First of all, what a very Waldorf perspective gives us (and I think reading biological studies of sleep in infants, children and those in primitive societies back this up as well!) is that a small child may be born without much rhythm to their sleep and wake cycles. We have to remember first of all, that there is a certain amount of wisdom of nature seen in the wakefulness of the small infant up through a year.  Studies have shown that breastfeeding babies at 10 months are receiving ONE-QUARTER of their calories at night! Many people say their babies who were less than a year old “self-weaned” in many cases did not truly self-wean, but were more at a developmental stage of being completely wrapped up in gross motor movement during the day and not as interested in nursing – and if they are sleeping through the night, that really cuts down on their calories! Remember, human milk is the number one source of calories throughout the entire first year if not LONGER! So I don’t want to shortchange that. I also don’t want to have a 2 to 5 month old baby who sleeps through the whole night when the risk of SIDS is highest. 

However, there is something to be said regarding gently helping your child to establish sleep and wake cycles. A child who is very irregular and has no rhythm may really need your help in this area!  Rhythm and routine can be such a strong aid in sleep and rest.  Even after a nap is “gone” (and I daresay in the olden days children did nap for longer than they seem to today!), we can and should replace this  with quiet time for the children and ourselves. Especially with homeschooling, one needs this break! And children need to learn the value of being quiet without someone or something electronic entertaining them!

Here are some posts regarding sleep from an attachment parenting perspective: http://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/03/16/co-sleeping-and-nighttime-parenting/ including parameters for safe co-sleeping and includes an interesting dialogue about what happens if co-sleeping doesn’t work for you!

And here are some posts from a Waldorf perspective:

http://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/12/bringing-rhythm-to-your-baby/

http://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/14/part-two-of-a-waldorf-inspired-view-of-sleep/

and here: http://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/13/a-waldorf-inspired-view-of-sleep/

And about quiet time:  http://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/09/23/more-about-quiet-time/  (lots of comments here to read!)

This is my personal favorite post about sleep:  http://theparentingpassageway.com/2011/05/29/struggling-at-bedtime/

I would love to see a lot of dialogue on this topic; sleep becomes a crucial part of teaching with the Waldorf educational process within the two or three-day rhythm, it is important for homeschooling mothers and mothers of small children to have rest times….so these are important issues to think about early on!

Blessings,

Carrie

Okay, today I am less in encouraging mode and more in rant-y mode, so if you are not in the mood for a kick in the pants kind of post, do feel absolutely free to check back in tomorrow.  That’s the disclaimer.  And here it is, bluntly:

Folks, I want you all to stop researching, and start making some decisions and DOING.  If what you decide doesn’t work out the way you want, you can tweak things.  You can change your mind, if it is something to do with parenting or discipline.  If it is something to do with curriculum choices for homeschooling, you can jump off the pages and make it more your own, if it is a curriculum you bought -  bring it alive for your child (or re-sell the darn thing!)  Make a decision, stick to it and give it some time, and then tweak or change.  You can do this!  Get out of your own way!  Do what your heart is calling you to do, without fear!  I am less interested in why something WON’T work then how to MAKE it work.  Try it!

I am meeting more and more mothers lately who are so lovely and sweet but they seem so driven by pure and utter fear.  Fear of being judged of others.  Fear of “since I can’t do it 150 percent “right” –whatever that is- I won’t do it at all!”  Fear of failure.  Fear of making a commitment, even though they keep circling back around to the same things over and over.

If fear, negativity and anxiety are fueling you, no wonder you feel paralyzed in making decisions!!  The more you get used to doing a REASONABLE amount of looking at the issues and making a decision and moving forward, the more you will get used to ACTION.

Action takes practice.  It doesn’t always feel “safe”.  But everything in life has pros and cons, polarities.  There is no 100 percent failsafe.  Have courage, have joy, take action and move forward!  It only takes baby steps and dipping a toe in, not this headlong dive into perfection and dogmatic thinking – and that is whether it is homeschooling, positive discipline or attachment parenting.  Be proud of the small successes and keep moving forward.

