Monthly Archives: August 2009

Using Our Words Like Pearls

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Marsha Johnson has a document within her FILES section of her Yahoo!Group (Waldorfhomeeducators@yahoogroups.com to join) entitled something along the lines of “Use Your Words Like Pearls”.  In it she addresses using vocabulary, transitions in the home, many different aspects of the wonderful language we live in and speak every day.

This phrase took on new meaning for me today though.  A thread started over at Melisa Nielsen’s A Little Garden Flower Yahoo!Group (homeschoolingwaldorf@yahoogroups.com) in response to my post from yesterday entitled, “Raising Peaceful Children.”  One thing that was mentioned is how adults frequently relate to children these days is through sarcasm.

I have said this in other blog posts, and I will say it again:  Children do not need sarcasm at ANY age.  Small children do not understand sarcasm (but they will imitate it, and then parents wonder why their children are speaking to them so disrespectfully!)  Teenagers have enough of it on their own without you adding to it!  Children and adults of all ages truly need you to use your words as the pearls they are!

Many adults joke about the amount of sarcasm they use (“Hey, I had to have my soul removed to make room for all this sarcasm!”) and it also appears to be more prevalent in some parts of the United States than others.  Sorry Northeasterners, I am from the Northeast and I find that up there people are sarcastic without even thinking about it.  It just seems to be how everyone speaks.  It can be challenging to change this engrained and entrenched communication patterns.  However, let’s try!

I have a challenge for you today:

Just for today, let’s think about communicating in real ways with our children, our spouses, our family members and our friends.  Let’s eliminate sarcasm and speak to one another they way we should.  Let’s tell each other directly what we need.  We are all unique individuals and  no matter how well we know one another, we cannot expect others to fully understand our own individuality and read our minds!  Ask for what you need from others!  Make a request!  All that can happen is that person may say no!

Just for today, let’s try to listen more than we speak.  Let’s try to let people come to their own conclusions and ideas rather than force-feeding a solution.  Let’s help children who under the age of 9 come up with solutions to problems with other children through modeling, through example and through help rather than just telling them to “work it out”.

Just for today, let’s try to be compassionate and open to the world and not so jaded.  The world is still a beautiful place, even if you have forgotten that it is so.

Just for today, let’s slow down enough so we have time with our children.  Let’s ask for help so we don’t have to take our children to 4 different stores to run errands.  Schedule time to just be present.  Play a game with your children, and enjoy them!

Just for today, let’s evaluate whether or not the amount of things we are doing inside and outside the home is truly feasible for any one human being and let’s brainstorm ways to stop.

Just for today, let’s limit our time with the screens and go be with our family members. 

Just for today, let’s use our words with each other like pearls and remember that we are all tender and precious human beings.

Love to you all,

Carrie

An Example of a First Grade Science Block

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I am a Waldorf homeschooling mother, just like YOU!  This was a block I made up for First Grade (a January block) and thought it may give some of you inspiration for working science in with all the writing, math and form drawing of First Grade.  This is not to tell you how to do a block, but to inspire you that it is possible to write your own blocks!  It is doable!

Songs:  We learned a song in German about the Four Seasons and practiced it every day when we started school

Festival Celebration:  Epiphany (Three Kings’ Day) – we made a Twelfth Night Cake

WEEK ONE:

Day One –  Call to school with singing and verses

Warm up with singing, pennywhistle,  bean bag math

I recited a poem about the 12 months of the year and also the standard Mother Goose rhyme regarding the number of days in each month

We went through the names of each month in order, what each month made us think of, the four seasons

Made a calendar in English and German

Finished by telling Dorothy Harrer’s “The Four Seasons”

Movement Games

Wet on Wet Painting

Closing Verses

Day Two –  Call to school with singing and verses

Warm up with singing, pennywhistle,  bean bag math

Recited poems from yesterday and looked at calendar

We wrote  a title page for the Main Lesson Book:  The 12 Months, The 4 Seasons on a golden path, all capitals for the First Grader

Re-visited story and children dressed up parts in the story

Movement Games

Wet on Wet Painting

Closing Verses

Day Three –   Call to school with singing and verses

Warm up with singing, pennywhistle,  bean bag math

Recited poems again, revisited calendar

Had pictures drawn on the blackboard of the Four Brothers from the story which my child drew into her Main Lesson Book and captioned the names of each of the brothers

