Movement For Childhood is having an intensive movement conference in Buffalo, NY in June. You can find out more details about this here: http://www.movementforchildhood.com/intensive.htm. As a physical therapist, I am very interested in this conference! Continue reading
I have had a lovely time so far in the second year of my Foundation Studies in Anthroposophy and The Arts. I feel blessed to be there, and I am excited for our homeschooling group since we have one mother who has already completed her Foundation Studies, there are three of us finishing up this year, and two to four mothers planning to start their Foundation Studies in January. That seems a significant number for our smaller homeschool group, and I think speaks to the dedication of the families within our group to an education based upon Steiner’s curriculum.
As a physical therapist, one of the most joyous things I have found Continue reading
I talk to mothers every, every day who are just plain overwhelmed. They are single or their partners travel, they don’t have a community to lean on, their children are small, they are juggling so many things.
And when you are overwhelmed, you constantly feel scattered. Disorganized. Like there is not enough time. Perhaps you feel enmeshed with one particular child and out of balance in dealing with the needs of all of your multiple children.
I can only write these things as I have lived these things. Life is not perfect, and parenting small children is not for the faint of heart.
The place to start, is yourself. You are the key to your own overwhelm! Continue reading
Here are a few upcoming events that could be helpful to some families. Please take what resonates with you.
One is this free teleconference dealing with Rites of Passages for boys and girls: http://www.ritesofpassageevent.com/. The event runs from October 22 through November 2nd if you are interested in signing up.
Melisa Nielsen sent me a note that A Little Garden Flower is running a bootcamp for planning. You can see the link for that program here: http://waldorfessentials.com/blog/2012/10/planning-bootcamp-pass-it-on/
Here is the link to Suzanne Down’s upcoming book, “The Adventures of Old Gnome Through The Year” : http://junipertreepuppets.com/the-adventures-of-old-gnome-and-frog-from-the-log/ I just love Suzanne Down; if you get a chance to take a class with her, just run to see her! You can access her list of what cities she is visiting and more about her puppetry training course on her home page here: http://junipertreepuppets.com/events/
Many blessings,
Carrie
Did I put as much movement as possible into my Main Lesson?
Did I stir a feeling in my child through the pictures, stories and images I presented?
Did my child put forth effort and work, thereby developing his or her own will?
Did we have fun? Did we laugh? Did I hug my child and love them?
Did I teach my child something new? New can also be nuances on an existing subject or theme…
Did I use sleep as an aid to my teaching? Did I keep reviewing what my child needs to review? One time is not enough!
Did my children and I do something practical for the nurturing care of our home?
Many blessings,
Carrie
We must love our children enough to do what is right for them. This includes our own ability to control ourselves, to display our own self-discipline, our own evenness in times of stress, our own self-equilibrium.
Working on your own emotional boundaries is so important. Continue reading
Dearest Friends,
One of the other topics that I have sincerely thought and pondered during this move is that of the overwhelmed mother. Not the mother who is experiencing chronic anger (which I have written about before ), but the mother who is just overwhelmed. Continue reading
Dearest Friends,
During my time of moving houses, I have had several very important issues swirling about in my head with no opportunity to write them down until tonight. So, you will be seeing some deeply thought and deeply held posts coming from The Parenting Passageway over the next several days.
One thing that I was thinking about fervently was the essential soul tasks of the small child. If you have been a long-time reader of this blog, I hope over the years I have convinced you of the utmost importance of the physical development of the small child through time and space outside. We think of a very tiny child of ages birth through three as struggling through space over time to achieve being upright, then progressing to speech and from speech flowing into thought. During the Early Years, we also develop our twelve senses, and I often think of such things as the awareness of our bodies (what is us? what is others?). This is done through work and also through imaginative play.
But on the soul level, there is a very important task for this age, which is relating to others, and how the child finds their place within a group. The small child’s experiences with trust of others, belonging with others, finding safety and acceptance of others and within others is all part of this experience. So is the reverence that we often cannot fully see until we stand present with another. I have had the wonderful experience of my almost three year old and his very best friend on earth whom I shall call Little Friend. He and Little Friend adore each other; they run to see each other in the utter thrill that only two best friends can share and laugh in joy. They chase “moonbears” (their code name for grasshoppers) through the grass, wonder at each spider web and bug, and show such deep reverence and awe at each step of Creation. It is amazing to watch and it has shown me the deep ability of the small child to love outside of his own immediate family. For some of you, this is a moment of “Duh!” and for some of you this is a moment of thoughtfulness. If you can think back to your smallest days, where did you feel safe? Where did you feel loved? Where did you feel you belong? Where were you part of a community? Did you feel accepted and loved or on the outside? Why? How would you answer these questions about your own children?