Create an action plan for whatever challenge you are facing.  And part of your action plan should be to do something small for yourself everyday.  Some of the mothers I meet I think are partially paralyzed because there is nothing for them at all,  they are pouring everything into their children, and they are harried, hurried and worn-out. 

Help yourself out by taking on only what you can handle!  Are you rushing around every morning and afternoon and squishing homeschooling in around all that?  Where is your time for your action plan if you are not home?  I had a dear, dear friend say to me several weekends ago, ‘You know, Carrie, I cannot hear that still small voice of God, I cannot find and listen to my own intuition, if I am just rushing around.”

YES, dear sweet friend, YES. 

Take care of business first; discern what is essential, create an action plan, and each day do something small to help you reach your goal.  Start somewhere.  No one will fault you for being where you are, but now is the time to move forward!  Make decisions, take time to see how things work out, and then tweak or change.  But move forward, and quit swimming in circles over fear, judgment, negativity, semantics, or pressure. 

It is spring, there is new growth and change in the air, and  a perfect time to start getting ready for fall school!

There, was that so bad?

Love,

Carrie

I have been thinking a lot about planning first grade as I am finishing up first grade for the second time, this time with my middle child. Going through this grade again made me think especially about the differences in doing this grade with a first (or only) child, and doing it again within a larger family dynamic.  So, if you are planning for first grade for your oldest or only child, I want to encourage you that you have quite a bit of leeway, to keep it simple, to not overplan and to make sure you are including some very fundamental things that may not have much to do with those letter stories or the math gnomes!

Oh yes, please be sure to include form drawing, knitting, crafts for the season, harvesting.

Yes, you want to go through the math blocks.  Yes, you want to introduce the letters – but many parents I speak with have oldest or only LITTLE GIRLS who are already reading.  So I say, concentrate on the artistic end of drawing the letters.  Let them write a sentence for each letter and practice really good handwriting, if your little girl is bent that way.  You can start word families in the last block or so of first grade; sight words generally are better left until second and third grade unless your child has a prodigious memory and is already doing it.  Let your child read for pleasure, but you continue to read aloud to this child too.  Make music and sing!  Do chores and work around your home. 

But please schedule time for the most fundamental skills of first grade:  movement and getting the child in his or her body, time out in nature, and social interaction with other children.  Does your child do well with only one other child?  What does your child do in a small group?  Are they good with children older or younger or not?  Do you have a community you do things with? 

Do plan lots of time to be outside in nature.  It would be well-worth your “school time” to drive to the woods or to the lake one morning AND one afternoon a week and just be.  Even if you do ‘formal school’ three mornings a week for an older or only first grader, especially one that is already reading, you will be fine.

It is tempting to go ahead and plan a crazy, very structured year.  I would go the other way.  Take days off to play in the snow or out in the rain.  Take time off for festivals! Festivals don’t go away in first grade!  Again,  especially in children like these little girls I often see, they often need the balancing of time in nature and often need help socially and emotionally to learn how to be a friend, how to relate to people, how to be a bit more steady.  And nearly almost ALL of the children I observe these days still need to help to “get into their bodies” in the first grade. 

There are many beautiful things out there on people’s blogs for first grade, but please, please take time to just live.  Many veteran Waldorf teachers and veteran homeschooling parents would say you do not need a curriculum for first grade at all, but I had a friend remind last week that when one is walking this first journey for the first and possibly only time, curriculums give one a jumping off place.  In the schools, Waldorf teachers have the benefit of teacher training, and o, other faculty to talk to about how this journey goes.  We don’t always have that at home, and  I do feel in general comparing Waldorf school in a school environment and Waldorf homeschooling is like comparing apples and oranges.  So maybe that curriculum would be helpful to you, but just please don’t forget life. 