Movement Games

Wet on Wet Painting

Closing Verses

Day Four – Call to school with singing and verses

Hiking in the morning to really feel the weather and see its effects on the plants and animals of our area

Nature Arts and Crafts – made ice bowls, told the story of Dorothy Harrer’s “The Snowflake” after crafting

Closing Verses

WEEK TWO

Day One-  Call to school with singing and verses

Warm up with singing, pennywhistle,  bean bag math

Recited poems from last week

Talked about looking at each Season separately, this week we thought about fall, what season fall came before,  what season comes after fall, what months are in fall, what we associate with fall

Told the story “The Littlest Gnome” and “The Second Gnome” together as one story from Margaret Peckham’s “Nature Stories”

German Practice

Nature Arts and Crafts

Closing Verses

Day Two –  Call to circle with singing and verses

Warm up with singing,  pennywhistle, bean bag math

Recited poems from last week

Re-visited the story and modeled with beeswax elements from the story while I recited some gnome verses!

Movement Games

Nature Arts and Crafts

Closing Verses

Day Three – Call to circle with singing and verses

Warm-up with singing, pennywhistle,  bean bag math

Recited poems from last week

Re-visited story

Drew picture in Main Lesson Book of scene from story representing Fall and captioned scene with part of a poem, “ Summer is flying,/Autumn is here,/This is the harvest of all the year.”  (written with all capitals for the First Grader).

Started to move into Winter…what the animals do in Winter?  What animals do we see in Winter?  How do we help our animal friends in Winter in our backyard?  Where are the flowers?  What is Mr. Sun doing?

Told the story of “Shingebiss” – this story is  in many sources, Winter Wynstones has it, the Waldorf Association pink Kindergarten book has it, it may be  available on-line, but the music with it is wonderful and I don’t think that is posted on-line anywhere.

Spanish Practice

Nature Arts and Crafts

Closing Verses

Day Four  – Call to circle with singing and verses

Warm up with singing,  pennywhistle, bean bag math

Revisit Shingebiss, act it out!

(We live in a fairly snow-less area, so we made “snow” in a plastic sensory table, but if you had real snow it would be great to go and build snow forts).

We also cut out paper snowflakes.

Movement Games

Nature Arts and Crafts

Closing Verses

DAY Five – Shortened Day

Call to circle with singing and verses

Revisit story

We drew in our Main Lesson Books a winter scene from Shingebiss and wrote this caption, “Now that Winter’s/Come to stay/Little Birds must fly away.”

We did some wet on wet painting in blue and coated it with Epsom salts that leaves crystals behind as it dries.

One thing we did over the weekend was to make a little diaroma in a shoebox with Shingebiss (made out of beeswax)  in his lodge and the lake…Lots of fun!

WEEK THREE

Day One – Call to circle with singing and verses

Warm up with pennywhistle, singing, bean bag math

See if we can recite poems from beginning of block

Tell story of  “The Prince of Butterflies” by Dorothy Harrer

We moved like butterflies, rolled each other up in silk cocoons and otherwise had a great time!

German Practice

Candlemas Crafts

Closing Verses

Day Two – call to circle with singing and verses

Warm up with pennywhistle, singing, bean bag math

Recited poems orally from beginning of the block

Make a caterpillar/butterfly puppet show from Suzanne Down’s book “Around the World with Finger  Puppet Animals”

Re-visited our story!

Spanish Practice

Candlemas crafts

Closing Verses

Day Three – call to circle with singing and verses

Warm up with pennywhistle, singing, bean bag math

Recited poems

Revisited story and drew a picture of Twig and Dame Nature from the story with the caption, “Trees get back their leaves/And out came bees and birds.”

We cut out felt shapes of waterfall, pool, wide stream, wide river with boats, ocean and then I told the story, “The Lazy Water Fairy” with these props about Summer.

Candlemas Crafts

Baking

Closing Verses

Day Four – call to circle with singing and verses

Warm up with pennywhistle, singing, bean bag math

Recited poems

Revisited story and acted out the parts of the different kinds of fairies

Candlemas Crafts

Closing Verses

Day Five – call to circle with singing and verses

Warm up with pennywhistle, singing, bean bag math

Recited poems

Revisited story

Drew in Main Lesson Book with caption, “The Golden Sun so great and bright/Warms the world with all its might.”

