Monthly Archives: February 2011

My Advice For The Nine Year Change

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I think nine years of age, in many ways, is a rather fragile time.  This sense of “I” ness and separation is coming out and beginning, but it is still rudimentary.  Criticism still cannot be separated from the overall sense of self.  It is an age to be handled with care.

I say this from experience.  Nine (Third Grade in Waldorf land) has been a rather odd year here for us.  It was a year where the academics seemed to jump up a notch, and also a year where the outside activities my daughter was involved in also seemed to jump up a bit.  (Some of it just coincidentally happened this year, but still it all seemed to converge this year for whatever reason).  I have also heard this from mothers whose children are nine and attending private and public schools as well, so I don’t think it is a complete anomaly to our family. 

My advice to mothers planning for fall for  their nine year old’s year is to keep it very simple.  Realize that some nine year olds really regress in writing skills, so perhaps plan not to require so much in Main Lesson books and such, but rather look to practical work and projects.  Many nine year olds needs a lot of movement, so build in extra breaks throughout the day to jump rope, jump on a trampoline and play games.

Keep the extra activities to one extra thing, maybe two, but please make sure those things are not jumping into competition (ie, therefore requiring much more tiring practice than previously) or into other lands of testing and winning and losing.

Nine needs lots of space to just be and dream.  Simple answers are fine, but complete wordiness and heady explanations are not.  It truly, in my opinion, is not the time for world politics and world events, beyond very simple explanations for things that come up. 

As mentioned, activities are fine, but within a balance and weighted more towards open and free time.  For this reason, I would advise letting a sport you think will turn competitive to wait until fourth or fifth grade if you can.  I recognize there are some children who are just wired to do whatever it is that they do, but I think that is further and farther in between than society thinks. 

Let Nine just be.  It can be a year that hits hard or a year that is okay, but I think much of it depends on how much “extra” is going on.  Coming out of the other side of the nine-year-change provides a much more stable base for the child to use as a foundation to expand academic, social and practical skills.

Many blessings,

Carrie

How To Best Support Your Child’s Development Ages 3-5

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Here are a continuation of some notes I made for my talk for The Waldorf Connection on development and how to best support development in children during the first seven year cycle of life.

Rudolf Steiner said that by the time children learn to speak and walk, formative forces released from the head join those being released in the chest region.  Whether or not this description resonates with you, I think one can see a change evidenced by the vivid memory and wonderful imagination children develop between the ages of two and a half and five. The memory is not ready for academic work at this point; it is emerging.  The child is still learning through imitation and play.

Here are some suggestions for the best ways to support your child’s development in these ages:

  • We must continue our own inner work and personal development; to have clarity in speech and thinking,  and to really SLOW DOWN and not speed up.  Things for this age need to be kept SIMPLE.  If we are not careful as parents, this can be a time where we feel pressured to enroll a child in classes, step up “socialization and enroll in preschool.  I have mentioned before that the age of Waldorf Kindergartens used to start around age four and a half and now is starting younger and younger.  To me, social experiences are wonderful to think seriously about when a child is five, definitely by six. Ages three and four are still very, very little.
  • To provide unconditional love and healthy boundaries.  Boundaries with chances for restitution and even with logical consequences are important for this age.  Boundaries involving YOU taking the child by the hand and essentially saying, “You may not do this but you may do this.”  Using movement and singing and verses and fantasy to help the child meet the boundary.

More notes about this important subject:  First you must be clear what the boundaries in your home really are, and what are the consequences (see more on that below), and what would the restitution be?  And three and four is really, really little, so you are going to have to repeat the movement toward the boundary and what is and is not allowed 500 times before the child really and truly understands it.  Some things also work in phases, and some of the things that drive parents to irritation really will pass.  Draw less individual attention to what you don’t want, but keep drawing the child to what you do what.  Keep striving to act as if you are the Leader in Your Home – because you are, and you must be!