Many blessings and much love,

Carrie

“Hatching” or “cross-hatching”  is a term often used to denote a kind of drawing technique where there is “ a rhythmic back and forth with a stick crayon or colored pencil.  Standing up to draw sometimes makes the production of tones more beautifully balanced.  If you are right-handed, the stroke that should feel most comfortable is diagonal from upper right to the lower left and back up again.  When finished, the tone should appear as if it were floating up out of the paper itself, and should be barely perceptible, with a slight darkening in the center…”  (page 8, “Drawing From The Book of Nature” by Dennis Klocek, available through various  Waldorf booksellers).  This drawing technique is typically taught to fourth graders and up in Waldorf schools. 

I was practicing this technique the other night; a woman in my Foundation Studies class had drawn a gorgeous oak tree inside an acorn and I wanted to try to with this hatching technique. Mine didn’t turn out nearly as well as hers, but it made me think about how we all have a beautiful, bold, tall, strong tree inside of us…if we only take the time to nurture it.

I had been in the habit of doing yoga twice a day and intend to re-start this tonight.  I would love to hear what you are going to do this week to nurture yourself and take care of yourself.  Not only do you deserve to take care of yourself, but your family will appreciate it!

Many blessings, and Happy Mother’s Day to my American readers!

Carrie

I think the one valuable thing to consider in taking time for yourself is your physical health. If you are constantly feeling anxious, irritable and on edge, it may be worth it to see a healthcare practitioner regarding the evaluation of your endocrine system.  In the book “Mother Nurture:  A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships”, authors Rick Hanson, Jan Hanson and Ricki Pollycove write about testing the adrenals through saliva samples of DHEA and cortisol done over a 24 hour period.  They recommend as general measures for the health of the adrenal gland to reduce stress as much as possible (in Carrie’s words:  stop wearing so many hats!), eliminate sugar and caffeine,  try acupuncture and yoga, and look at supplements.  There are also certain herbs and homeopathic remedies recommended in this book for adrenal imbalance and adrenal exhaustion.

There are also psychological components that go into how we feel as mothers as well.  Please pat yourselves on the back for being a mindful mother. Some mothers have a hard time hearing they are “good” mothers; but please be open to hearing it! If you are not open to hearing this, what are you feeling so badly about? What has shaken your confidence so? Could anyone else be more possibly invested in your children than you and your spouse or partner? If you are reading this blog, I feel you are at least open to fostering or investigating possible positive changes in your mothering. Congratulate yourself for that! Congratulate yourself for searching for ways that may suit your family better for the long run from all the places you are seeking. Congratulate yourself for being mindful! Perfection is not a realistic goal, but being more mindful is.

I think a large part of taking time for ourselves in order to improve our mothering involves community.  The one thing I can suggest in addition to the suggestions made in the above posts is to find a mother who can mentor you.It doesn’t have to be an in-person relationship, although that can be wonderful. Maybe there is a mother from a Yahoo!Group or a forum you could contact off -list and see if she would be willing to provide her perspective on the things you are struggling with.  Perhaps there is someone in your local La Leche League group, your local Attachment Parenting Group or in your place of worship or other community place whose parenting you admire. Maybe you could ask them to meet with you, email with you or talk with you by phone. Some mothers use their mentoring relationship on a weekly or monthly basis.

And most of all, when your children are older and you are the wiser for the challenges you have faced and conquered, pass this wisdom on by becoming a mentor to a new mother. You have the ability to impact lives in ways you may never have dreamed possible!

I have several mothers who mentor me, and I am so very grateful for them. I wrote about a group of them here: http://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/02/the-brain-trust/and urge you to find and connect with mothers who can also help you.   All of the ladies in my “brain trust”  have different and wonderful personalities and I enjoy hearing their perspectives on things. They always make me think! I urge you to form these kinds of relationships that will carry you through the challenging times of parenting, and help you steer your parenting compass toward compassion and mindfulness.

