Monthly Archives: December 2010

Happy 2011!

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Thank you to such a wonderful 2010.  The Parenting Passageway’s readership has grown in leaps and bounds, and 2011 promises to be an interesting and exciting year.

Here is my annual New Year’s wishes for my dear readers, reprised for 2011:

I hope this is the year you are “good enough”

I hope this is the year you have more joy than ever before!

I hope this is the year you investigate your faith and find a faithful community to join and pray with.

I hope this is the year you have the cleaner, more organized home that you have always wanted.

I hope this is the year you fall in love with your spouse or partner again and again.

I hope this is the year you will ENJOY your children and have FUN with them.

I hope this is the year you will learn some new skills and enjoy the process.

I hope this is the year you will start telling stories to your kids instead of reading them all.

I hope this is the year you are outside and active as a family in all seasons.

I hope this is the year you sing to your children and teach them singing games.

I hope this is the year you draw closer to your own family; your own parents and siblings.

I  hope this is the year you spend time with the friends you hold dearest.

I hope this is the year you take a vacation, no matter how short and close to home.

I hope this is the year you start a garden.

I hope this is the year you set the tone in your home and become the Queen that you are.

I hope this is the year you will be the most gentle parent you can be.

I hope this is the year you forgive yourself.

I hope this is the year you become healthier by exercising and eating healthy foods.

I hope this is the year for all your dreams to come  true.

Thank you all so much for reading my words and for all the gifts you bring here and  to your own families.  You all bring me so much joy each and every day!

In Joy, and Happy New Year!

Many blessings,

Carrie

A Skeleton Plan for Waldorf Homeschooling First and Fourth Grade

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Apparently Kara over at Rockin’ Granola and I are on the same wavelength recently…..Several weeks ago I got this urge to make a quick skeleton outline of blocks that I am going to start in the fall with my First and Fourth Grader.  This sounds a little crazy for this time of year, perhaps, but inspiration really struck me and it took very little time.

During the quiet of the Twelve Holy Nights, I urge homeschooling parents to take some of these days and lay out a skeleton plan of the blocks you are going to tackle in the fall.  This way you will be ready to order supplies around March and you will be able to start putting your blocks together.  You will be so proud to have a jump-start on your next school year!

Here is my quickie outline for 2011-2012, subject to change at a moment’s notice.  Smile

(Of course this does not include the middle lesson (s) or the afternoon lessons…just the Main Blocks).

Week of August 29 through September 9 – First Grader Form Drawing and Counting Games (2 weeks) ; Fourth Grader Local Geography (3 weeks total)

Week of September 12-  First Grader Beginning Wet on Wet Watercolor Painting and Crayon Drawing (2 weeks total) ; Fourth Grader Local Geography

Week of September 19- First Grader Beginning Wet on Wet Watercolor Painting and Crayon Drawing’; Fourth Grader Math (3 weeks total)

Week of September 26- October 7  First Grader Introduction to Letters (5  weeks total); Fourth Grader Math

Week of October 10– Week of October 31 –  First Grader Introduction to Letters, Fourth Grader Man and Animal I  (4 weeks total)

Week of October 31/November 1 First Grader Fall Crafts and preparation for All Saints Day (1 week) ; Fourth Grader Man and Animal I

Week of November 7-December 2  First Grader Introduction to Numbers (4 weeks total) ; Fourth Grader Norse Myths (5 weeks total)

Week of December 5- December 16th First Grader Writing First Reader (2 weeks) ; Fourth Grader Math (2 weeks) with Grammar as Middle Lesson;  Advent Crafts

OFF December 19- January 7th

Week of January 9-January 13th First Grader Introduction to Pentatonic Flute and Counting Games (1 week) ; Fourth Grader Kalevala (3 weeks total)

Week of January 16-27 First Grader Science (3 weeks total) ; Fourth Grader Kalevala