Logical consequences for this age (ages 3 and 4) are not so much “announced”, but just happen as part of tweaking your rhythm throughout the day.  For example, if a small child is just falling apart and hitting you and such, then the small child is obviously tired and does not need to go out and play with the neighborhood children.  You don’t need to announce this so the child goes into another fit of tears, but just do it.  Arrange your afternoon so there is something physically repetitive outside, an early dinner and an early bedtime.    You must step up and be the parent for this age.  It is not being harsh, but guiding your child, because  what a child of this age needs is not always what a child of this age wants.  If you are resolute in what should or should not happen, what the rules in your house are, how people are treated with respect in your house (including yourself!  Are you being treated with respect by the members of your  family?), then it is much easier to hold the space and hold what is RIGHT.  You are showing your child how to be an upright moral human being, you are calmly setting boundaries and you are staying calm when the boundary is pushed against.

  • To provide age appropriate expectations – see all the back posts by age on this blog
  • Sensory protection!! Sleep, warming foods, rhythm, physical movement is all important.  Protection from the stress and anxiety of the parents, protection from  negative world news and screens.
  • Connection – how are you connecting with this child even if they are in a tough developmental phase of disequilibrium?
  • The lower four senses are being developed from birth, but I think especially in this period one must look at the sense of touch, sense of life, the sense of balance and the sense of movement.  Some remedial (Extra Lesson) Waldorf Teachers view excessive unruliness as stemming from a disturbed sense of life/well-being, excessive insecurity as a disturbed sense of touch, and a  lack of inner understanding indicating a disturbed sense of movement and balance. 
  • This is not the age to make children memorize things – building a rich array of language experiences through singing, verses and stories is important and children  obviously will be able to remember things, but to not force memorization.  The basis of learning at this point is experiential; hands-on.  Why we are losing this in US schools when every mainstream childhood development textbook points this out is beyond me.
  • Less talking about things and more doing, matter of fact responses and calm responses to about of bounds behavior and language. 
  • Children of these ages need hours and hours a day outside. You can view the posts on Nokken on this blog regarding the concept of a Forest Kindergarten.
  • Show the child practical work – de-mechanize your home as much as possible; do tasks and figure out what your child can do to help
  • Provide a bit of benign neglect – see back post on benign neglect
  • Help foster creative play – see back posts on fostering creative play
  • What are you doing to nourish yourself?  When are your breaks?  How does your spouse or partner play into this picture?  Are you on the same page?  If your spouse or partner cannot help you, would there be someone in your neighborhood who could come over and be a mother’s helper so you could still be home and yet do what you need to do for a few hours a week?  What artistic and spiritual activities are you doing to nourish yourself each and every week? 

In the fifth year, we also recognize that the child begins (BEGINS!!) to be understand a bit about what is right and what is wrong.  As the adult shows over and over what it means to be an upright human being, then faith develops in that adult.  Faith in an adult induces a feeling of authority, which is very  important as a child moves from the fifth year into the six/seven year transformation and the grades.

The next post will be the last in this series, and it will take a peek at how to support development during the six/seven year change.

Many blessings,

Carrie

How To Best Support Your Child’s Development Ages Birth Through Three

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I spoke last night at The Waldorf Connection regarding development from a Waldorf perspective within the first seven years.  I will be posting some notes on this blog from my talk because I believe it is helpful to hear things more than once and to see it in writing and to hear it.  The next step would be to take a piece of paper and a pen in order to write down your own thoughts and how you would work with some of these concepts in your own family.

Childhood in Waldorf Education  is considered those years of birth through age 21.  The human being is seen as a spiritual being who has come down from spiritual realms and one who takes time to get used to living here on earth; a being who is changing and evolving throughout the lifespan of being human in approximately cycles of seven years.  One can search this blog for a chapter by chapter look at the book “Tapestries” by Betty Staley as to characteristics of each seven year cycle from birth through adulthood.

As Waldorf parents and home educators, we are working with every aspect of the child – body, soul, spirit – as we consider the human being to be a whole three and four-fold human being.  We work with things from the most physical to the most mysterious and strive to be continually conscious of being an upright moral example that the child can imitate. We work  to provide an environment conducive to development, a protected environment for optimal development of the 12 senses and the child, but yet one where the child can develop unhindered.