Much love and many blessings,

Carrie

If you remember,  Part One of Day Four  was about marriage:  http://theparentingpassageway.com/2012/04/06/day-four-part-one-twenty-days-toward-being-a-more-mindful-mother/   Tonight I grabbed some of my well-worn (and needing to be cleaned) block crayons and set to work depicting something one often hears about marriages: how marriages have seasons. 

Spring marriages are hopeful, excited, optimistic about the future, full of thankfulness!  So thankful and grateful I found you!  So excited about the possibilities for the future!  There may be disagreements swirling around like the spring winds, but they seem small and breezy with the sun always shining through.    Many couples would say “spring” describes a season of early marriage, the beginning with all its shiny newness and glory.

In my almost twenty years of marriage, I can honestly say there have been many spring seasons, not just one.  The hope of being together in love, in the creation of new opportunities and possibilities, the joy of the ever-changing landscape that is marriage has been there many times,  always prompting me to learn something new about my spouse and about us.  Spring starts to define who we want to be, who we are and what our marriage is about.

A summer marriage reaps the relaxed and contented fruits of spring. I envision summer as a time of comfortable positivity where the ebb and flow of conflict gets easily resolved in a laugh out in the sun.  It is a time when you know who you are, who your spouse is, what your marriage is about, and the mellow joy that comes from that knowledge. 

Sometimes after periods of spring and summer, we fall into periods of other emotions.  Fall is often that time of tension:  I can feel the winter coming, will we survive it?  Maybe it is a time of emotional distance, a time of not knowing how to shore up the marriage for the future and knowing something needs to be done. 

Winter often signifies a time of hardship for many couples.  This may be the season  when a marriage hits a silent wall of discouragement, anger, resentment, disconnection.  I think all marriages go through periods of fall and winter; sometimes counseling can be helpful. Sometimes, if you are able to open up the lines of communication together, the winter can be blown away and left behind as spring comes again in all its glory.

Thinking about marriage today and its inevitable seasonal changes as time passes,

Carrie

The opening paragraph of this chapter just made me just laugh:

“None of the footage taped in our Love Lab would win anybody an Oscar.  Our archives are filled with scenes in which the husband looks out the picture window and says, “Wow, look at that boat,” and the wife peers over her magazine and says, “Yeah, it looks like that big schooner we saw last summer, remember?” and the husband grunts.

You might think I’d find viewing hour after hour of such scenes unbearably boring.  On the contrary:  When couples engage in lots of chitchat like this, I can be pretty sure that they will stay happily married.”

The theme of this chapter is turning toward each other instead of turning away from each other.  In unhappy couples, these small connections rarely take place. 

Taking time to connect with each other in small spurts throughout the day and really responding to each other in small ways is really important to keep a marriage alive and well.   The questionnaire on page 81, “Is Your Marriage Primed For Romance?” highlights this idea with questions about spending free time together, enjoying doing the small daily tasks of life together, how much you and your spouse enjoy talking to each other.  “We have a lot of fun together.”  “When we go out together, the time goes by very quickly.”

This chapter also delves a little deeper by asking if you and your spouse are spiritually aligned, are your values the same, are your interests and goals compatible?

Being helpful to one another is a big part of turning toward each other.  How can you be helpful to your spouse every day, in the little ways that matter and count?  There are further questionnaires that  detail the contents of building an emotional bank account – in other words, what do you do for your spouse? what do you do together? 

Listening techniques are highlighted on page 88.  The  thought is to try to use these techniques, not when you are having a disagreement, but actually when your spouse is talking about something unrelated to your relationship (or, as Dr. Gottman puts it:  “when you are not your spouse’s target.”)  Putting forth an attitude of “we against them”, showing genuine interest, expressing affection, validating emotions. 

The last part of this chapter is about what to do when your spouse doesn’t turn toward you.  On page 92, “…. sometimes there are deeper reasons why couples keep missing each other.  For example, when one partner rebuffs the other, it could be a sign of hostility over some festering conflict.  But I have found that when one spouse regularly feels the other just doesn’t connect enough, often the cause is a disparity between their respective needs for intimacy and independence.”  There are several more exercises designed to get to the heart of the matter of this disparity.