Week of January 30th- February 3 First Grader Science ; Fourth Grader Local Geography (4 weeks total)

Week of February 6-February 24 First Grader Math (3 weeks total); Fourth Grader Local Geography

Week of February 27-March 9  First Grader Form Drawing (2 weeks); Fourth Grader Local Geography Man and Animal II (4 weeks total)

Week of  March 12-23  First Grader Word Families and Phonics /Make Readers (3 weeks); Fourth Grader Man and Animal II

Week of  March 26-30 First Grader Word Families and Phonics/Make Readers (3 weeks total); Fourth Grader Math  (3 weeks total)

Week of April 2- 13th   OFF

Week of April 16 and Week of April 23rd  Finish First Grader Word Families and Phonics/Make Readers (2 out of 3 weeks); Fourth Grader math (2 out of 3 weeks started before break)

Week of April 30 –May 18th First Grader Math (3 weeks); Fourth Grader  Four Elements (3 weeks)

Week of May 21-May 25 (1 week)  Drama, Stories, Review

Week of May 28th – safety week if we need to make anything up and push school further….Smile

Anyone else care to share their blocks for fall?

Many blessings,

Carrie

The Fifth Night Of Christmas: Saddle Your Own Horse

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I recently saw this very inspiring trailer about 100-year-old great American horsewoman Connie Reeves, an inductee of the American Cowgirl Hall Of Fame who is still riding horses and assisting at a summer camp to teach young girls how to ride. You can see the trailer for yourself here:  http://www.americancowgirl.com/film.htm.  

In one part of the trailer, Connie says:   “You gotta saddle your own horse” and the woman next to Connie says something to the effect of you have to stand on your own two feet, you gotta saddle your own horse.

Own your life.

Be happy with your life this year and if you are not happy with your life, then change what you need to in order to be happy.

Know your values and your priorities and shape what you are doing with your time around that.  I find a Family Mission Statement and a Personal Mission Statement to be really helpful.  Here are some ideas for getting started in that process:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/08/creating-a-family-mission-statement/

Something to always keep in mind as you plan your time, though, is to include how you are going to help someone else.  How will you connect into a community larger than yourself and what part will you play in that community? 

How will you build a wonderful community that your child can be a part of?  How will you reflect that in how you spend your time?  For example, if I have a choice between two activities for my family, I am going to pick the activity that involves the supportive community I have built up over a random class or event every time.

How does your life give you energy? I once worked with a brilliant pediatric orthopedic surgeon who told me how much energy he got from his work.  He loved it (and, I might add, he was really good at it!)

Sometimes parenting, especially parenting small children, can feel more like an energy drain than an energy booster. Parenting of small children can involve endless rounds of feeding, clean-up, diaper changing/bathroom trips.  What is your attitude in all of this?

Please never, ever lose sight of the fact that by what you do you are shaping the next generation.  What you do sets the stage for the adult your child will become.  It will not all be perfect and nor should it be.  None of us are perfect.  But show your children the striving, the learning and most of all the JOY.

Plan fun family things.  Grab all the children, throw them on the floor and smother them with kisses (in our house, our gigantic dog helps).  Laugh! Tell jokes around the dinner table!  Hike and be in nature.  Use humor in dealing with challenging behavior. 

Get energy from it all.  Saddle your own horse.

Many blessings,

Carrie

The Fourth Night of Christmas: Protecting The Innocence And Opening The Door

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Today is The Feast of The Holy Innocents.  Christians around the world mark this day in recognition of King Herod’s order to massacre all infant boys under the age of two in Bethlehem as he raged against the Christ Child being born.  Many families take this time to say a blessing over their own children.  Tonight would be a wonderful night to pray and meditate over your children as they sleep for a little bit; revel in their faces and the young men and women they will grow up to be.

One thing that strikes me on this day is that we must do a good job of protecting our children’s innocence.  This is something that is getting lost in our culture as adult life, adult speech, adult dress, adult ways of  educating, are being brought down to the smallest in our society.