In the second lecture compiled in “Curative Education”, Steiner talks about The Pedagogical Law in which it is who we are that teaches and educates, that children can perceive the gesture behind our words and how what we do matters more than what we give lip service to (my paraphrasing there, of course.  He says it much more eloquently. Smile).  Steiner lectured about the great responsibility we have as educators of small children (and this of course includes parents, as you are the first teacher of your child!) In “Soul Economy”,  one of my favorite compilations of Steiner’s lectures, Steiner said in the lecture regarding children before the seventh year:  ”Anyone in charge of young children – especially those who work in children’s homes- who is aware of the activity of destiny must ask, Have I been specifically chosen for the important task of guiding and educating these children? And other questions must follow: What must I do to eliminate as far as possible my personal self, so I can leave those in my care unburdened by my subjective nature? How do I act so I do not educate a child toward human freedom? “

These questions begin at birth…… The child comes to us with a head full of wisdom and growth forces that direct the physical body and help mold the physical body. The child imitates everything, and is a large sense organ. Steiner talks in “Kingdom of Childhood” about the affects of anger upon a child and other emotions because the impressions coming from the outer world directly affect the physical constitution of the body – the formation of the inner organs, for example. This is part of Steiner’s work that really unnerves parents because they feel as if they have done everything wrong and carry such guilt. Guilt does not move one forward in parenting, so I advise parents to try to let that go and start from now.

So, back to development..During the first three years, the spirit, soul and body are seen as being in unity and walking, speaking and thinking are unfolding.  First, the child attains an upright position.  And then from that, speech arises in the second year. In helping a child to speak we must be inwardly true, this is the time of TRUTHFULNESS , for those of you who have heard of Steiner’s truth-beauty-goodness. Truthfulness is the foundation of communication, even for infants. In true speech we use adult speech, not baby talk! Thinking then arises out of speech in the third year. Clarity from our own thinking helps our children’s thinking to be developed.

What we can do to support our children birth to three:

Heal our own past; recover from anything in our own childhood that is amiss. What are we modeling to our children and what are we passing on for our future grandchildren? What are our own patterns of behavior, our own reaction to stress.  Create truth in your life by aligning your values throughout every sector of your life.

Create a healthy attachment to your baby and toddler

Strive to work on ourselves in order  that we are worthy of this child to imitate our gestures, our movements, our work. In “Soul Economy”, one thing that Steiner said was, “…the children become perfect mimics and imitators. This imposes a moral duty on adults to be worthy of such imitation, which is far less comfortable than exerting one’s will on a child.”

Other ways to support children during the first three years:

We do not place the child into positions he or she cannot attain on his or her own, because the child is orienting themselves in the world through their upright orientation and their striving for that. Joan Slater talk about this in the book “The Incarnating Child”, this concept of  keeping infants horizontal until they can move into a position by themselves. This is important, because from this challenge and this struggle to attain an upright position and from that upright position comes speech and then thinking.

Protect the senses of the child and establish a rhythm to help support the etheric body of the caregiver and the child. Our growth forces are  tied to that of our small children and it is important that we  build ourselves up through rhythm, through warming foods, through warm clothes, through kind words and speech, through artistic endeavors.

Become a confident parent who can set boundaries with those who seek to undermine your parenting, including yourself if you are prone to negativity and doubt in your parenting.  I think this is key, as many parents today seem to meet parenting with increased anxiety and  fear and stress. In our generation, we really  have to find some way to meet that fear with joy and with love and with humor. We have to find a way to really put out warm thoughts for our children because our children develop from taking in the world and we are the ones creating their world.

Just a few thoughts; take what resonates with you. 

Other posts that may help you in this endeavor are these:

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/10/13/back-to-basics-emotional-and-physical-warmth/

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/10/02/trust-your-intuition/

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/11/07/the-one-year-old/

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/03/22/the-twelve-to-twenty-two-month-old-a-traditional-perspective/

Many blessings to you,

Carrie

Benign Neglect

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Lately I have been receiving emails from mothers who are frustrated with their children’s behaviors and can recount every small thing their child does (or does not do!)  The cycle seems to be a difficult one to break as mother and child get locked into battle positions.

