Monthly Archives: August 2009

Book Review: “Gardening With Young Children” by Beatrys Lockie

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I have to admit right off that this is one of my favorite books because I feel it brings the experience of a wonderful gardener and Kindergarten teacher and marries it to an imaginative approach to nature and gardening for children between the ages of three and seven. 

This is one of my favorite quotes in the entire book, presented in the “About This Book” section (and this is after the author presents a case that children live in pictures, in stories, in the imagination):  “Many grown-ups, by contrast, live in a world of the intellect, of logical cause and effect. This is foreign territory for a small child.  The child can make little of this approach, and quickly becomes bored.  Worst of all, a child fed nothing but intellectual fodder can later become emotionally stunted.  An intellectual adult  often finds it more difficult to conjure vivid images than does a more intuitive person.  But we can all try.  Otherwise, what we give to children goes right over their heads.”

Many parents coming to Waldorf lament that they “don’t know how to NOT teach” or they have no idea how to answer children’s questions in a pictorial way.  This book will give you some great ideas!

The first chapter of this book talks about some of the practical aspects of gardening with small children that the adult needs to be aware of: soil acidity, plant preferences, soil acidity,  weather, fitting gardening into your schedule.  The next four chapters cover each season with plentiful suggestions and examples of stories, activities, songs, arts and crafts ideas, baking and cooking ideas.  Such traditional festivals as Advent and Candlemas are also covered.    After that, there is a section on “The Town Child” for folks who live in densely populated cities and how to work with that, and the last chapter includes a month-by-month gardener’s calendar.

This book packs in a lot of information and suggestions for its 136 pages, and I feel is a resource one will refer to for multiple years.  Again, this would be an especially wonderful resource for those just starting out in gardening and those unsure of how to approach gardening and nature in a more imaginative, wonderous way.

Blessings,

Carrie

Book Review: “Earthways: Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children”

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“Earthways:  Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children” by Carol Petrash is a much-loved book by a Waldorf teacher (and her husband, Jack Petrash, as many of you know, is a Waldorf Class Teacher) and is an easily accessible place to start to learn about how to construct a nature table, how to look at arts and crafts from a natural materials standpoint, how to work seasonally within your homeschool. 

My copy was published in 1992, and has about 202 pages.  It opens with an introduction regarding the environmental problems that are facing us today, but places this within the context of the developmental age of the young child:

“They come into life with a sense that the world is good and beautiful.  Our interactions with them and the ways in which we bring them into contact with nature can either enhance these intuitions or destroy them.  When children are met with love and respect, they will have love and respect to give.  Our task as the parents and educators of young children is not to make them frightfully aware of environmental dangers, but rather to provide them with opportunities to experience what Rachel Carson called “the sense of wonder.”  Out of this wonder can grow a feeling of kinship with the Earth.

She has a whole section of how to use this wonderful book, and how the book works in many projects from whole to parts (a foundation of Waldorf Education!)

Fall includes such things setting up an Earth-Friendly home and classroom, creating a Seasonal Garden (some of us may call this a Nature Table or Nature Space that changes with the seasons), and then a myriad of arts and crafts using natural materials – leaves and paint, pinecone people, baking activities, using pumpkins and Indian corn for baking and crafts.  Winter focuses on the indoor play space, what your Seasonal Garden might look like for Winter, some finger knitting, woodworking and other indoor projects and things that would be appropriate for Saint Valentine’s Day.  Spring focuses on the use of natural products to clean your home and classroom, the Seasonal Garden, experiences with the element of wind, working with wool from whole to parts, starting a garden.  Finally, Summer focuses on creating an outdoor play space, the Summer Seasonal Garden, harvesting and eating berries, and more arts and crafts projects designed to capture the feeling of Summer.

There is a complete listing of mail-order supply companies, an extensive bibliography for teachers, and a list of picture books for small children arranged by season. 

This book can sometimes be found on the shelves of local libraries, but I do think this is one you may want to have on your shelves.  You will return to it time and time again!

Blessings,

Carrie

Start Now!

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I think this may be part of the July doldrums following we mothers around, (or perhaps panic in the midst of planning for homeschooling to start in a month of so for many of us in the United States?), but I have heard so many mothers lamenting lately:

  • “I found Waldorf so late.”
  • “My young child was so intellectually awakened and now I look back it and I don’t think it was the right decision.  She really burned out at age 8 and seems so unhappy.”
  • “The way our family handled discipline was not good, and now we are paying for it.”
  • “I didn’t know enough about connecting to my child when they were younger and I did everything wrong.”
  • “I am still doing everything wrong even though I know more now than I did!  I just can’t seem to put it all into place!”

