Daily Archives: January 8, 2011

“Hold On To Your Kids”–Chapter Nine

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The title of this chapter is “Stuck in Immaturity.”  Without even looking at the chapter, I have to giggle a bit at this title because those of you who have read this blog for a long time have seen my posts lamenting lack of meaningful rituals for American children as they transition into adulthood, how transforming into an industrial society has really prolonged adolescence in many ways, etc.  Yes, a society often stuck in immaturity!

The authors begin this chapter with two scenarios of two different children who are impulsive, unreflective, being rather off-the-cuff, not wanting to finish things, no aspirations.  The authors conclude by pointing out one of the children is only four, where these things are developmentally normal and to be expected, but the child in the other scenario is fourteen and his behavior has not changed remarkably since the preschool years. The authors dub this phenomenon as “preschooler syndrome” (and I giggled again!  Apparently I should have a glass of wine whilst reading this chapter to make it even more fun!)

The authors now make a point worth being serious about:  “Physical growth and adult physiological functioning are not automatically accompanied by psychological and emotional maturation.  Robert Bly, in his book The Sibling Society, exposes immaturity as being endemic in our society.  “People don’t bother to grow up, and we are all fish swimming in a tank of half-adults,” he writes.  In today’s world the preschooler syndrome even affects many children well past the preschool years, and may even be seen in teenagers and adults.  Many adults have not attained maturity – have not mastered being independent, self-motivated individuals capable of tending their own emotional needs and of respecting the needs of others.”

Yup, pretty much sums up what is going on with children today and also some adults that I see.  The authors see the main culprit causing this behavior as peer orientation.  “The earlier the onset of peer orientation in a child’s life and the more intense the preoccupation with peers, the greater the likelihood of being destined to perpetual childishness.”

I agree completely, but what I also see is parents really having a tough time parenting.  Parents having a tough time setting boundaries, slowing down enough to have a family life, really not understanding development or what tools go with what age.  I think in the “olden days’” there were mothers in the neighborhood to help with this, the children all played in  a group of littles down to bigs so you could clearly see a six year old was not like the twelve year old…All the things we are missing in our society right now.

Anyway, back to the book. 

The authors talk about the term “integrative functioning” and how maturity allows one to temper and to balance.  I love this; Waldorf Education is all about balance and finding the Middle Way, so  I find this fits nicely into my personal worldview.   The authors point out that maturity requires a sense of self to be separated from inner experience and how that is completely absent in the young child.  Again, this is a hallmark of Waldorf Education.

“The child has to be able to know that she is not identical with whatever feeling happens to be active in her at any particular moment.  She can feel something without her actions being necessarily dominated by that feeling.  She can be aware of other, conflicting feelings, or of thoughts, values, commitments that might run counter to the feeling of the moment.  She can choose.”

To me, the section that starts on page 115 “How Maturation Can Be Fostered” is an important one, the most important part and piece of this chapter.

“Dealing with immature children, we may need to  show them how to  act, draw the boundaries of what is acceptable, and articulate what our expectations are.  Children who do not understand fairness have to be taught to take turns.  Children not yet mature enough to appreciate the impact of their actions must be provided with  rules and prescriptions for acceptable conduct….”  but they go on to point true maturation cannot be rushed.  They give the example that to take turns is civil, but until a child develops a sense of fairness behind this action, they are not truly mature.  To say you are sorry in a situation is also civil, but until one understands responsibility for one’s actions there is no maturity.

So, what can we do as parents to foster maturity?  The authors write “The key to activating maturation is to take care of the attachment needs of the child.  To foster independence we must first invite dependence; to promote individuation we must provide a sense of belonging and unity; to help the child separate we must assume the responsibility for keeping the child close.”

Here is another quote: “The first task is to create space in the child’s heart for the certainty that she is precisely the person the parents want and love.”  Very lovely thought to meditate and ponder.

Many blessings,

Carrie

Families Who Shouldn’t Homeschool

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(PS>  Catherine had a great point below in the comment section; this post can sound negative if you read it the wrong way!  The concerns I have listed at the bottom with three more challenging types of situations does not mean you cannot homeschool!  I mean to encourage you and say you can do this, stop collecting curriculum and START! Do what you need to do to get support, but also do the work that YOU need to do for your family!!

Love to all! Carrie)

Do those of you who homeschool have this conversation all the time?

Stranger:  Where does your child go to school?

Mother:  We homeschool.

Stranger (fascinated and horrified at the same time):  Oh, I could NEVER do that.  I am not patient at all, and my children just don’t listen to me!

Really?

Your children never listen to you?

That is going to be really difficult and make for challenges throughout your parenting lifetime.

Patience?

Yes, homeschooling mothers can be patient, but I doubt if you rounded all of us up and tested us for an extra patience gene that we would be any different than the regular population.

The secret is that we have more opportunities to work on developing our patience.  That’s all.  If I need to develop patience, I can almost guarantee I will be put in more situations and opportunities where I can work to develop that trait.  No one said growth was easy!

Rudolf Steiner once said, “This is what causes one such heartfelt concern today, that people have not the least desire to know something.”  So, if you as a family are open to striving, to learning, to trying, to growing, to persevering, then homeschooling is for you.

You will develop your own will, you will learn so much about yourself, you will develop new abilities.  You will develop your family culture like never before and the ties with your children and the ties between your children will be stronger than ever.  Your children will learn not only academics, but practical life skills and they will assimilate your family’s values at a rapid clip.

However, I do feel there are two categories of families who can homeschool but that might need extra support.

One is the hopelessly disordered and chaotic family.  You have to be able to work out time to plan, and you have to have a plan. Planning will save you every time.  Even veteran UNSCHOOLERS plan to the extent that once they have identified their children’s passions, they bring their child to the library, they strew materials about their home, they plan experiences revolving around the children’s interests.  That takes planning!  I often hear mothers say this time of year that maybe they should just “follow their child’s interests, Waldorf (or Classical or whatever) is just too hard.  We should just unschool.”  If you need a break, take a break, but don’t fool yourself by thinking unschooling is no work.  The veteran Unschoolers I personally know work hard to help their children learn.

For Waldorf homeschooling families, I feel NOW is the time you should be matching a skeleton outline of blocks you are going to teach up with a calendar and start looking at resources for the fall.  You can then order your resources around March, have time to read through it all and plan over the Summer.  You need to do this even with an “open and go” curriculum.

The second category of families I worry about with homeschooling are those parents who are truly afraid to be an authority in their home.  A nice, loving authority, not a mean dictator, but an authority who has an idea what the rules of the house are, and what is acceptable and not acceptable.  I have so many, many posts on this blog about this.  This is so important.

Where is your Family Mission Statement?  What are your values, what are your rules?  What are you doing for inner work?  Are you actually home and working on developing your patience and strengthening your family ties together or are you just running around every day?  To  homeschool, you actually need to be home! What outside activities are your children involved in and do they really need to be involved in them?  I don’t think a child under six and a  half or seven really needs classes.  Children under four and a half or five  don’t need playdates either.  Waldorf Kindergarten used to traditionally start at four and a half years of age.  This still makes sense developmentally!

The third little thing I need to throw in is that I do worry a bit about the mothers homeschooling only daughters.  I think mother-daughter relationships can get really tangled and picky.  I am NOT saying I don’t think mother-only daughters should not homeschool, I am just saying this situation may require some extra planning so the whole thing doesn’t become too intense.  In this case, some outside experiences and play time and the like within a supportive community  may be helpful.

Just a few thoughts!

Many blessings,

Carrie