Friendship between spouses can be the greatest equalizer and balancer in a marriage.  “When you honor and respect each other, you’re usually able to appreciate each other’s point of view, even if don’t agree with it.  When there’s an imbalance of power, there’s almost inevitably a great deal  of marital distress.”

I think this is an important book.  Please get a copy and follow along!

Many blessings,
Carrie

Discipline is about guiding your child so they can grow up and be a wonderful adult.

Think for a moment about what you what your child to be like when they grow up. What qualities would you like them to have?

Now, erase that picture. It is not that that picture in your mind doesn’t count; absolutely it does.  You are the parent, you are the loving authority in your family.  It is just that children bring with them their own unique gifts, unique qualities.  They bring things you could never anticipate nor plan for.  They have as much to teach you and probably more than you have to teach them.  So, the impression of what you want to bring them will stay on the paper as it was erased, but something more important is being drawn over this…

That doesn’t mean that we throw up our hands at what our child brings to us, we don’t and cannot abdicate our responsibility in teaching and guiding,  but it does mean that we keep our respect for the child alive and well throughout the process.  It means we keep our sense of humor, and it means we keep our sense of love and warmth.  It especially means, I think and in my personal style of parenting, that we also look for BALANCE for our children and try to introduce balance to them – in their personalities and temperaments, in their passions and interests.  It also means we give them a solid foundation:  they can choose to steer their canoe a different way when they are older, but for right now, we help them along the rocky shoals by giving them the basics of our own family culture, our own spirituality, our own boundaries.

If you are feeling lost lately with being positive with your children and guiding your children well, take a deep breath.

Remind yourself that this is the heart of parenting, and that keeping yourself calm and ho-hum is the first step toward being able to connect with your child in the moment.  Guard what comes out of your mouth!  You cannot take those words back!

A child’s actions do have consequence, all of it does have import, and it does carry responsibility.  Make sure you are not hindering the possibility of your child learning how to be a responsible member of your family and of society by imposing inconsistent, unfair, unclear and emotionally-driven punishment as opposed to moments of consistent, fair, clear and calm direction.  Ho-hum.

Make sure your expectations are realistic. Know you are going to have to say the same thing 500 times, and that you will have to be physically by their side to make sure what needs to happen actually happens.  That is parenting. 

Parenting is loving and connecting, but it also having boundaries and teaching your child practical things to make life worth living.  I have found in observing my own children and many other children, yes, some behaviors children do grow “out of” but many things stick there until the parent takes charge and helps the child change the behavior.  Do not be afraid of this, this is part of parenting as well.

Be confident, clear and calm.  Be the authority and step up and be the parent.  Love your child enough to do this for him or her.

Blessings,
Carrie

I see many parents trying to recreate the Waldorf School in their homes; I think this comes up so frequently because the curriculum is so philosophically driven; each grade is geared toward the level of soul development of that child with the subjects geared toward the development of that age.  The subjects are presented by the teacher through the vehicles of art and movement in a rhythm that utilizes sleep as an aid to learning.

So, this must mean I have to turn myself into a Waldorf teacher at home, right?  Wrong!

First of all, the homeschool environment is looser, and in many ways, richer than the curriculum at a school.  You can choose things based upon your child’s interest and really tailor it within those subjects in the curriculum.  In the early grades of first through fifth,  I don’t always directly ask what my child wants to learn but in homeschooled children it is usually pretty ready and apparent what they are interested in, what their passion of the moment is,  and I do try to work that in. You can tailor the fourth grade zoology block to what animals your children are really interested in; you can add science blocks. There are a million possibilities for nature stories that highlight different natural cycles or animals in second grade, for example.  Go off on rabbit trails if you want to, and come back.