I find what we say to children to be of primary importance.  If you have children under the age of 7, ask yourself if what you are about to say to them is something they really need to know.  Is it pictorial and imaginative, what you are about to say?  It is an order, or can you just take the small child by the hand and help them do what needs to be done?  Have you crafted a rhythm so your child has an order to his or her day?

Here are some back posts to help you with this idea of protection and how to talk to small children:

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/04/01/talking-in-pictures-to-small-children/

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/08/19/using-our-words-like-pearls/

and this gem:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/11/does-your-child-know-what-is-best/

Help in stopping to give small children so many choices:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/06/a-waldorf-parenting-perspective-wont-choices-strengthen-my-childs-will/

This is one of my favorites because no one talks about this:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/02/26/how-to-talk-to-your-seven-and-eight-year-old/

One thing we always think about in Waldorf Education is what impact education is going to have upon the health of child once they grow up and become an adult.  This is why we work to protect the twelve senses (and if the twelve senses are new to you, and you scratching your head and saying “I thought there was only five!” you can use the search engine to find the back posts).  One important way to protect these senses is through warmth, and through sleep and quiet/rest times.

Here are two back posts regarding sleep:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/14/part-two-of-a-waldorf-inspired-view-of-sleep/  and here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/07/13/a-waldorf-inspired-view-of-sleep/

Here are some thoughts on the Early Bedtime:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/25/the-early-bedtime/

But perhaps the flip side of this and  what we also need to talk about is how to open the world up gradually.  I see many Waldorf parents who take protection so seriously and they extend that pink protection bubble of Kindergarten way beyond the appropriate time.

I am certainly not advocating a “Child Gone Wild” approach for a seven-year-old, but the point becomes there is a time to start answering questions, there is a time to talk about life’s issues, and yes, a time for media and computers, a time for reading newspapers and the like.  The door must open at some point as you prepare your child to live in the world.    I feel actually the ages from 9-14 are the harder ages in which to discern what the balance of protection and opening the world up should be.  I guess that is an entirely different post though!

Happy pondering protection and opening up gradually to the world,

Carrie

The Second and Third Nights of Christmas: Sacrifice and Generosity

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The Second Day of Christmas is often connected to St. Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian faith (you can read more about this Saint, venerated in Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran traditions here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Stephen).   Good King Wenceslas  is also often mentioned in connection with this day(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_King_Wenceslas).  He was a King who went out on The Feast of St. Stephen’s and gave alms to the poor. I am sure many of you are familiar with the traditional song about Good King Wenceslas.

The second and third days of Christmas are ones in which  I am left thinking, pondering and meditation on the role of sacrifice and generosity in parenting.

What can you sacrifice this year in order to be a better parent, a better homemaker for your family?

Sacrifice is not a popular term these days.  People want to have children.  And then they are faced with reality when they realize it is difficult to take your “before children” life and add children and stir.  I wrote about this in my blog post “Raising An Inconvenience” here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/07/13/the-mini-rant-raising-an-inconvenience/

Here is part of that post:

“Mature love and parenting involves you putting your child’s welfare ahead of your own.  I have said it before, and I will say it again: children are messy, noisy, learning, immature.  They don’t sleep like an adult, they don’t reason like an adult, they take a long time to mature and develop (and 7, 8, 9, 10 year-olds are still little!  So I am talking 21 years of growth and development!).  They get sick, they laugh and cry at the wrong times, they fall down, they fight with each other and with you. 

They are also wonderful.  They will show you a spiritual world that you may have forgotten existed.  They will say the funniest things.  No one will love you like a sweet child.

Adjusting to having an infant can be challenging; it can be difficult.  I am very sympathetic to mothers needing support and help.  The choices we make in these early years set the foundation for discipline, for the school years, and later for the teenaged years.  It should make one stop and at least consider different choices rather than just decide on something because it is easiest.  You cannot take your “before children life” and just add children and stir.   Having children should change your life, don’t you think?

