When I was finishing high school (I was homeschooled my last year) and starting college, I worked as a preschool assistant, lunchroom monitor and P.E. assistant in our church’s elementary/middle school. I am so thankful for that time and the things I learned under Mrs. Ellis, who is an amazing preschool teacher.

She would often talk to the kids about finding their happy hearts, and somehow this has grown into quite the event for my kids. If we’re dealing with a lot of grumpies, I’ll often start by singing the grumpy song from the video, but if that doesn’t work, it’s time to pull out the big guns.

First, I ask them to spit out they’re grumpies, and I hold my hand out for them to spit into. Thankfully, they’re good at pretending, so I haven’t yet ended up with a wet hand. LOL! Depending on the day, I smash or throw their grumpies as hard as I can.

Then comes the exciting part. We anxiously watch for the happy heart. The girls let me know which flavor they’d like (strawberry? blueberry? chocolate?), and once we spot it flying in from a distance, we get ready to catch it…all with a lot of drama, of course.

We catch it and eat it all up, and 9 times out of 10, we’re ready to move on with our day with happy hearts.

There are also times that we pray about their attitudes and talk about needing to have a good attitude, but sometimes something fun and goofy snaps them out of their moods (and they’re girls…we have lots of moods) enough so that those serious conversations can take place.

What about you? Any tricks for snapping kids out of bad moods?