Mothers, I am here to encourage you.  This wonderful child came to you, to your family, for a reason.  You are the right mother for this child.  No other mother could do a better job than you can with this particular child that was called to be yours. 

You did the best you could with the information you had at the time, and you did the best you could do with your child being the person you were at the time.  The wonderful thing is that we are all continually growing and learning. You are a different parent with each child you have and that is truth!  But it is okay to be that different parent and not lament the past!

The question is, what would help you today?  What would help your child  MOST today?

Evaluate – what is working for me with this child?  What I am doing that is NOT working with this child?  Where does this child need help in being balanced out the most?  What is absolutely most challenging for this child?  What is my role in helping this child?  Where am I right now?

Pray, meditate and listen.  Where you need to go from here?  Where is the Divine, the Spirit, God, leading you in this question?    Some mothers write things down and journal, some mothers just listen and absorb.

How will I put this into action?  What does it require of me?  Wayne Dyer, in his book, “What Do You Really Want For Your Children?”  notes, “Imagine going to your dentist and having him give you a lecture on the importance of oral hygiene, while all the time smiling at you through rotting teeth.  Or, visualize yourself talking to your doctor and having him tell you about the evils of nicotine addiction  while blowing cigarette smoke in your face.”

In other words, if there is something that your small child needs to work on, work on it as well.  Set the example, live by the example.

Be the change you want to see in your children.

Peace,

Carrie

Parenting the “High-Needs” Older Child

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This post is one that has been hard to write, as there are many varying perspectives out there.  Typically one reads something along the lines of, yes, there are children who have “difficult”  behaviors, but if Mother and Father just get through it, the child will grow up to be a wonderful person.

Sometimes it seems these authors never really had a child with “difficult” behaviors to be gotten through for years on end, right?? 

I am talking in this post about children who are essentially within normal development, not children who have been diagnosed with ADHD, sensory processing disorders or autism spectrum disorders. 

I have a few things that I have found to be helpful with my own “higher-needs, intense child”, not in any special order:

1.  Get rid of that label. When I first was a parent, I thought “high-needs” was wonderful…..Now  I think this label serves its purpose when the child may be in infancy so you don’t feel as if you are going insane, but really as the child grows, I think it is better to just accept where they are and what things are more challenging for them than labeling it.   Every child brings challenges and things that need balancing and guidance and I think that can be easy to lose sight of if you consider  your child “hard” and everyone else’s child “easy”. 

I have also heard too many parents refer to their “higher-needs” child with the child standing right there!  The child truly does understand this, and even if you think this is a nice way of saying “difficult”, the child translates it as such and feels something less than positive about themselves!  Stop it!  Stop telling the horror stories of your child’s infancy if your child is there, and even see if you can re-frame those thoughts in your head before they come out of your mouth.   How about these instead:  “We got through together the best we knew at the time.”  “We did a great job in that situation.”  “There were positive moments.”  

Positive thoughts equal positive parenting, which is often exactly what this little person needs and longs for because sometimes these children are not the first to look on the sunny side!

Secondly, think about the fact that human development takes a LONG time and that three, four and five and even six  is still little, is a period overall of rapid growth and often disequilibrium, and that in many cultures the child is perceived as  not really having a set personality from infancy onward the way we look at this in the  United States.  Ask yourself, how would I be treating my child if I thought this “higher needs”  was not so ingrained within them?  Would I be able to be calmer and patient because I was guiding them, teaching them?  Maybe not, but interesting food for thought.  Your child may be a much, much different person at 7 or 8 than even at 4,  5 or 6.  Seriously!

2.  Stop drawing individual attention to that child’s behavior as much as possible, and accentuate the positive as much as possible. Less words for judging (because even saying, “Gosh, you are feeling aggressive today!” or “You are  being so persistent” is judging in my book.  Why go there?).  Try meditating over your child while they sleep, try warm hugs and smiles, try really looking at the positive with your own warmth toward the child and finding the humor.  Humor can diffuse a lot.

3.. Understand normal developmental stages and what works best – less words and don’t reason,   more movement, more play, more imagination, more humor. 

4.  Be ready to accept your child’s behavior, pull back and be okay with that.  This can be a real challenge for the adult, and I have been there.  It was a challenge for me.    So your three-year-old doesn’t do well at playgroups, so what?  It used to be a child really didn’t have any play dates until they were over four and a half or so – maybe there was wisdom in that!    It used to be small children were mainly at home with siblings and not off to gymnastics and art and museums and such.  If your child doesn’t do groups well, look at it not as a character flaw, but normal development!  It is really okay, and again, unless your child has been diagnosed with some sort of autism spectrum, it is likely to change as they grow. 