Candlemas Crafts

Closing Verses

 

Unfortunately, I am not sure from my notes at this point where the poetry came from.  I am wondering if these came from poems from Eric Fairman’s Grade One Path of Discovery book which I lent out to someone so I cannot check and see if they are in there!    If anyone knows, I would love to post the reference!

The point of this is NOT to say this is how you should do a block or whathaveyou but to point out it is possible to create your own blocks!  Get inspired in your planning!  For example, there are so many different ways one could have approached this block!

I am up to February in writing lesson plans for a second grader and a kindergartner, where are you these days??

Many blessings and peace,

Carrie

Raising Peaceful Children

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This is probably the most important thing one can think about in this world – raising a child that will become an adult who is peaceful, who can be peaceful in the midst of whatever circumstances come their way, a child who can be a peacemaker with others.

To me, there are many ways to work toward this in parenting.  For all ages, I believe the most important thing is to be calm oneself and to be able to model being calm.  Children, especially children under the age of the 9-year change   can be seen as having/being prone to “an excess of emotion”.  Therefore, self-control is not the strongest point of a child under the age of 9…and logical reasoning begins around the age of 14….so, it is really up to you, the adult to model how to be calm and how to be a peacemaker while the child takes all these years to develop these skills.

Remember how big and huge and scary you can look to your child in your moments of highest anger.  A giant, to be sure and an image that can be stuck in a child’s mind permanently.   I am not suggesting that as parents we can be perfect and never get angry and always behave calmly.  However, I am suggesting that we do as much as we need to do to keep ourselves as centered as possible. 

For women, I truly think this means not wearing so many hats.  Many women are not only working inside the home, but outside the home as well. They are running businesses, parenting, volunteering, trying to be perfect wives and mothers and neighbors – all whilst they have small children.  Some women handle this beautifully, but many women find it to be a fast-moving train that is difficult to jump off.  Priorities count:  your children will only be little once and that is it.  Wearing so many hats forces things to be hurried, stressed, anxious and can lead to less than calm moments.  Is it worth it?

For women who work within the home, I find so  many of them are trying to do everything perfectly.  Keep in mind that people are more important than keeping things clean, than material things, than having the perfect home.  Many of the mothers I speak with feel so isolated and despite so much information being available through books, radio, TV, the Internet, seem to have a limited grasp on developmental expectations, and positive tools for discipline.  There is a lot of conflicting information out there, and it is confusing!

I offer this as a way to discern this information:  you cannot err on the side of being too gentle (unless you are equating gentle with no limit setting).  You can set limits and still be very gentle indeed.  To me, connection and gentleness are of utmost importance as I travel this path.  Any method or thing that recommends otherwise is not what I hold to be true.

The truth is that the foundation for connection and closeness is laid in the Early Years. You know, the ones we have so backward in the United States.  The years where people ask you how fast you are going to push your child away to “be independent”.  When are they weaning, when are they sleeping by themselves, why do they cling, when are you leaving them to go on vacation for a week alone, when do you need a break from that baby?  All these questions that have things so wrong.  A baby, a toddler, a preschooler, a child in Early Elementary really needs these years for connection, for compassion and empathy and for intimacy within the family.  This leads to a greater ability later on to be independent at the proper time. 

Frustration can be a key cause of feeling and acting not peacefully!  If you can do your best to revise, reframe how you are thinking about something, sometimes that can be the key to heading off frustration and anger before it starts.  Set limits in a peaceful way, and stick to them calmly.  Listen to your child, listen to their point of view, understand their developmental level.

Work on your own anger, your own hostility, your own sarcasm.  Try to model being able to step away, to bite your own tongue, to use less words, to step out of the room and breathe and come back in.   Model finding solutions to problems, framing things positively.    As you model emotional health, so will your children be able to handle things peacefully.

Many blessings,

Carrie

“What Do I Do? My Child Can’t Handle Fairy Tales!”

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If this is your child, take a deep breath.  This issue comes up more frequently than one might suspect. 