Many of the subjects could span grades or be brought in at different times; for example the curriculum of fairy tales and folk tales and tall tales and nature stories can span grades one through four at varying points; the zoology block of man and animal typically found in fourth grade could also be started in third grade with a block on domesticated farm animals as in conjunction with the third grade farming part of the curriculum. Many parents have told me their children were not fully interested in “The Age of Revolution” until ninth grade, not eight.  Renaissance studies could span both seventh and eighth grades…there really is some latitude. Look at your child!  Are they through the nine year change yet? The twelve year change yet?  Your child will show you in so many ways what to do with their homeschooling within the context of Rudolf Steiner’s ideas about education if you just look at the child!

For the very practical side of “scheduling homeschooling” with your children, I find that if your child has an interest such as sports or dance, around fourth grade you may be in the position to start working your rhythm around that.   I found that my oldest, who is into rhythmic gymnastics and lives for it, has competition season in the Spring, so next year I will plan to power through a little  more in the fall so we can take some time to just live in the Spring, for example.  By fifth grade, children are pretty ready to help you plan a rhythm for the practicalities of each day.  What day will they do their homework for that outside Spanish class?  Will they do their main lesson before the other children or after?   By sixth grade and up, if not before, they are going to  have definite opinions about more than the practicalities of homeschooling but what things they will be studying  and why – talk to them and see how you can work those things into the curriculum! ( I have found, very honestly, that by the time my children expresses an interest in studying something, at least in the early grades, it is Spring and that subject will be covered in the Fall.  Amazing how that works out! )   High school can really be tailored toward their goals.  Partnership is really important, and you can really work their interests around the major questions that the Waldorf curriculum poses for each grade of high school (see any Waldorf High School website’s curriculum outline for these years for more information).

You can base things around the family and what the family’s interests are as well, and also around where you live.  I attended a talk about homeschooling high school by a terrific  mother the other day, and they lived about two miles from our State Capital Building.  They used the building and got involved with homeschooling legislature and saw first hand their representatives at work and how bills are made into laws.  It is entirely appropriate to take your older children (and yes, the younger ones would tag along!) on  what you are involved in, whether that be legislation, working on a CSA, helping mothers breastfeed, helping that elderly neighbor, or whatever comes up.  Learning doesn’t only take place in a main lesson book!  We are homeschoolers!  Life is the lesson, college is a high point, but learning to be able to function in life in all areas is part and parcel of homeschooling!

As a homeschooler, schedule in field trips and trips to the beach or the mountains.  That is partly why must people can homeschool, so they can have a life! Leave your house and explore your community.  There are many wonderful field trips to be had through the natural world through all the grades, fourth graders are getting into local geography and maybe even geography of their country, fifth graders enjoy museum exhibits tying into Ancient Civilizations.  Go and do!  That is better than any main lesson book!

Always make time to get ready for festivals, whether you have a first grader or a sixth grader.  Your middle school-aged child may grumble, but they will remember this when they are older and most likely look back at it fondly.  Carry on with tradition, breathe life into it as your child has ideas, but carry on!

And just like a classroom teacher, use your strengths to teach your children and don’t feel guilty if you cannot do it all. Whatever you do well, just do it. I was never the biggest puppet maker for kindergarten and first grade.  I LOVE puppets, but never had a lot of time to make them because my emphasis in all my afternoon free time with the children was on movement – getting them to swim, ride a bike, hiking in the woods or at the lake. No time to sit and make puppets in the afternoon, and at night I usually had a sleeping baby or just such short spurts of time it was hard to get ahold of it.  No time at night.  And then with the puppets I did needle felt inevitably my dog would get ahold of them and eat them!  Now, with my middle child going into second grade, I feel like I have the chance to make some puppets and even though she is older, we are having puppets for her and for our toddler…and now  I have an older helper in my soon to be fifth grader who loves handwork! So, some things come in time because we have life and not a school building where we stay after school to make things and we don’t have any other teachers to borrow things from!  In our homeschooling group, we are thinking of starting a puppet library to rotate the props mothers have made, and that will help the mothers of kindergarten and early years.  Wouldn’t that be wonderful?  To have things to pass on?  But I digress…my main point of all that rambling is that I personally do movement, community, music and singing, baking and cooking, cleaning, gardening really well..and I use my strengths, try to balance the rest of it and carry on!  You can too!

