Daily Archives: November 7, 2011

Nourishing Your Toddler

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I wrote this post quite a while ago regarding the years of birth through age two and a half or so here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/01/10/getting-children-into-their-bodies-part-one-birth-to-age-2-and-a-half/.  I am still quite happy with this post, but I wanted to add some things here as just gentle food for thought…

Every day, do as much as you can to protect the senses of the small infant and toddler.  We are such an overstimulated society; I think the phrase “eye candy” really sums up how our culture has a visual emphasis.  We practically overdose our senses, especially our sense of sight, on things that are not true to the reality found in nature, the most beautiful and wondrous of our Creator’s work.  If we look about our homes and simplify them into simple scenes where our toddlers can participate in truly meaningful work, where there are simple open ended toys of natural materials, then we have gone a long ways toward promoting the health of our child.

Often we mistake what our small toddler needs and in place of time, space and stability we try to provide new, exciting, stimulating.  Yet, the capacities of our small toddler will flourish with a slow, rhythmic, protected introduction to life.  Develop your own peaceful soul, your own simple ways of being, and your child will be enveloped in this goodness.  Smile at your toddler, love your toddler, tell your toddler every day how strong and helpful they are, wonder and marvel at insects and the sunrise and the wind together.  Your children imitate not only your actions, but your thoughts.  Be brave, be wise, be beautiful!

And work on those lower body senses.  The sense of touch, the sense of life (how do you feel?  Can you even tell if you are not feeling well or do you just ignore that  and move on?), the sense of movement and the sense of balance.

Every day, no matter the weather, spend hours outside in the morning and the afternoon.  There should be opportunities for your toddler to stomp in puddles, in creeks, play in the mud and the sand, walk on forest trails and on the beach, and fully inhabit his home, his yard, his street.  Every day!  Outside time should be the priority for this age, along with meaningful work.

The shift in toddlerhood occurs because toddler energy needs form.  Many mothers will jot down a rhythm to each day the night before.  There must be a plan, and you must be the creator….see this for the wondrous opportunity that it is, and not a burden.  You can do this and it will be just right for you are the expert on your own family.

Many blessings and peace,

Carrie

Musings On The Twelve Senses

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I just attended a weekend of lecture regarding the twelve senses.  As a therapist, this was highly interesting and entertaining to me!  Many people assume there are only five major senses; in physical therapy we tend to work with eight senses; in Waldorf Education we work with twelve senses although there is now a catalog of hundreds of senses.  Our lecturer described the senses much like a tree, with senses coming off of trunks into branches, twigs, twiglets, etc.

The twelve senses can be broken down into three groups of four:  the lower sense of touch, life, movement and balance are often what we should as parents and educators be working on in the Early Years, because they have such strong correlation to the sense we are working so hard to develop in the high school years (the sense of hearing, the sense of word, the sense of thought, the sense of Thou).  In the middle are the middle senses that help us take in our world and mediate between the lower senses that concern our own body and those higher senses that include how we relate to others.  Those higher senses include how we hear and listen to others, how we perceive speech, how we understand the thoughts of others, how we know “Thou” – the others in our life and where we end and they begin.   If all this is new to you, have a peek at this past post:   https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/06/22/the-twelve-senses/

All the senses work together; most functional tasks in life use more than one.  To me, though, touch is a bedrock of so many of these senses and one that so many children have challenges with.  If touch is defined primarily not by the surrounding circumstances that involve other systems (is it hot?  is it cold? etc), but by the experience of “this is where I end, and this is where something else begins”, we can see this connection to the very highest sense of the twelve:  the sense of Thou.  Where do you end?  Where do I begin?  What are the boundaries between us?

This is one of the first senses just assaulted in American society. Continue reading →