First of all, check yourself.  I had a friend once who said how much she enjoyed fairy tales and felt comfortable with them, but then admitted there were parts that “were not so nice”.   Okay, so not as comfortable as she thought she was!  The thing is, one HAS to look at the fairy tales as archetypal images, not from an adult perspective of literal happenings. 

Secondly, check the age of your child and what adult factoids the child has been exposed to in their educational career.  If your child has been exposed to lots of “but these are the facts, m’am” regarding science and other subjects and things usually have a “literal” answer for the child, then it will be more difficult for the child to absorb these tales in an archetypal way.  Some children are truly not comfortable with Grimm’s tales until age six and a half or seven, but there are many other kinds of tales to pick before then.  If you need suggestions, please leave a comment in the comment box and I would be happy to suggest something for the age of your child!

Third, pick tales that you are comfortable with.  Read the tale for three nights before you tell the fairy tale so you  absorb it yourself and you can TELL it to your child.  Consider songs and puppetry and props for your tale as opposed to just straight “telling”.  I think especially for children who have been “over-factoided”, they need that soothing visual imagery of silk marionettes to help them along.    There are many wonderful Waldorf resources that have turned fairy tales into Circle Times and puppet shows.  “Plays for Puppets”, available through Waldorf booksellers, is a lovely place to start.

I wrote a full post regarding the necessity of fairy tales with more suggestions for choosing fairy tales by age here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/11/20/the-importance-of-fairy-tales/

These tales are medicine for your child’s soul; for helping your child deal with their own fears, for showing a child the optimistic view that the world is truly a good place.  Meditate on this, find the truth in this.

Blessings,

Carrie

Preparing The Way

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I don’t frequently post about personal issues on this blog; it really is a place devoted to support and inspiration for other parents walking a gentle and mindful parenting path; for those interested in gentle discipline, and for those interested in Waldorf homeschooling and Waldorf parenting.

However, I have been going through such an interesting transformation recently I thought it be lovely to share.  Perhaps there are others of you out there going through the same thing at this point in your lives.

I really am distinguishing what is important, and what is not and getting rid of contributing my time and energy to the things (and the people!)  that are either not of the utmost importance to me or are such a consistent negative drain on my energy that it just has to be this way.  I am focused on myself to a certain extent – to my own  physical health, to my own inner work.  I am finding that the relationship with my husband and children, as it always has,  far exceeds other things in my life and provides me much contentment and joy.

I still love helping mothers; but I am finding new ways to narrow my focus as to what I think are the best ways to do that.  This blog is important to me, as is my work within the Waldorf community.  Some of the other areas in my life that were so important in the past are sliding away and other new areas are emerging.

I am thinking more and more of how to merge my interests in helping parents, especially mothers on their parenting journey, my own interest in Waldorf home education and my educational and professional experience as a pediatric physical therapist.

It has been an interesting time of discovery!

Of course, in the midst of all this, I am pregnant with our third child and also busy transforming the physical landscape of our home, the schoolroom and other areas around us. It has been a very satisfying summer in many ways.

Many blessings to you and your journey as well!

Carrie

Movement For the Child Under the Age of 3

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A very interesting article available through www.waldorflibrary.org at this link:

http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/GW55breipohl.pdf

Happy Reading!

Carrie

Science in the First and Second Grade Waldorf Homeschool Curriculum

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There is a wonderful article here regarding the approach toward science within the Waldorf curriculum:  http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/ScienceDavid.pdf

As a science person, I also wrote an article on this blog regarding how I view the rigorousness of science as presented throughout the Waldorf curriculum and also traced what subjects in science are brought in when here:

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/02/28/science-in-waldorf-homeschooling/

Science is a very important subject to me and to our family.  I think Waldorf education provides a very rigorous and age-appropriate, developmentally- appropriate way to science education.  For First Grade and Second Grade, many parents wonder what they should be doing within the curriculum for Science since most of the emphasis is placed upon Language Arts, Math and Form Drawing.  Let me assure you there are plenty of places to work science in!