As mothers and fathers, it is our privilege and our responsibility to provide our children with a childhood they hopefully won’t have to recover from.  No matter what we do, our children will go their own way as they mature and grow in early adulthood.  But, it is our job to give them the footing to start.  It is our job to guide.  And I don’t know about you, but the development of my children’s  physical, emotional, academic and character is worth me being inconvenienced any day or night of the week!”

Maybe this is the year and the time for you to sacrifice something else: negativity and complaining.

Here are some back posts regarding being a positive mother and promoting kindness in your home:

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/11/29/cultivating-gratitude-the-inner-work-of-advent/

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/09/19/day-number-three-of-20-days-toward-being-a-more-mindful-mother/

And probably one of my all-time favorite posts, this one on Kindness: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/03/kindness-in-your-home/

This is the year for you to be GENEROUS with your family.  Be generous with your love, with your smiles and hugs.  Be generous with your laughter and joy.  Your children and family are here to make every day blessed, not a burden!  Be generous with the amount of time you spend with your family, be generous with your graciousness as you take care of your home and your family.

Be generous with yourself.  I see mothers who are so, so very hard on themselves!  Why?  Be kind to yourself, be easy with yourself.   Forgive yourself, move forward and show your children how to do this. 

Try these back posts for help:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/03/18/no-comparison/  and https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/11/27/forgiving-ourselves/

You are being called to serve!  How are you going to do it?

Much love and many blessings,

Carrie

The First Night Of Christmas: To Wonder

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(This post was meant for Christmas Day, but I am running a day late…Smile)

Merry Christmas to all of you!  May peace, love and joy permeate you and your family  today.

Well, recently I have been thoroughly enraptured with the website Full Homely Divinity (http://fullhomelydivinity.org/) and looked today, Christmas Day,  at the first of the Twelve Days of Christmas.  Today we focus on the wonder of the Divine by the Shepherds.  (We could also include the Wise Men as some religious paths do. In some traditions, Epiphany is the day for The Baptism of Our Lord with a beautiful blessing of the waters.  Some paths include the Wise Men (Three Kings’ Day) on Epiphany.  This back post may assist you  regarding these ideas  here: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/01/12/the-magic-of-three-kings-day/ ).

I also looked at the first inspirational message today by Lynn Jericho of Inner Christmas (www.innerchristmas.com to sign up).  Her thoughts today centered around the capacity we all have to wonder, and how in the process we become like the shepherds, the Wise Men, artists, scientists, thinkers.

My meditative focus to you tonight also centers around the act of wonder. 

How do you wonder in your family life?  What brings you wonder as you watch your children?  What brings you quiet joy?

How do you bring wonder and awe and reverence to your children?  If you have read this blog for any length of time, you will see I have strongly encouraged those of you without a spiritual path to consider some literal soul-searching to show your child what your framework for meaning is in the world.  The small child needs to DO in spiritual life, to DO in creating silence and to DO in seeing wonder and reverence and awe.  The small child needs to DO in the life of the festivals in the calendar of the year.  There are many back posts on this subject.

My other thought was that we can all find wonder in the beauty of nature and the changing of the seasons.  I wrote several very popular posts here about connecting your child to nature here   https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/11/24/connecting-your-children-to-nature/    and here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/06/09/kidscapes-nature-in-the-city-and-more/

I recommend giving these back posts a read and perhaps even journal as to how you are going to include nature in your plans with your family this coming year.

Over the days prior to Christmas I was reading Rudolf Steiner’s “The Child’s Changing Consciousness As The Basis Of Pedagogical Practice” and this quote is one that many people are familiar with: “Those who have not learned to fold their hands I in prayer during childhood, cannot spread them in blessing in old age.”