I have received three separate emails this week asking about five or five and a half year olds and finding the balance of being home and the need for friends (or not). I think many homeschoolers would say there is no need for interaction outside the family per se; especially perhaps for those with larger families. But for those with smaller families or children who are close to age six with only a baby perhaps to “play” with, the question remains… And then people tell me they have tried to look for community and nothing that resonates with them is available, so what do they do? Do they do classes? How do they meet people? Is playing with a friend once a month or once every few months enough? Continue reading
In Day Nine of “Twenty Days Toward More Mindful Mothering”, we looked at our abilities to set boundaries. And, one thing I really wanted to hammer in was that boundaries work both ways – it is not something that we only set for our children, but something we also set for ourselves. We need to set boundaries on how we handle the emotional things in life, especially the negative emotions in life that people hand us or that we think cause us to feel the way we do, because as we do this we model this for our children. We must help our children rise up out of their own negativity as well, if they have those tendencies, and do that through the boundaries we set on how we allow ourselves to be treated.
A large part of setting boundaries for children is knowing what are the realistic expectations for each age. If you are setting a boundary based upon some idea that the child “should” be able to do this, but the child really is not developmentally capable of this, then this is going to be a problem! It is one thing to help a child rise up to something that are capable of doing, but one must also be realistic and not expect ten year old things out of a three-year old!
This by itself could be a small book, but let’s point out a few highlights for realistic expectation for age three up through age eight in this three-part post!
AGE THREE: Three is very, very little. Very TINY. Say that with me! TINY! According to Waldorf parenting and pedagogy, the first three years are for the establishment for walking (which takes about two and a half years to be a very mature walker without needing the arms for balance, being able to run, stop and start suddenly, etc); then the development of speech and the development of thinking as first seen by use of the term “I”. These are the main goals for the first three years.
Then we start moving into other areas…
Some parents get very upset around the three and a half year mark as children start to exert some will and push against the forms of the day and the rhythms you have crafted. This is very normal. Typical developmental things about the three and a half -year-olds include (this is according to the Gesell Institute, not necessarily my personal opinion!):
Age Three and A Half
We last were talking about boundaries in this post: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2012/08/16/day-nine-of-twenty-days-toward-more-mindful-mothering/
Boundaries are an interesting thing; once attached parents realize that they and their children are not the same person and that boundaries are really necessary, it can be hard for some parents to know what to put boundaries around (hint: if it wouldn’t fly out in public with other adults or children, if it hurts the child or others, if it destroys property, it shouldn’t fly in your home!) and then often even still harder to know how to put the boundary in place without yelling or communicating in other ineffective ways. Knowing developmental phases are really important here, and there are many back posts on The Parenting Passageway about gentle discipline and the “how-to’s” of each age.
But there is another interesting consideration about boundaries, and that is how boundaries are a two-way street: boundaries are not only for the benefit of the child, to help the child grow and mature into the kind of adult we and others would like to be around, but they also model for our children how to place boundaries on the negative energy of other people. How do we deal with anger, guilt, blame from other people, whether it be our children, family members or others? Do we accept and carry it around like a purse or do we know how to set boundaries to keep ourselves sane? It is an important consideration to model this for our children.
If I model for my child that I do not accept a child yelling and screaming AT me with blame, accusation… but that I am so happy to listen when we can talk calmly and without that blame and accusation, then I am showing my child how I deserve to be treated and how we should all treat each other. I am showing that I choose not to accept and carry around the negative emotions of others toward me, but that I will work toward the opportunity of calm problem -solving.
I have a dear friend who talks about how people, and even children, can “machine gun” you down with their emotions – whether that be angry accusations and blame or screeching and wailing and crying and complaining. We want to raise a generation of children who will not be machine gunners. We want to raise a generation of children who can let their emotions out, in an appropriate way, without all the verbal spillage, blame, and anger onto others.
In this regard, I think Non-Violent Communication can be a tool, an inner framework for you, the adult, to use as a model in handling emotion. The verbosity of NVC does not, to me at least, fit well into the developmental framework of the child under the teen-aged years according to Waldorf methodology (and this is a place where you will find Waldorf people with differing opinions, so take what resonates with you). Here is a link to some free resources regarding NonViolent Communication: http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/freeresources/resources.htm
Take some time to meditate on the boundaries you set around yourself, especially emotional boundaries. Being a parent does not mean you become the dumping ground for your family’s emotional negativity. It is okay to have a boundary around that and to implement constructive ways to deal with negative emotions within your family.
Many blessings,
Carrie
The Parenting Passageway 