May I suggest something to try? 

Benign neglect.  A tad of benign neglect.  Benign neglect is that art of discernment in parenting; in knowing what really needs your full attention and truly needs to be addressed, but in also knowing what needs to not be seen and what should  have a blind eye on the part of the parent!   It is being fully present yet knowing that the best way to respond at times is not to respond.  For example, the discernment of knowing that your child can come up with a cure for their own boredom, for example,  when you stop drawing such consciousness to it and keep on with your own work whilst being fully present.

Therefore, based upon that, I think one of the best ways to work with benign neglect is rhythm and real work.  Everything does not fall apart when one child falls apart.  That child is loved, but dinner is still served, joy is still there and life is happening, come back and join us, small child.

The other place where benign neglect starts is through your own inner work.   You must carry your own confidence and know that putting every behavior to psychoanalysis is not only unnecessary, but also harmful.   I see so many mothers today putting out fear and anxiety in their parenting.   Sideways parenting through just planting the small seeds of things is ever so much more effective in the long run of parenting.  Think stories, think your own work and space and time.

Give your child space to breathe.  Give them room to make mistakes and to fix those mistakes.  Laugh and find the joy and humor.

Live your life and enjoy it.   Here is a rather old post on the topic of letting go, but I think it still stands:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/11/28/letting-go/

Many blessings,

Carrie

When Your Children Are At Their Worst….

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You need to be at your best.

You need to set the tone.  Quietly.

You need to calm down.

You need to use your hands gently to help.

You need to approach your child in a true manner that shows you actually want to help them.

You need to be able to pass this duty to someone else in your family if you cannot do it right this minute.  This does not mean you have failed, it means you are human.

You need to still be able to love your child, even if you don’t like them this minute.

You need to know this too shall pass.

You need to know life is full of these moments.

You need to know there is no perfect peaceful house.

You need to know that your child is not doing this on purpose.

You need to know your child loves you and wants to connect with you more than anything.

You need to know you are doing your best.

Many blessings today and every day,

Carrie

“Hold On To Your Kids” — Chapter 15

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This chapter is entitled, “Preserve The Ties That Empower”.  I love some of the opening sentences in this chapter:

“Children do not experience our intentions, no matter how heartfelt.  They experience what we manifest in tone and behavior.  We cannot assume that children will know what our priorities are:  we must live our priorities.”

On this blog I have talked time and time again about creating a Family Mission Statement, knowing what your values are and living them.  Your personal life, the life between you and your spouse, the relationship between you and your family members must reflect good morals, dignity and respect if you want your children to possess these qualities.  There is no disconnect in parenting.  If you say your children are the top priority, then make your time with them a priority.  Make your interactions with them a priority and more than a list of “Don’t do that, Little Johnny!” 

Take a view of what it means to raise children long-term, which is really hard when your oldest is a baby, toddler or even preschooler.  You may feel as if the normal developmental things they do will go on forever.  I assure you they won’t!

Spend some time with mothers who have children a bit OLDER than yours.  One thing I see frequently over and over in the attachment community is mothers who have two, three and early four year olds as their oldest child banding together and being together.  There is nothing wrong with that at all, but they have no examples to draw from in parenting older children and when discipline needs to contain not just the connection and re-direction a two year old needs for boundaries and when that style of discipline really needs to shift and include stronger boundaries and different tools.  In fact, I have seen some mothers with more dynamic five, six and seven year olds really be judged in the attachment community by mothers whose oldest children are only two or three years old.  They are not there yet, and they do not understand the six/seven year change nor the nine year change.  They just can’t!  So, do have some friends with older children so you can see what is coming, what connection and boundaries for that age look like and how things look when there are no boundaries. 