Of course Steiner was speaking here of more of the bodily religion of recognizing the wonder of other people, but this quote also reminded me yet again that something that has the capacity to bring wonder and joy to ourselves is daily  prayer and meditation.  For me personally, the Book of Common Prayer along with a Daily Office provides a scriptural, liturgical and meditative focus all in one.  Liturgy really can draw one closer to the Divine.  For those of you coming from a background with little liturgical focus (but you might be willing to try this New Year! Smile), I recommend a book called  simply “Common Prayer:  A Liturgy For Ordinary Radicals”, which essentially gathers liturgy from different traditions and also marks days of Saints and historical events of social justice import within the calendar of the year.  It has morning, mid-day and evening liturgies for each day of the year and would be a wonderful way to connect to God this year:  http://www.amazon.com/Common-Prayer-Liturgy-Ordinary-Radicals/dp/0310326192/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293365609&sr=1-1

See what resonates with you most as you focus and meditate and ponder.  Merry Christmas!

Many blessings,

Carrie

“Hold On To Your Kids”–Chapter Eight

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This chapter is entitled, “The Dangerous Flight From Feeling” and discusses how peer-oriented adolescents and children become invulnerable to emotions.  The media has frequently commented that compassion seems to be on the dwindling end for many children in this day and age, and this chapter really explored this topic well.

Children who have been traumatized can manifest defensiveness and emotional hardening.  However, the authors point out that “many children who have been peer-oriented for some time can manifest the same level of defensiveness.”  If a child cannot be vulnerable, then learning is affected because that child cannot show curiosity or joy or passion.  Relationships are affected as the child cannot be authentic.

The authors lay out four reasons that peer- oriented  children are more likely to experience emotional wounding than a child who is oriented toward adults:

  • Attachment with a parent makes the stress of peers  ignoring them, taunting, etc. bearable in many ways; a shield of protection.  However, with this  attachment to the parent also comes the burden and responsibility of the parent knowing that the child will be very sensitive to what the parents says to the child.  Your words matter.
  • Peer-oriented children become “sensitized to insensitive reactions of children”.  Rejection by peers is a huge cause of teenage suicide.  The authors argue that children have always snubbed, ignored, shunned, shamed other children but in these days children do not have the attachment to family to override the impact of peer acceptance or rejection.

The authors write:  “The conclusion reached by some experts is that peer acceptance is absolutely necessary for a child’s emotional health and well-being, and that there is nothing worse than not being liked by peers.  It is assumed that peer rejection is an automatic sentence to lifelong self-doubt.  Many parents today live in fear of their children’s not having friends, not being esteemed by their peers.  This way of thinking fails to consider two fundamental questions:  What renders a child so vulnerable in the first place?  And why is this vulnerability increasing?”

“Studies have been unequivocal in their findings that the best protection for a child, even through adolescence, is a strong attachment with an adult.”  The authors cite studies that attachment to an adult is the best way to decrease a child’s risk for drug and alcohol problems, suicide attempts, violent behavior and early sexual activity.

  • Vulnerability is often attacked by other children who will shame the child who is emotionally vulnerable.
  • Because peer relationships are insecure, vulnerability due to fear of loss is inherent in these relationships.  This causes extreme anxieties: “What if I don’t connect with my peers?  Why if I cannot make the relationship work?  What if I don’t want to go along with the things my buddies do, if my mom doesn’t let me go, or if my friend likes so and so more than she likes me?  Such are the ever-present anxieties of  peer-oriented children, never far below the surface.  Peer-oriented children are obsessed with who likes whom, who prefers whom, who wants to be with whom.”

Other sobering pieces of this chapter includes the study by John Bowlby, father of attachment theory, where small children were separated from their parents and the outcomes of this and  also some notes on drug and alcohol abuse by teenagers.

“Peer-oriented kids will do anything to avoid the human feelings of aloneness, suffering, and pain, and to escape feeling hurt, exposed, alarmed, insecure, inadequate, or self-conscious.  The older and more peer-oriented the kids, the more drugs seem to be an inherent part of their lifestyle.”

