Category Archives: Family Life

Meaningful Work For Adults: A Discipline Challenge

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I believe the key difficulty lies in that adults of this time and place try to relate to small children through words and through the perception that the small child should be treated the same as an adult- provide logical explanations, more explanation, more talking, more experiences – in order to make discipline go well.   The fact that the child then does something that was never done to them (“Why is my child hitting me and biting me?  We don’t do that to them!” or disappointment when “She could have cared less that she was being wild and disrupting the baby’s nap.  Why can’t she have consideration for the new baby?”)

Disappointing indeed, to discover all those parenting books were wrong, and to discover the completely different consciousness of the child.

The child of birth through seven should be living in their bodies, and we should be able to hold discipline through rhythm, through using song along with movement, through silence and loving authority as we  keep calm and carry on.  Less words, more warmth, more work on our parts.

In order to help our children, we have to become agents of doing.  This is what a small child relates to.  When we don’t show our children any meaningful work within a meaningful consistent rhythm, they are rightfully confused. Continue reading →

Chapter One: The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work

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Today we kick off our new book study:  “The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work” by John Gottman and Nan Silver.  This book was a New York Times bestseller, and has some interesting observations as to our most intimate relationships.  You can find the link to it on Amazon here:  http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Principles-Making-Marriage-Work/dp/0609805797/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1329658637&sr=8-1

Dr. Gottman  spear-headed sixteen years of marriage and divorce research at University of Washington in Seattle and ended up being able to predict, with 91 percent accuracy, over three separate studies, whether a couple would stay married or end up in divorce.  He got to the point where he could predict this after listening to a couple interact in his Love Lab for as little as five minutes! Continue reading →

Intimate Relationships: Eight Facets Of A Healthy Family Culture

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We are at the last of the eight facets of a healthy family culture!  Writing about the impact that the state of intimate relationships in a household can be a tricky proposition for many reasons, and one I hesitated writing about until the end.

First of all, I don’t want those in families led by a single adult to feel not included or to feel that a single family household is somehow sub-par. I also know from over the years that different marriages and partnerships have different feels to them, and how different couples define “a good marriage” seems to vary,  but somehow they work, so giving “advice” about this seems to be difficult at best.

However, what I have seen over the years is that when the intimate relationships within the household are not working well or are strained, it affects family culture, it can really affect the children, and so I did want to mention this as part of the foundation of healthy family life.

Many sources say it is actually not conflict that diminishes marriages, but rather lack of kindness, lack of patience and tolerance and a general lack of sense of love or being loved.

John M. Gottman, in the book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work”, asserts that happy marriages are based upon Continue reading →

Mealtimes: Eight Facets Of A Healthy Family Culture

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Bless, O Lord, this food to our use and us to Thy service

And make us ever mindful of Thy many blessings

Amen

(Blessing from my husband’s side of the family)

Father, we thank Thee for this food before us

Give us strength to do Thy will

Guide and protect us in Thy heavenly path

For Christ’s sake

Amen

(Blessing from my side of the family)

Mealtimes are a vital place to slow down, to bring together different traditions from your side of the family and your partner’s side of the family, to protect and nurture and linger together.

Studies show interesting connections between children’s behavior and whether or not they ate family meals.  Many studies show, for example, Continue reading →

Simple Is Enough

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I had two great conversations the other day, one with a dear friend about the challenges this particular generation of children is facing.  Her theory as to why children have more sensory challenges, obesity, attention deficit – in other words, why are these children so darn unhealthy – is, in her mind, a mixture of things:  environment, too much stimulation, schedules that are like an adult, too much of making the child a miniature adult, diet, lack of physical work and movement.

Then I had another conversation, this time with a dear friend and physical therapy colleague.  She is in geriatrics, but specifically wondered why she is seeing more and more dementia and Alzheimer’s-type symptoms in patients of even younger ages than before.  “The people I am seeing, HAD those kinds of childhoods that you wish for – eating local, farm-raised food before agribusiness became huge, collecting eggs and walking to school, playing outside for hours on end in rivers and creeks and the mountainside.  So why are these folks getting dementia at such a relatively young age?”

Of course, no one knows for sure; these are the kind of rhetorical things physical therapists and I am sure other health care professionals sit around and ponder.  We all wonder.

I am sure it is all the things of childhood, but also mixed with all the things of adulthood:  taking adults who were used to moving a lot to moving them into jobs that were more sitting than usual, more modern conveniences than ever that also cause decreased movement, a more toxic environment, an increasingly over-stimulating environment ( the friend from my first conversation was remarking that now when you go into a grocery store, there may be TV’s in the shopping cart, cows mooing in the diary section, dancing vegetables with loud thunder that mists over the veggies!  How true!)

But I think it is also community – or lack thereof.  The church or synagogue may not be the same hub of the neighborhood it once was, which is a shame for many reasons and on many levels but also on a health level:  one six year study showed Continue reading →

Ideas to Celebrate Christmastide

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This post today celebrates some of the traditional ways Christmastide has been celebrated with the Christian faith.  Therefore, many of these ideas may be familiar to many of my Christian readers, but I think there are many things to sort through and use to celebrate the Twelve Holy Nights even if you are not Christian and would just like to mark this special time. These can be peaceful and holy days, truly to slow down, to fast from media and screens and to enjoy the simple pleasures marked the traditions of the Church.