The authors remark  that “Trying to parent, to “teach lessons” when we are upset or full of rage risks making the child anxious about the relationship.  We can hardly expect a child to hold on to a connection that, in his eyes, we do not value.”  A child cannot separate himself from your criticism, so do make sure that as often as possible (and yes, we are all HUMAN and STRIVING, so please forgive yourself here) you are approaching the child in a calm manner to help the child, from a place of love.

The authors mention on page 200 that most parents are not perfect and that we may go into reactions that are uncontrolled emotions – but how after this happens we must re-group and re-collect our children.  They also talk about the importance of attachment and how many children need to have a sense that they truly matter.

Structure matters.  “We have two jobs here:  establishing structure that cultivate connection, and restrictions that enfeeble the competition.”  They go to say, “The rules and restrictions should apply to television, computer, telephone, Internet, electronic games, and extracurricular activities. The most obvious restrictions that need to be put in place are those that govern peer interaction, especially the free-style interaction that is not orchestrated by the adults in charge. Unless parents put some restrictions in place, the demand for play dates, get-togethers, sleepovers, and instant messaging soon gets out of hand.”

Many more interesting ideas regarding setting up connection with parents that can replace peer attachment, but I will stop there.  I am interested to hear what you all thought of this chapter!

Many blessings,

Carrie

Peer Relationships For the Six to Eight Year Old

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I have fielded quite a few emails and questions from mothers in my community about this issue, so I finally thought it was time for a blog post on the subject!

The question I get is from mothers who live in a neighborhood with lots of other children zooming about, and how the six year old girl or seven year old boy is all of the sudden very obsessed with playing with these neighborhood friends every minute.

This, by itself, may not be such a problem (I am sure those of you who grew up in neighborhoods, just like me, remember the “neighborhood gang” fondly), but what is happening in these cases is that the six and seven year old is picking up bad language, is acting surly towards their parents, is protesting vehemently when any kind of limit is set forth regarding not being able to go out and play.  Sometimes the neighborhood children are at these mother’s doors the moment the school bus rumbles away.  Sometimes the children of the mothers writing me are just waiting to play and staring at the neighborhood children’s door waiting for any signs of someone being home and therefore ready to play!  Does any of this sound familiar?

I am all for community, but I do feel in this situation one needs to have boundaries for one’s child.  Possibly very strong boundaries.  The peak of this behavior truly can be the seven year old boy and six year old girl, and since children under the age of 9 are prone to “emotional excess”, they may need your help in balancing things out.

I can recommend several things:

1.  Make it clear that playing with friends is dependent upon being nice within the family.  We don’t take the ugly out of the house. Smile 

2.  Some afternoons are “family only” or family outing kind of afternoons.  And after our outing or playing at home, gee, it is time for dinner and getting ready for bed.  We can play with friends tomorrow.  Six to eight year olds are still very little, and the world will not stop turning if they do not play with peers all the time. 

3.  Communicate with the neighborhood children’s parents and work out a sign or signal that your children are available to play whether it is the garage door being up, children being outside, front door open with just screen door shut, etc.  Sadly, sometimes the reason the children are at the door the moment the school bus rumbles away is because there is no one home at their house.  Sometimes this has to be confronted between the adults of the families as well.

4.  Plan things for the children to do before you they move into  free play – I have had success in the past with juicing lots of oranges by hand, taking turns rolling and cutting out gingerbread men, setting up obstacle courses, etc.  In this way we can all work on using kind words, taking turns, using good manners, including all children, before we go off to play on our own.

5.  Look carefully at the children your child is playing with and your child’s behavior afterwards.  There may need to be limits on how often your child plays with particular children, or where they play.  Some friends just play better together outside.  I find this to be especially true with eight year olds who will often take on the “persona” of the oldest child in a grouping and emulate that behavior, so again, limits are key.

6.  Know the families of the children your child is playing with.  Do try to ensure that if your child goes to a neighbor’s house that you know that family well, and that the playdate will not just turn into a screen fest when the children should be out and expending physical energy in the afternoon. 

