, there is already a pathway back to the conversation.
“Tell me about it.”
No fixing. No judgment. No pretending. Just a family making room for the good, the hard, the unexpected, and everything in between.
So, as families head out the door for a new school year, perhaps try one simple question:
“What’s one thing you’re looking forward to today?” And then remember to ask about it later.
Because sometimes one small question can become a much bigger conversation.
A little research behind this idea
[1] Peterson, E. R., Sharma, T., Bird, A., Henderson, A. M. E., Ramgopal, V., Reese, E., & Morton, S. M. B. (2024). How mothers talk to their children about failure, mistakes and setbacks is related to their children’s fear of failure. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(1), 124–142. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12685 (PubMed Central (PMC))
[2] Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., & Spinrad, T. L. (1998). Parental socialization of emotion. Psychological Inquiry, 9(4), 241–273. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI0904_1 (PubMed)
[3] Haimovitz, K., & Dweck, C. S. (2016). Parents’ views of failure predict children’s fixed and growth intelligence mind-sets. Psychological Science, 27(6), 859–869. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797616639727 (Association for Psychological Science)
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Where Literacy and Well-Being Meet
I remember a Grade 3 student whose behaviour initially appeared to be the problem. She was avoiding work. She was finding ways not to participate. On the surface, some of her behaviours could easily have been interpreted as defiance, disengagement, or simply not wanting to do the work. But when we looked more closely, we discovered something important: She wasn't reading at grade level.
Think about that for a moment. If you were repeatedly asked to do something you didn't feel you were good at, wouldn't you find a way to avoid it? Most of us would. We don't naturally run toward the things that make us feel unsuccessful. We avoid them. We find distractions. We make excuses. We do what we can to protect ourselves from feeling like we can't do what everyone else seems to be able to do. For this student, assessment helped us understand what was underneath the behaviour. had several areas of literacy that needed to be addressed, including significant foundational difficulties with phonological awareness. Once we understood that, her behaviour looked very different. It wasn't simply a child who "wouldn't" do the work. It was a child who couldn't yet do the work successfully - and had found ways to avoid being put in that position. That distinction matters. It changed the question from: "How do we stop this behaviour?" to: "What is this child telling us, and what does she need next?"That is where literacy and well-being meet.
Looking at the Whole Child
Learning to read is complex. Children need strong foundational word-reading skills, but they also need oral language, vocabulary, knowledge, comprehension, and opportunities to use language in meaningful ways. And they need to believe they can learn. When a child experiences success, we often see more willingness to try. a child has the tools to be successful, frustration can decrease. And when a child begins to see themselves as a reader, that identity can become powerful. This is why our conversations about literacy need to extend beyond test scores and reading levels. The question isn't simply: "Can this child read?" We also need to ask: "What is this child experiencing as a learner?"
For more than 35 years, my work in education has taught me something I believe is easy to overlook: a child’s ability to learn and to feel confident, capable, and connected cannot be separated. Yet we often talk about literacy and well-being as though they are two different conversations. One happens in the literacy block. The other happens when we talk about relationships, belonging, mental health, or student well-being. But what happens when they are actually connected?
When behaviour is telling us something
I remember a Grade 3 student whose behaviour initially appeared to be the problem. She was avoiding work. She was finding ways not to participate. On the surface, some of her behaviours could easily have been interpreted as defiance, disengagement, or simply not wanting to do the work. But when we looked more closely, we discovered something important: She wasn't reading at grade level.
Think about that for a moment. If you were repeatedly asked to do something you didn't feel you were good at, wouldn't you find a way to avoid it? Most of us would. We don't naturally run toward the things that make us feel unsuccessful. We avoid them. We find distractions. We make excuses. We do what we can to protect ourselves from feeling like we can't do what everyone else seems to be able to do. For this student, assessment helped us understand what was underneath the behaviour. had several areas of literacy that needed to be addressed, including significant foundational difficulties with phonological awareness. Once we understood that, her behaviour looked very different. It wasn't simply a child who "wouldn't" do the work. It was a child who couldn't yet do the work successfully - and had found ways to avoid being put in that position. That distinction matters. It changed the question from: "How do we stop this behaviour?" to: "What is this child telling us, and what does she need next?"That is where literacy and well-being meet.
Looking at the Whole Child
Learning to read is complex. Children need strong foundational word-reading skills, but they also need oral language, vocabulary, knowledge, comprehension, and opportunities to use language in meaningful ways. And they need to believe they can learn. When a child experiences success, we often see more willingness to try. a child has the tools to be successful, frustration can decrease. And when a child begins to see themselves as a reader, that identity can become powerful. This is why our conversations about literacy need to extend beyond test scores and reading levels. The question isn't simply: "Can this child read?" We also need to ask: "What is this child experiencing as a learner?" The Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read inquiry reinforces the importance of evidence-based reading instruction, early identification, timely intervention, and appropriate assessment and support. Read the Ontario Human Rights Commission's Right to Read Inquiry Report
This is the Conversation I Want to Explore
This new Substack is where I will bring these ideas together. **Not literacy or well-being. Literacy and well-being.**I'll be sharing practical ideas, research, resources, and conversations for educators, parents, and anyone who cares about helping children thrive. And I don't want it to be a one-way conversation.I want to hear what you're seeing in classrooms, schools, homes, and communities. What questions are you asking? What are you noticing? What has changed in your experience?
Continue the Conversation
I've written the full version of this article, including more about why literacy and well-being belong in the same conversation, on my new Substack.
If this is a conversation that matters to you, I invite you to subscribe for free. You'll receive new articles, practical ideas, research, and conversations as I continue exploring Where Literacy and Well-Being Meet.