The chapter concludes with some thoughts about how children don’t need friends but rather adults who love them.  Children who are not vulnerable are ultimately shut down from themselves.  Your attachment to your child can save their feeling life and the way they view the world and how they function in the world. 

Thoughts on this chapter?

Many blessings,

Carrie

Celebrating the Twelve Holy Nights

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Right now we are in the season of Advent.  Christmas Day is the first day of the Christmas season.  There are twelve days of Christmas, also referred to in some circles as the Twelve Holy Nights, that take place from December 25th to January 5th.  This culminates in Epiphany on January 6th and is often marked as either Three Kings’ Day or The Baptism of Christ.  (I found an interesting site with family activities for the Twelve Days of Christmas here:  http://fullhomelydivinity.org/articles/Twelve%20Days%20of%20Christmas%20full%20page.htm , by the way).

This has always been a very special, inward, meditative time of year for me.  You can read my back post about the Holy Nights here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/12/26/inner-work-for-the-holy-nights/  and here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/12/22/the-twelve-days-of-christmas/  and here from 2008: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/12/24/the-holy-nights/

I will also be offering a series of my favorite back posts during this special time to provide a parenting perspective and meditative focus for these nights.  I like to carry a meditative theme or focus each year – in 2008 and 2009 I worked very hard with the idea of “being easy with myself” (being okay with not being perfect) and this past year I tried adding “letting go” to that.  This year I will be focused on love; love for self, for family, for the world encompasses it all, don’t you think?

What will you be doing during the Twelve Days of Christmas?  Do you have special things you would like to work on this year?

Many blessings,

Carrie

Foreword Of “The Child’s Changing Consciousness”

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I am currently reading Rudolf Steiner’s “The Child’s Changing Consciousness As The Basis Of Pedagogical Practice” and thought the foreword by Douglas Stone would be particularly illuminating for parents new to Waldorf Education.

For those of you who don’t know the origins of Waldorf/Steiner Education, Rudolf Steiner was asked to give lectures in 1919 to the factory workers at the  Waldorf Astoria Tobacco Company in Stuttgart, Germany and by April 1919 the decision was made to open the first Steiner school for the children of the factory workers.  The original lectures where given to the workers “on the question of what new social impulses are necessary in the modern world.”

I like this description of Waldorf Education:  “Based on a comprehensive and integrated understanding of the human being, a detailed account of child development and with a curriculum and teaching practice that seek the unity of intellectual, emotional, and ethical development at every point, Waldorf education deserves the attention of everyone concerned with education and the human future.”

The foreword mentions Dr. Steiner’s use of the terms body, soul and spirit ; how Dr. Steiner’s ideas about childhood development both overlap and are different than those of  Gesell and Piaget; how Steiner’s view of the crucial preschool years of “play, imitation and activity” as the foundation for all subsequent knowledge is borne out by many developmental psychologists today. Please note that Waldorf Education can work whether the worldview of Dr. Steiner resonates with you or not; we are people of reason and we have discernment. 

Stone talks about the foundation of the Early Years, the dominant feeling life of the primary school aged child and how this feeling, artistic approach to subjects leads to “strong conceptual powers in the adolescent and adult years.”

“Steiner stresses, therefore, the importance of an education during the primary school years that is thoroughly artistic in nature.  In these lectures he [Steiner] explicitly criticizes any one-sided emphasis on emotional development that ignores the importance of intellectual development.  He also criticizes as nonsense all notions that all learning should be play…..his chief concern is to bring together intellect, emotion, and the tacit knowing of will activity in integral unity.”

Stone also addresses the concern parents have today regarding teaching morals and values in school.  Dr. Steiner himself grappled with the religious education requirements required by Germany in the early 1920’s.  Steiner’s view of the true view of ethics in education included providing children with experiences of beauty, fairness, reverence, and the righteous conduct of the teacher.  He was concerned that the teacher demonstrated a good world for the child through their actions. 