Here are some ideas and suggestions:

  • Form drawing off of simple nature stories. This is especially effective during these early grades.
  • Tell spontaneous made-up stories regarding the animals around your home and in your area.  A wonderful reference is Anna Comstock’s “Handbook of Nature Study.”  Read up on what animal or plant you would like to make a story about and work those characteristics into your story.
  • Do several short one to two-week blocks on backyard nature each season.
  • Spend lots of time outside just feeling, observing, using the 12 senses every day and in every kind of weather.  Look at how the weather affects plants and animals throughout the seasons.
  • Do get Joseph Cornell’s “Sharing Nature with Children” and work nature games into your school year.
  • Do plenty of festival preparation – this is part of science:  the cycle of the year.
  • Do plenty of arts and crafts involving natural materials on your craft days.  Look at things such as the cycles of wool from visiting sheep at a farm to raw fleece washing to carding and spinning to dyeing yarn and knitting as part of your handwork.
  • Start a garden!  Garden throughout much of the year.  See my review on “Gardening with Young Children” by Beatrys Lockie here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/08/07/book-review-gardening-with-young-children-by-beatrys-lockie/
  • Cooking provides many opportunities to observe chemical phenomenon.
  • Visit farms, orchards, aquariums, zoos, beaches, mountains, grasslands and other places.
  • Start terrariums and aquariums.
  • Catch small animals and keep them overnight and then let them go! We currently have a snail that we found and have enjoyed watching the snail move with its one foot, seeing the snail’s eyes on the end of the stalks up close, finding out what  a snail loves to eat, how to build a snail habitat. 
  • Feed the birds throughout the winter, put up bird boxes, bat houses, owl houses. 
  • Get your little outdoor  space certified as a Backyard Wildlife Habitat.
  • Read stories that have to do with nature.  Donna Simmons has great lists in  her book “From Nature Stories to Natural Science” available here: http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/bookstore-for-waldorf-homeschooling/essential-christopherus-publications/from-nature-stories-to-natural-science.html
  • In first and second grade, provide opportunities to work through the elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water.  Some second grade families do an entire block on these elements through toy and craft making.
  • Look at thing with the NAKED eye to really develop observation skills – you have years left in which to use microscopes, magnifying glasses and telescopes. You do not need these things yet!  Save your money until you really need these things in later years!
  • Work through poetry and movement.  Choose seasonal fingerplays, songs, circle time work that looks at animals and plants in the seasons.  Move like these animals.
  • Work with any pets you may have to train them.  Clicker training is just wonderful, and works with pretty much any animal from dogs to cats to Oscars (the fish).   If you google “clicker training”, lots of resources will come up.  Help your child to do such  things  as feed and brush the dog, but do NOT expect the child to take full responsibility  for a pet yet!  Work to include your animals in the rhythm of your day.
  • Other appropriate blocks to work in science include a block of the four seasons, length of year, length of months in First or Second Grade.  A good resource for stories involving the seasons is Dorothy Harrer’s
  • Blocks that include work with the Four Elements are great sources of inspiration and scientific thinking.
  • Blocks that include stories that revolve around the animals and plants of a specific habitat – mountain, desert, ocean.

Hope that sparks some ideas for you as you plan,

Carrie

The Habit of Happiness

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To me, happiness is a habit.  Happiness is not something that comes from external sources – ie, the whole “this made me happy today” and “this made me sad” and “this made me angry”.  Yes, things happen and we sometimes feel happy, sad or angry as a first reaction – but with time and practice, we can learn to modify our inner landscape and choose how to react, help rid ourselves of stress, worry and anxiety and put in its place a sense of peace instead.  Peace, to me, is the Real Deal of Happiness.  Peace is that inner quality that occurs no matter what the circumstances of life surround you.

The way to this path is to choose to be happy and peaceful as your journey, as a conscious step every day, and not just viewing happiness as this elusive goal.  Here are some thoughts for how to do this:

1.  Practice basic meditation – Steiner has some great exercises for anthroposophical inner work and if you go here you will find the inner work of the day posted:  http://www.rsarchive.org/

2.  Do your best to not model worry, anxiety and guilt for your family members.  I would venture to say that many of us have worried, anxious and guilty thought patterns because this is what was modeled to us as children.  It is an easy thing to pass on to the next generation.

3.  Limit your hurrying:  being hurried and overscheduled can lead quickly to feeling overwhelmed, guilt-ridden and anxiety-ridden.  As homeschoolers, many of us could be so booked with activities we could be out of the house every day, morning, afternoon, and night.  Pick and choose and realize  that homeschooling can be about, and should be about, being in your home.