Let go of your guilt.   You are doing a great job!  You don’t memorize well?  Kindergarten stories with props should actually be relatively easy to memorize, but I think the problem there is with all our small children, our life forces are being stressed and stretched.  Get a pretty notebook and write the story in it.  For the older grades, there are many more stories and they are long and involve history – I don’t know mothers memorizing these stories and bringing them in that way at home.  There is more reading together involved than would be at a  Waldorf school.  That is okay; this is home.

Which brings me to my next point:  if you want to see something happen in your area regarding Waldorf homeschooling, you may have to take the bull by the horns and make it happen. Start that group.  Get together with mothers of older homeschoolers, even if they homeschool a different way, and listen to their wisdom and tailor it for your family and your time.  And you simply MUST get involved in what is going on in your state with the bigger picture of homeschooling; you must protect your right to homeschool in this way of  homeschooling in a manner that doesn’t match up the “standard homeschooling grade subjects”.  Homeschooling should not be public school in a box at home!  If I wanted that, I could send my children to public school!  Homeschooling should have freedom and form, more form as your children are small, and more freedom the older they become.

You are not in a school:  public, Waldorf, or otherwise!  Love what you do, find the joy!  If your lessons are stale and everyone hates it, may I humbly suggest it is not the Waldorf curriculum but perhaps the way you are bringing it?  (I know, I am sorry!  You are probably ready to kick your computer screen now!) I find the number one problem most mothers have in bringing in the curriculum is it starts falling into this day one: review and present material,  day one or day two:  draw picture, day three: write.   Where is the movement, the baking and cooking, the singing, the modeling, the painting, the NO main lesson book for this particular block but lots of oral recitation or making a big project that is different, like drawing a mural?  Don’t get so stuck in a rut!  And stop trying to bring it perfectly the way a Waldorf teacher would, you are home! Snuggle up on the sofa and read! Walk outside!  Take breaks every fifteen minutes and stand up and sing.  Set a timer so your desk work is limited and get up!  Loosen up.

Love to you all,

Carrie

In Part Five of this series on rhythm, we looked at the number one challenge toward establishing rhythm:  going out too much and saying “yes” to too many things outside the home.  Today, I want to tell you THE SECRET about having a successful rhythm.

It is getting out of your own way.

Release your anxiety and your fears.  Parent after parent after parent that I talk to who have homeschooled children who have graduated from homeschool say their children were well-prepared for college and for life, no matter what method the parent chose to homeschool!  Amazing and true! I see so many mothers who are worried, anxious and joyless in their parenting and homeschooling, and this is what the children see!  Don’t be wishy -washy and uncertain; fearful and scared!

Take the bull by the horns! Be confident!  Get your ho-hum on, and jump in where you are!  If you “fall off the routine bandwagon” jump back on where you are that moment.  It takes time to get a rhythm that works.  Commit to it as a forty day project. 

Your parenting may not be perfect!  Your homeschooling may not be perfect!  Mine isn’t; I make so many mistakes and things could always be done differently – but you know what?  I have an overall sense that my children are going to be JUST FINE. 

And in my weak moments, where I feel like something is not going to turn out well, or I start coming from a place of fear, I get down on my knees and pray.  And after I do that, I call a friend when my children are not around to overhear, and get a well –deserved pep talk.  I talk to my supportive spouse and surround myself with positive thinkers.

But most of all, become a positive thinker yourself.   Your children need to see that mistakes do not define who you are; they are only gateways and doorways to improvement and understanding. 

There are no guarantees in parenting or homeschooling; you do what you can do. Have some fun and act confident.  Make decisions, stick to them, change what is not working, quit talking so much and DO.

Many blessings on your journey toward rhythm as a basis of joy in your home,

Carrie