Stone writes:  “The truly ethical and religious dimensions of education have nothing to do with indoctrination, the teaching of empty concepts, “thou-shalt” attitudes, but with the actual experience of gratitude, love, wonder, a devoted interest in one’s life tasks and conduct, and a recognition of the worth of the developing individual.” 

I thought those were some worthy thoughts to pass on and ponder today.

Many blessings,

Carrie

Four-Year-Olds Who Ask Many Questions

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(One of my long-term readers kindly pointed out there are no back posts on this subject, so here it is now!)

Yes, asking many questions is a hallmark of being four years of age.  It does not mean all questions a four-year-old asks needs to be answered directly though (although nor does it mean that we don’t ever answer a question!)  However,  four-year-olds often seem to ask about a million questions a day.  Many of these questions are just a reflection of the wonderfully imaginative way a child of that age has at looking at the world, and it is really important not to shut their ideas down with a very adult way of looking at things.

I think what helps is to certainly be tuned into your child in a warm and loving way, but in a way in which you are busy and not hanging on their every word.  I find this much easier to do myself when I am physically working with my whole body, not just sitting down and using only my hands.  If I am shoveling, digging, planting, scrubbing, etc it is much easier for me to hum, sing, give a warm smile but not have this incredibly involved discussion where the child sits down next to me and we play Fifty Questions About Life.

Humming, singing, and being busy but yet tuned into your child is a  fine art of balancing in parenting.  It is a process and a journey to achieve this.   We can use our warmth, our smiles, our love.  We can answer with neutral phrases such as “I really wonder that too!” (and actually mean it!) or we can say, “I don’t know, but I know a (song, poem, verse) about that!”   We try to answer a four-year-old as pictorially as possible – the time for more pointed answers to questions comes in the grades with short explanations.  If you need help with speaking pictorially, please try this back post:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/04/01/talking-in-pictures-to-small-children/

If a child is extremely insistent that we answer a question, we can gently ask the child what they think without commenting too much about what they say.  Give them space and time to complete their own ideas and thoughts.  Sometimes they really can answer their own questions in their little four-year-old way of looking at the world and the universe!

Also, I mean this in a very kind way, but I often see this questioning and chatter more in families where the four-year-old is the oldest in the family or the only child. A four-year-old oldest or only often learns to communicate verbally with an adult for a feeling of intimacy and closeness more frequently than those who have a house full of sibling playmates to attend to.  Smile

If you find your four-year-old seems to be asking just a million and a half questions, here are a few “sideways” tips to assist you:

1.  Be busy yourself with your whole body in work  — sometimes sitting down with just  hands in work becomes an opportunity for a child to just plant themselves next to you and ask question after question.

2.  If your child simply must chatter away, have them do something physical whilst they are chattering. 

3.  Please double check the amount of outside time they are getting.  Some children chatter when they have a lot of nervous energy and don’t know what else to do with themselves.

4.  How is their play?  Here are two back articles about fostering creative play:   https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/10/29/more-about-fostering-creative-play/  and here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/10/05/fostering-creative-play/

5.  And, this one might make folks bristle a bit, but good old-fashioned benign neglect is okay.  Your relationship with your spouse or partner is really, really important – a foundation for the home.  It is okay for your child to be at the periphery a bit and not so much center-ring in the family stage.  I mean that with love, so just meditate and ponder on that.  I see so many, many families where the child is really thrust into the position of carrying what should be the adult life  between adults and the child becomes the intimate, verbal substitute for an adult relationship and communication for one or both of the parents.  Disregard this thought if it does not apply to your family, of course. Smile

And remember, the time WILL come to answer these questions in a more factual way – starting in the grades.  This is such a short time period in which to protect your child’s imagination, and their development of a sound  and healthy emotional life.

What thoughts do you have about children who incessantly chatter or question?

Many blessings,

Carrie