4.  Religious practices can provide peace – easy to knock it until you try it and create a practice.  Many people are very cynical regarding organized religion, but I urge you to investigate this if this is a stumbling block for you.  Find the religious path that works for you and work at it.  Certain faiths, such as the Catholic faith and the Episcopal faith, have a “Daily Office” where prayers are said at certain times of the day – this can be a very grounding experience to help you focus your attention off of yourself and onto something higher.  To my Orthodox readers, does this also exist in the Orthodox Church as well?

5. Exercise.  Walk, bike, swim, take the time to go to the gym if you have the financial luxury to be able to afford a gym, walk on some nature trails, do some yoga.  Make this a priority for yourself and for your children.  This is very important for dealing with depression and anxiety, and to help feel more  peaceful. 

6.  Re-frame how you look at  things, and how you say things.  Watch your words like the pearls you are, because the words you say are the reality for your children.

7.  Forge as close and intimate a relationship as you can with your spouse or partner.  Your children are NOT a substitute for the intimacy you should be experiencing with your adult partner, and your children will be better for it to see this wonderful, healthy relationship between two adults who can laugh and have fun together.  Having this relationship as a bedrock in your life will provide you with peace!

I think creating a habit of happiness for your inner work is this coming school year is very important.  I hear so many mothers who tell me up and down how fortunate they are to be able to be home during this economy, how they like being a stay-at-home mother but yet all they do is complain about their husbands, their homes, their weight and body image, their children’s behavior and themselves. 

Stop complaining; choose peace and happiness instead.  Start with yourself in small steps and model this for your spouse and your children; you may be surprised with the wonderful results!

Many blessings,

Carrie

The Newborn: Traditional and Anthroposophical Perspectives

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From a Traditional Physical Therapy Perspective regarding Normal Development:

Full-term is 38 weeks onward.  37 weeks’ gestational age is NOT full-term.

The neonate has NO experience with life outside of the womb – Please remember that as you expose your infant to his or her first sounds and sights of the outside world.

Very little movement is independently controlled – most movement is random and affected by gravity (gravity is also a new experience).

The elbows, hips, knees, and ankles have strong flexion, meaning that they are bent up and if you try to straighten them they will recoil back into a bent position.

Newborns are usually moving when they are awake and display a wide range of vigorous movement with rotational components of the ankles and wrists.  Usually one can see this better when the infant is lying on his or her  back.  There is much about tummy time and its importance out there, but giving an infant opportunity to freely kick and move while lying on their back is also important.

A neonate is interested in breastfeeding, being held and cuddled and in hearing their mother’s voice.   If you are a first-time mother, I am here to reassure you that less material things are needed than you think.

A neonate can fixate on your smiling  face and track briefly. They typically see best when the object (your bright smiling face!) is about 9 inches away. 

Extension (lifting) of the head and neck while lying on the stomach is one of the first things you will  see against gravity, but I am not so personally  convinced that a neonate needs a whole separate “playtime-tummy time” on  the floor on a blanket by themselves.  Tummy time can also be achieved over your legs, over your lap or being held with the infant’s tummy on your chest as you are laying down.

There are a wide range of reflexes that help the infant organize themselves and drive an infant’s ability at this age, along with the  musculoskeletal constraints already mentioned (strong flexion) and the way the bones start out.

If your baby has a history of prematurity, intraventricular hemorrhage, bronchopulmonary dyplasia, low birth weight under 1500 grams, or lack of oxygen to the brain, please follow your baby’s development carefully.

From an Anthroposophical Point of View:

(One of the best resources on the Web regarding The Waldorf Baby can be found here:  http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/early-years-nurturing-young-children-at-home/the-waldorf-baby.html).

Rahima Baldwin Dancy talks about in her book how the infant experiences space, time and gravity differently once born compared to life within the womb.  Birth also is the first experience an infant has with temperature regulation and the rhythmical qualities of breathing.

“With the first breath,” she writes, “inner emotional life begins, and the breath serves as the connection between the inner and outer worlds.  With the first in-breath, the possibility exists for the soul life to enter into a deeper relationship with the body, a relationship it will keep until the last expiration.  Although the baby is spiritually present and physically responsive to stimuli while in the womb, the soul cannot come into the body without the breath.  Then the soul gives expression to our emotions through the breath as sound and speech.”