5. Be calm and be patient.  Try to understand things from your child’s point of view, and let your RHYTHM carry things. Have some limits that just include what you do, “We will play after lunch.”  “We wash our hands after going to the bathroom.”  We works really well.

6.  Be aware of any reflux, food allergies or things within the environment that your child is sensitive to that triggers things not going well.

7.  Make sure this child is getting enough rest and sleep.  That is an absolute cornerstone of rhythm.   

8.  Are you feeling positive and centered? C’mon y’all, you knew I was going to say that one!  Work on your own stuff so you can be what this child needs.  Guard your words and your thoughts toward the positive and away from the negative. 

Most importantly, FORGIVE YOURSELF.  You are a wonderful mother, you are working hard, you wouldn’t be thinking and worried about this otherwise!  Give yourself a break!  Love yourself and use that as a model for how you can love and forgive your child!

9.  It is okay to help your child play.  Children under the age of 7 are in the height of the imitative phase, and may NOT be able to come up with what to play out of their heads.  It is okay to help them out – set up play scenes, give them ideas (“I am the old woman of the villager who is washing dishes and you are coming to my village on  a train!  Here is a train cap and train whistle!”)  Invite them to help you with practical work.  Tell them stories and things that may spur their play.  Your oldest child might really need this help, your younger ones will have the older one to imitate.

10.  Try to spend some time alone with this child every day in a positive way.  Whether this is just curled up together reading a book, tossing a ball, rolling around on the floor, just be together. The more you are together in positive ways  the more  you can love each other.

11. Again, this post was not geared toward children who have been diagnosed with something specific, but if you think your child is having issues with anger, or processing sounds or textures, or whatever, get help.  Don’t wait!  Trust your gut instinct because you are the expert on your child,  you know your child best, and you are the advocate for your child!

Peace and cyber – hugs,

Carrie

Some Quick Ideas for September for the Waldorf Kindergarten Crowd

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Here are some fast ideas for September for the Waldorf  Kindergarten crowd:

Have some verses or songs to call your child to a circle/fingerplay time:  Come, Follow, Follow is a classic one that comes to mind along with this easy verse (that seems to have a few variations out there, so don’t fret if this is not the version you know!):

Good morning Dear Earth,

Good morning Dear Sun,

Good morning Dear Trees and Stones every one,

Good morning Dear Beasts and Birds in the Tree

Good morning to You and Good Morning to me!

What songs will you be bringing to your child for the whole month of September?  You can bring the same songs for a month!  I like to base our songs of the month around what festivals are upcoming.  There are many wonderful pentatonic Michaelmas songs one can play on a recorder, Choroi flute or pennywhistle.  Classics include “A Knight and  A Lady”,   This is a great chance for  you to practice learning your own blowing instrument so you will be able to teach your child in first grade!

Choose some fingerplays or plan out a whole circle time with songs and verses if your family likes circle time.  Common circle time themes for September, at least in the United States, include squirrels and other little forest creatures getting ready for Winter, harvesting,  apple picking and apples, leaves and changing of the colors of leaves, ponies going to and from the harvest and pulling carts of the harvest.  Fingerplays can include such things as counting, colors, shapes.   

You may want to go into your  practical work for the day here, or you may want to sing a song and transition into a fairy tale.  For a three or four year old, this would be either a very repetitive, simple tale or a nature tale.   www.mainlesson.com has a number of wonderful tales.  For a five or six year old, you could start getting into the Grimm’s fairy tales.  Fairy tales that have repetitive phrases or songs are usually attention-getters and pleasers.  The book “Let Us Form A Ring” has some tunes set for some of the Grimm’s fairy tales, along with “pre-made” circle times and a few stories that include music in the back of the book.  For example, the story “The Pancake Mill”is in this book, complete with music and that would be a lovely fall story.  What props, puppets or craft items will you need to complete this experience for your child?  Do you have a song or verse to transition into a time of listening and sharing your told story?

Next, what practical work will you be doing?  Housekeeping, wet on wet watercolor painting, baking, gardening, arts and crafts?  Again, for September in the United States much can center around apples, the star inside an apple, baking and cooking with apples, apple drying, the changing of the seasons so perhaps leaf painting, rubbing, leaf banners, dipping leaves into glycerin wax to make a leaf banner, making little figures out of pinecones, collecting things from outside and making little “carpets’ with them on the ground……Just as a note, six year olds need longer and more complex projects than a three-year old! Think a bit on it!