7.  Do take the time to arrange play time with children of families that have similar values to yours.  Build that community, and pick the activities outside of your home that involve these children.  It may be easier to hang around with the children in the neighborhood (no driving to a park or whatnot), but as children grow they are able to tolerate going out a little bit more, and if your child never spends any time with the children you want to be that child’s community, the children that live closest will always be ranked as better friends in the eyes of the child.

These are just a few suggestions; I would love to hear your experiences in the comment box!

Many blessings,
Carrie

Collecting And Connecting To A Challenging Child

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In our last post, we looked at the four things the authors of “Hold On To Your Kids:  Why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers” outlined in regards to “collecting” our children after separation.  You can see that post here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2011/02/01/hold-on-to-your-kidscollecting-our-children/

I got a wonderful comment on this post that basically stated it didn’t seem as if the steps outlined in this chapter would really work for a child that was either in a truly difficult developmental stage and where parent and child were feeling disconnected or perhaps in a situation where a lot of separation was going on due to life circumstances.

I have a few thoughts about this and I hope if you are in this sort of  situation you will go through these suggestions and take what resonates with you and your family.

  • If you are in the situation where separation is occurring frequently, is there a way to pare things down?  Sometimes families cannot pare it down due to work obligations or school, but if the separation is due to things outside of school and such, perhaps it is worth investigating cutting activities outside the home down.  Can you pare down how many hours you are working outside the home?  Could you possibly homeschool this child to give them extra time at home?  What can you do with extracurricular activities?    Many families will put a stop on sports for part of the year and just enjoy family activities.  Some families will say no activities at the dinner hour.  Perhaps if separation is occurring due to these extra activities, these need to be looked at within the context of the needs of the whole family.  Sometimes we have to give things up in order to gain things.  Simplify.
  • Get out a piece of paper and write down what separation is occurring each day and what happens before the separation and what happens after you and your child are reunited.  What rituals are there around going out the door, or reconnecting after school or work?
  • Do you cook and eat dinner together most nights?  This is really important and well worth the effort.
  • Do you parent your child to sleep?  This is important for all children, but for children nine and older, this may be the ONLY time they open up about their day. It is important to be able to give your child this time.
  • What do you do on weekends?  Is there a family activity one afternoon a week?  Even if children protest, this is an important ritual to establish. It does not have to be expensive, and can involve something as simple as hiking, taking a walk, bathing the dog, having tea.
  • Are you speaking this child’s love language?  Here are the back posts on that: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/06/16/how-to-work-with-the-love-languages-of-children/   and this one:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/06/13/loving-children-in-their-love-language/
  • What kind of language do you use daily with this child?  (https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/08/19/using-our-words-like-pearls/)   Do you connect with this child through your warmth and love throughout the day?  Do you consider yourselves on the same side and maintain your calmness whilst you help your child meet the rules and boundaries of your family?  
  • Boundaries foster security.  If you are being a jellyfish in your family,  (see this back post for an explanation of what a jellyfish is:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/02/10/what-kind-of-family-are-you/) now is your time to stop.  It is not punitive to consider logical consequences for behavior that you would not want your child to do to any relative or friend!
  • If your child is very enmeshed with peers, is there a way to change the scenery?  Is there a way to limit time with peers?
  • If you are going through a rough patch with a child, actually spending more time together and not less is often a key to drawing closer and communicating.  Some mothers I know have even brought their most difficult child home to homeschool with excellent results.
  • Meditate and pray about this child and carry this into your sleep and see what new insights come to you in the morning.  You have the keys to help this child within yourself. You really do!
  • Go slow.  Things are not going to change overnight.  I suggest you look at this as taking at least a six month period.  Write things out on a piece of paper, your plan, and put it into action.  Tweak as you need to, but start small with something tomorrow. 

I would love to hear the experiences of mothers who have survived a difficult period of connection with their child and came out even stronger in the end.  Do you have a story like that to share with us?

Many blessings,

Carrie

The Quiet Beauty of Candlemas

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Every year I am growing to like Candlemas as a holiday more and more.  Our preparations begin the night before Candlemas with prayers celebrating the arrival of Candlemas, that meeting of the New and the Old.