Incarnation into the body is a gradual process.

The infant is viewed as entirely a sense-organ where all impressions from the environment go into the infant without filters and influence physiological processes – such as digestion and circulation of the blood. 

Sleep of the infant is seen as needed to “shut-off” from the world because if one is a sense organ where impressions are just flooding in, imagine how exhausting that is!

Things typically recommended by authors such as Rahima Baldwin Dancy, and Joan Salter  include having a special place for the baby to rest, such as a bassinet or co-sleeper, and draping this with silks to provide rest for the infant’s eyes.

Provide harmony and rhythm through singing.  You can also play a soft flute or kinderlyre.

Provide a sense of warmth for your infant and keep your infant’s head covered throughout the first year.  Remember, an infant does not do a great job regulating temperature by themselves!

Think about 40 days of rest and of being at home – there is an entire post on this blog regarding that subject here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/17/40-days-after-birth-and-beyond/

Joan Salter asserts that the baby’s most natural position within the first six weeks is HORIZONTAL, not vertical. 

You may consider keeping your infant inside for the first 40 days and after that introducing your infant to the wonderful sounds of nature outside.  Trips to the store, in the car, in a bus, etc should be avoided if at all possible. 

Joan Salter recommends swaddling with the upper extremities bent and the hands near the infant’s mouth – as a therapist, this is the position I most frequently recommend as well.

I suggest if you would like to read more about The Waldorf Baby, to go back and re-read pertinent chapters in “You Are Your Child’s First Teacher” and “The Incarnating Child.”  Sometimes a third or fourth read of these chapters can really provide further illumination!

Many blessings,

Carrie

Sexual Education for Children Under the Age of 7

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I have myself  received and seen many questions on other on-line forums and discussion groups regarding sexual education for the child under the age of 7.  Children are very curious about their bodies, about other children’s bodies and yes, about sex.  This especially occurs at age four and again at age 6.

I have no problem calling a vagina a vagina or a penis a penis or talking about how boys and girls are different.  I personally am very grateful our Creator made us different!

However, when a six year old starts asking direct and specific questions regarding  how a sperm gets into an egg or how “males and females mate” or something very direct along those lines, I have a few thoughts.

From an anthroposophical perspective, the child is a spiritual being on a spiritual journey.   We address the under-7 child with these questions the same way we address other questions children under-7 child asks.  We provide pictorial imagery through fairy tales (think of the number of fairy tales where a baby just “shows up” after the parents wish for a baby- Thumbelina comes to mind, the Polish tale of The Hedgehog Prince and many, many of the Grimm’s tales).   These really point to the spiritual longing for a child to be a part of the family and I  think is a lovely thing not to bring in right the moment a child asks a pointed question, but at bedtime or at other times since you know this is on your child’s mind!  (Yes, nothing like asking a pointed question that like in line at the grocery store and you launching into a repetitive version of The Hedgehog Prince right then and there, LOL). 

Nature tales, not pointed factoid nature tales of animals mating, but of animals creating a family and a space for new life also come to mind.  Looking for animal babies on nature walks, looking for baby birds in nests, rejoicing at all the new life about and around is an important part of establishing reverence for

Some families answer these types of questions from a religious or spiritual  perspective and say that God helped put the baby inside Mommy, or that the baby choose the Mommy and Daddy and big brother or sister and how lucky we all are!  Sometimes if you are just calm, warm and silent for a moment the child will provide their own answer to their very own question!  That is a special thing to be witness to!

You may say, well, if my child is asking a very direct and pointed question, isn’t it my job to answer that question?  Yes, but in an age appropriate way.  A six-year old is not ready to hear an intricate accounting of sexual intercourse and is at the height of sexual curiousity and  play, so  providing pictorial imagery that coincides with the wonder and beauty of new life is most appropriate.  The more factual (and often devoid of wonder and reverence) descriptions found in “child discovery” kinds of books can be kept for later as the child reaches greater depths of understanding and maturity than an under-7 child possesses.

Sometimes children ask us innocent questions and are not asking us to provide the factual answer we as adults think they are asking.  The point is not to pull them into their heads regarding all this, but to point out this journey of new life that is created by love.  Honor that, cherish that, nurture that, and provide the right information in the right way at the right time.

Blessings,

Carrie