Work in your outside time, creative inside play time (what can you add to your indoor space for fall, what will change, what play scenes will you arrange),  preparations for the time of Michaelmas if you celebrate that festival and wa-la!  A very loving Waldorf Kindergarten in your own home!

You also need a simple closing verse!  Don’t let your school time just fade away into nothing!  Close it up, and be satisfied at a job well-done!

There is a lot more to say on this subject, but that literally is a very fast skeleton to plan from for a small child. 

Many Blessings,

Carrie

Getting Good Fats Into Kids

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Infants and children who are breastfed get their first source of good fats through human milk.  According to  Lawrence and Lawrence’s “Breastfeeding:  A Guide for the Medical Profession”, children who were breastfed show “more advanced development” at not only 1 year, but 8 to 10 years and at 18 years.  During the first year of life the brain more than doubles in weight with 85 percent of this growth in the cerebrum; 50 to 60 percent of this is lipids.

Much of this has been attributed to fatty acid and lipid components and has led to supplementation of formula with cholesterol (human milk is full of cholesterol and artificial baby milk typically has little to no cholesterol) and DHA.  Lawrence and Lawrence point out, “These compounds function in a milieu of arachidonic acid, lipases, and other enzymes, and no evidence indicates that they are effective in isolation or that more is better.”

We know cholesterol is important for cell membrane function and that infants who are breastfed have higher cholesterol levels than formula-fed infants.  Animal studies suggest this may protect against high cholesterol later in life.  We also know that in breastfeeding, the amount of fat delivered is not static and adjusts to the baby for a customized fat and calorie milk.

As children grow, we know that foods that contain essential fatty acids remain important – sources of these include fish, flax oil, seeds, nuts and nut butters, olive oil, avocado, hummus and wheat germ all provide good fats according to Dr. William Sears’ “The Family Nutrition Book.”  Obviously, eating too much fat regardless of the type of fat can cause obesity, but I find parents are mainly interested in replacing the “junk food” fats with “good fats”.

Some of my favorite good fats include coconut oil and avocado.  Coconut  butter/oil  got a very, very bad rap for year, but it is now known that the medium-chain fatty acids in coconut milk are an energy source and that coconut has powerful antibacterial and antiviral properties.  Coconut water, while not high in fatty acids per se, is high in Vitamin C, B vitamins, proteins and electrolytes.  Coconut milk is now being used in the United States to make coconut milk yogurt (very good in smoothies!), coconut milk that is sold in a carton just like bovine milk (great for folks with dairy allergies) and of course our friend the young Thai coconut (the white ones with the pointed tops) are more and more readily available.

Smoothies are a great way to get coconut water, meat or milk into your kids.  Coconut meat, water, lime juice, vanilla and a little sweetner can make an excellent smoothie for a snack.  My personal favorite involves coconut milk/yogurt mixed with frozen mango, some honey and banana.  Yum!

Avocado is another great source of fatty acids, and this can be made into a pudding by mixing it with cocoa powder,sweetner, vanilla, and coconut meat and water.

Happy eating,

Carrie

Breastfeeding, Pregnancy, Fish Oil Supplementation and Infant Allergies

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(THE DISCLAIMER:  I am not telling anyone to take ANYTHING, any supplement, but looking at these studies has been interesting and may give you fuel to want to look on your own and speak to your health care provider regarding these studies.  There are many more studies coming out on this subject that you can search on the website PubMed, which has abstracts of medical journal studies). 

Here is something of interest I have been reading lately (yes, I love to read medical journal abstracts in my free time, don’t laugh).  Anyway, on the topic of human milk feeding, fish oil supplementation and infant allergies here is one study I just found:

This was published out of Sweden, I believe  in their pediatric journal June 1, 2009  (I found the abstract on PubMed):

Aim: To describe the effects of maternal omega-3 long-chain PUFA supplementation during pregnancy and lactation on the incidence of allergic disease in infancy. Methods: One hundred and forty-five pregnant women, affected by allergy themselves or having a husband or previous child with allergies, were included in a randomized placebo-controlled trial. Daily maternal supplementation with either 1.6 g eicosapentaenoic acid and 1.1 g docosahexaenoic acid or placebo was given from the 25(th) gestational week to average 3-4 months of breastfeeding. Skin prick tests, detection of circulating specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies and clinical examinations of the infants were performed. Results: The period prevalence of food allergy was lower in the omega-3 group (1/52, 2%) compared to the placebo group (10/65, 15%, p < 0.05) as well as the incidence of IgE-associated eczema (omega-3 group: 4/52, 8%; placebo group: 15/63, 24%, p < 0.05). Conclusion: Maternal omega-3 fatty acid supplementation may decrease the risk of food allergy and IgE-associated eczema during the first year of life in infants with a family history of allergic disease.