I love what “All Year Round” says in regards to Candlemas (and I know I quote this annually for those of you who have been reading this blog for some years, but I love this quote!).  Authors Ann Druitt, Christine Fynes-Clinton and Marije Rowling write:  “At the beginning of February, when the infant light of spring is greeted thankfully by the hoary winter earth, it seems fitting that we should celebrate a candle Festival to remember that moment when the Light of the World was received into the Temple, when the old yielded to the new.”

 

The above picture is the Presentation of Jesus, the new light of the world, to the old world gone before Him.  I believe Eastern churches sometimes call this day “The Meeting”.  Is that correct, my Orthodox friends?  How lovely.

One way we are celebrating in our home today is with traditional foods.    In the morning, I made apple crepes and for dinner we will have a sunny lentil soup with  tumeric- colored rolls.  We will dip candles this afternoon.  If candle-dipping is new to you, there are instructions in “All Year Round” and my friend Lisa has instructions with pictures on her blog for the preparation.  You can see here:   http://celebratetherhythmoflife.blogspot.com/2011/01/beeswax-candle-dipping-preparation.html

We set up the melted wax at one end of a table and a tall container of cool water at the other.  Once the child dips their wick  in the wax and walks around the table to dip the candle in the cool water, then it is time to dip again.  Over a period  a beautiful candle is born!  We work to keep the candle straight as we go and also to make the base bigger than the top so they can stand freely without falling over.

Here are some back posts I have written about Candlemas with many more ideas:

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/01/29/the-magic-of-candlemas/  and here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/01/10/candlemas-is-coming/

Hope you have a wonderful day celebrating in your home and with your family.

Many blessings,

Carrie

“Hold On To Your Kids”–Collecting Our Children

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So we are up to Chapter 14, “Collecting Our Children”.  Are you excited to get here?  I am!  Connection (to our inner selves and our child)  plus boundaries (along with the tools to help the child meet the boundary)  is what makes discipline hum.  This was actually a very exciting post to write because I think it will really help you put all the pieces of parenting together!

The authors start this chapter by saying, “At the very top of our agenda we must place the task of collecting our children – of drawing them under our wing, making them want to belong to us and with us.  We can no longer assume, as parents in older days could, that a strong early bond between ourselves and our children will endure for as long as we need it.  No matter how great our love or how well intentioned our parenting, under present circumstances we have less margin for error than parents ever had before.  We face too much competition.”

So, the question becomes how we collect our children DAILY and REPEATEDLY.  This fits in so well with Waldorf parenting due to our extensive use of rhythm in parenting.

The authors outline the four steps of the attachment dance:

1.  Get in the child’s face or space in a friendly way.  Evoke smiles, look into their eyes.  With children who are older sometimes the only contact a parent has with these children is when something is going wrong:  it is cited in this book that the average toddler experiences a prohibition every nine minutes to direct them somewhere else.  Then, as children grow past the toddler stage, parents are with children less and less to just be together, to just spend time together and the majority of time is spent on correcting behavior. 

We must collect our children after any separation.   Separation includes not only school or when a parent goes to work, but after a child is occupied in something such as play or reading or homework or spending time with a screen or upon waking up!  How this is done will vary family to family, but start by greeting your children after they have been gone from you, connect with them.  Connect also with the children of your friends and the children in your neighborhood. 

My thought is also that  de-cluttering how many activities your family is involved in outside the home and holding  dear such daily rituals as cooking and eating together will also provide a strong basis for attachment rituals.

2.  Provide something for the child to hold on to emotionally from you – warmth (hmm, another Waldorf principle!  Imagine that!), emotional warmth, attention, interest, listening, a hug or a kiss, a pat on the back or a rub on the head.  Whatever suits that child! “The child must know that she is wanted, special, significant, valued, appreciated, missed, and enjoyed.  For children to fully receive this invitation – to believe it and to be able to hold on to it even when we are not with them physically – it needs to be genuine and unconditional.”