Here is a small guide toward helping families enjoy each day of Christmastide, and I do so hope you will leave your favorite traditions in the comment box as well!

Saturday, December 24th - Since the Feast of the Nativity truly begins on Christmas Eve, attending liturgy is a priority for this night! In the hustle and bustle that can often accompany this day before Christmas, making time for quiet prayer is a powerful example of showing our children that God is with us should we choose to acknowledge Him, find Him, adore Him. God is with us, and with His smallest creatures. In Scandinavian countries, it is traditional to put sheaves of wheat for the birds. Children will enjoy taking time on this day to decorate an outside tree for the birds by stringing popcorn or making the traditional pine cone bird feeder of peanut butter rolled in birdseed.

 

Sunday, December 25th– Christmas Day, the first of the twelve holy days, is a wonderful time to take an afternoon walk and see God’s creation, and also to read from The Gospel of Saint Luke. Old-fashioned board games are another suggestion for celebrating the Christmas afternoon in family togetherness.

 

Another suggestion that some Christian families have tried with success is to spread gift-giving throughout the twelve days of Christmas so that not every gift is opened on Christmas morning.

 

Monday, December 26th- The Feast of St. Stephen – Continue reading →

A Message For the 2011 Twelve Holy Nights

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This is such a special time of year for me.  As a Christian, the season of Christmas starts on Christmas Day and extends through January 5th, and then we move into the season of Epiphany.  This time of year, for me, is one of the major times of the year when I am off the computer, I spend more time thinking and dreaming and planning.  I spend time connecting with what vision I want to create for the coming year, and spend lots of time with family and friends and being outside in nature.  It is lovely.

In the past, I have chosen a focus of inner work personal to me, much like what Lynn Jericho does, to work really work off an inspiration for these twelve holy days. In the past I have worked with being easy with myself, one year I worked with “letting go”, one year I worked with love, one year I worked with “no comment”.   This year, I have been feeling especially inspired by this passage from Brother Victor-Antoine D’avila-LaTourrette in the book, “A Monastery Journey to Christmas”, which runs through Candlemas on February 2nd: “We can only find peace and calmness within the confines of our own selves.  Inner peace is a gift from the Lord.  Let us beseech him day and night for his gift.  And let us help him by cultivating actively all those things that lead to inner peace.  Like the angels on that first Christmas night, let us pray and work for peace on earth.”  How can I be a part of peace this year – peace in my heart, peace in my home, peace in my community, peace in the world?

There are some resources out there to help you celebrate the Holy Nights. Continue reading →

A Christmas Mood

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The excitement in the air is palpable for the children; the gifts, the tree, the relatives, the food, oh my!  There is a definitive mood in the air, and it is one (hopefully) of good will and cheer.  An idea that the world is a good place.

This is a mood that children  in our society need more than ever:  that the world is a good place, the people in the world are good, and that my own little personal world is stable and good.

Maybe this holiday you are facing times that are not “so good.”  Divorce, financial crisis, housing crisis, illness, death in the family  all conspire to make the Christmas mood disappear.

Do not let it.  Part of being human and being an adult means we have the ability to strive, to rise up, to not let our circumstances define us but to allow us to define our circumstances.

As we come also to a close of another year, I can only leave you with this parting thought:  do not be the reaction to circumstances this coming year; be the visionary and shape your world.  What you cannot shape, call on your faith, remain strong, do the right things even when no one else is, and be someone who is proactive.  Be the goodness, and carry that Christmas mood in your heart for your children.

Many blessings, and Merry Christmas my friends,

Carrie

Guest Post: A Gentle Santa Lucia Story by Tiziana Boccaletti

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There was a gentle Santa Lucia story by Tiziana Boccaletti on the Our Little Nature Nest blog.  Since that blog has been taken private, I asked Tiziana if she would be willing to share this sweet Santa Lucia story here so families could find and share it with their own loved ones.  Tiziana generously agreed, and here is her story: Continue reading →

A Lovely Holiday Giveaway!

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I am so indebted to all of my wonderful readers.  You all really touch my heart, I carry so many of you into my prayers and my life.  I appreciate all of your patience as I answer every email personally and sometimes run a bit behind.  Thank you so much for reading this blog and sharing your lives with me.

For all of you in this wonderful season of quiet anticipation, I have a very special giveaway from Sparkle Stories.  Some of my readers are familiar with Sparkle Stories.  They are gentle  audio adventures written by a wonderful husband and wife team who are a Waldorf teacher and storyteller and a playwright, respectively.

Many families do not provide visual or audio stories to their children, and I applaud that, especially for very small children.   However, some families are transitioning from visual screen time to audio stories only, and some families are searching for gentle stories for their children to enjoy at  very special times.  In this vein, Sparkle Stories could be a welcome fit for this purpose.

Sparkle Stories writes:  Continue reading →