PMID: 19489765 [PubMed – as supplied by publisher]

This is not a huge study group (140 mothers), and this study is just one of the studies that are coming out on this topic.  You may consider doing your own PubMed search, and also talking to your health care providers regarding some of these studies.  I, of course, am not telling anyone to take or not take ANYTHING, I just thought these studies were interesting enough to share a bit.

I saw one study regarding how the introduction of eating fish itself seemed to be protective against atopic dermatitis (and again, I think this study came out of either Norway or Sweden).  Over here in the United States, fish is typically considered one of those foods mothers are advised to wait to start due to high allergic reaction and incidence.  Any of my Scandinavian readers, I would love to hear your thoughts regarding introduction of fish and allergy incidences in your country!

Carrie

Foundations For A Healthy Childhood

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Waldorf education is all about health; the health of the child and where that child is today and where that child will be in the future.  I urge you to go and listen to this FREE audio download regarding Waldorf as a Therapeutic Education if you have not discovered it  already, here is the link:   http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/bookstore-for-waldorf-homeschooling/audio-downloads.html   This talk has a playtime of about 67 minutes so you can plan accordingly.

As you are planning for fall for the big and the small kids, let’s take a moment to remember some of the essentials for  a healthy childhood:

  • Happy parents comes to mind first.  Your work on your marriage or partnership, your own inner work is of utmost importance.  I know I keep saying it over and over, but it is so important.   Your child only starts to separate from you beginning at age 9, and views themselves as part of you.  If you are unhappy, not joyous in the home, unhappy in parenting, then please take the time to meditate, pray, talk to a counselor or whatever you need to do to get yourself centered and peaceful and joyous.   I hear from parents all day long who truly seem to be miserable being home.  This is why many families evaluate their decision to homeschool their children year-by-year, child-by-child.  No, I do not believe sending a child to school gives one more time “to work on oneself” or fixes the problem typically.  I have heard some parents say the worse thing they ever did was send their child to school for a year and then try to come back to homeschooling (and other children and families seem to handle this fine!!).    However, the recognition that there are things going within the family and the family dynamic is of utmost importance.
  • Within your planning of your rhythm for fall, please do plan in some time just for you.  I  am not one of those people who believes that one needs to be away from one’s children to be fulfilled or recharged, but some people do need that and I respect that, and I do think many mothers are very guilty of not scheduling appointments for their own teeth, their own physicals, time with their spouse or partner which does lead to problems later on.  These are things that also have to happen.  Make them happen, and you won’t be sorry!
  • RHYTHM.  Children who are high-needs, children who have sensory processing disorders and other challenges often actually need a bit of a tighter rhythm than others.  A rhythm should not be a stranglehold schedule, but it should provide a flow to the day.  Younger children may have a rhythm that includes different practical work or activities each day, while older children may work within a head-heart-hands approach where some of the same activities are repeated over a block of time more than once a week (otherwise it would be hard for them to complete any projects, wouldn’t it, if the child was only working on said project once a week!). 
  • Sleep and rest.  These are biggies.  All children who are not napping, and this includes the biggest children of them all, the adults, should have quiet time after lunch.  As a homeschooling parent, you will need this break.  And, if you cannot figure out why your four, five or six year old who is no longer napping cannot settle down during quiet time, I have to ask you:  What are YOU doing?  Are you laying down quietly and resting, or are you running around, on the computer, on the phone, doing chores?  If you lay down and rest, your children will imitate you!
  • Healthy diet.  In this day and age, there are so many food allergies, food sensitivities.  If your child is having behavioral issues, many parents have shared with me that the child’s diet needed adjusting in some way.  Perhaps an allergist, a homeopath or other health care provider can steer you in the right direction. 
  • Many folks believe that Waldorf for the Early Years involves children being able to totally entertain themselves, but I personally find in this age of the “restless child” that they need a rhythm and a play area set up to assist in this.  They may even need you to not be involved in play, but to at least give them a bit of an idea. “I am the elderly woman washing dishes, and you are the traveler coming to my village.”  They may need you to set up play scenarios at night after they have gone to bed, or to move the playroom around so the toys seem “brand new”.  Fostering creative play is very important, and there are ways that as adults we can help that process along.
  • Time in nature, nature games that use all senses, and gardening is very important.  Another thing to consider in your planning as this forms such an important basis of childhood. 

 

Cheers!

Carrie