Carrie’s  note here:  This is very important even if you don’t feel like it because your child is in a difficult developmental stage.  Connect with this child, love this child.  Guide this child and hold those boundaries because you are the mature adult with life experience.  If you have the attitude that you are going to raise this child to be a good human being, no matter what, then you will be committed to doing this!  There are many posts on this blog about this. 

The authors write:  “We cannot cultivate connection by indulging a child’s demands, whether for affection, for recognition, or for significance.  Although we can damage the relationship by withholding from a child when he is expressing a genuine need, meeting needs on demand must not be  mistaken for enriching the relationship……This step in the dance is not a response to the child.  It is the act of conceiving a relationship, many times over.”

For children who are insecurely attached, the authors note that this can be exhausting to parents and that “the condundrum is that attention given at the request of the child is never satisfactory:  it leaves an uncertainty that the parent is only responding to demands, not voluntarily giving of himself to the child.  The demands only escalate, without the emotional need underlying them ever being filled.  The solution is to seize the moment, to invite contact exactly when the child is not demanding it. “  I think this is especially effective in situations with blended families with step- children.

3.  Invite dependence.  The authors look at the process of courtship, where one is continually offering help with a polite and happy attitude.  “Can you imagine the effect on wooing if we conveyed the message “Don’t expect me to help you with anything I think you could or should be able to do yourself?”

Dependence begets independence in the right season.  To push separation of a child evokes panic and clinging.

I think one thing the authors do not point out here, though, is looking at this through the lens of normal developmental behavior and what typically comes when, when children are experimenting subconsciously with power and what are developmental wants and what are developmental needs.  Some parents need to have their children become more dependent upon them and need to learn to  respect the older child’s cues for not separating and such, but I also see some parents where the child is ready to separate and needs this, but the parent fails to recognize that the child needs support to try and do things apart from the parent.  I think depending upon the age of the child this can be a fine line and one that a mindful parent must navigate in a very conscious way for the older child.

4.  Act as the child’s compass point.  We must guide our children.  The authors write, “Things have changed too much for us to act as their guides.  It does not take children long to know more than we do about the world of computers and the Internet, about their games and their toys. ….Despite the fact that our world has changed – or, more correctly, because of that fact – it is more important than ever to summon up our confidence and assume our position as the working compass point in our children’s lives.”

The authors, on page 191, have a list of phrases that may help orient a child, such as “Let me show you how this works”  “This is who you need to ask for help”  “You have a special way of…..”  “  You have what it takes to…”

These are the ways I see this step in real life:  showing your child REAL work and how to do things through imitation at first (birth through age 7) and then helping them accomplish real work on their own; finding their strengths and building up their confidence in those areas and using that to help them tackle areas that are more challenging for them; grounding your child in a spiritual life of DOING; orienting them to how you perceive the world through your actions and how you treat family members and people outside of your family.  By being an upright human being yourself – if your personal life is not aligned with how you would want your child to act, then you better change it and show them what being a moral human being means.  There is no disconnect in raising children.

Most of all, the child’s compass points includes boundaries in a loving way with the right tools for the right time.  For all ages, controlling your own anger and using your own maturity to be adult enough to guide the child is imperative.  For all ages, showing the child HOW to make restitution is so important, it is key.  For the under –7 child you have imitation, using your gentle hands to help, singing, rhythm, distraction, stories for a sideways approach, painting pictures with your words and using movement to help you help that child.  For children five and a half or six, you can add more pointed phrases about what needs to happen or not.  For seven and eight year olds, a brief explanation with still much protection from being overstimulated.  For those past the nine year change, a sincere connection, talking, problem-solving.

I hope this chapter really helps you, as a parent, put the pieces of connection and boundaries together to make guiding your child in a gentle and loving manner, a mature manner where you are the adult, a reality. 

All of this is in the striving; we are not all perfect, we have ALL had times as  a parent where we second-guess ourselves or wonder if we are doing the right thing, if we are “messing” our child up for life; yes, we have ALL been there!  But have confidence and joy in your parenting; with connection and boundaries for yourself and your family you will raise a healthy adult!!

Many blessings,

Carrie