Author Archives: Carrie

Struggling

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Sometimes there just really are no words. I look around and see such good people, such wonderful people, struggling.  Maybe they are ill.  Maybe they have financial challenges that are crippling their family. Maybe they are going through a divorce.  Maybe their spouse is in the military and is deployed, or they are all trying to deal with the adjustment that happens when he or she returns home a different person than when they left.

All of us have struggles, from the small baby who struggles to get into crawling and sitting and upright, to the inner struggles of the teenager learning to be the king of his own kingdom to adults who may struggle with depression or addiction.

And yet, we can see the glimmers of beauty.  The smile of a child.  The simple meal on a simple table. Having a new to you coat to wear for the winter.  A beautiful star in a winter sky.

My middle child is a master of this.  She notices the most tiny detail of beauty and never fails to remark upon it.  Look, mama, how beautiful!  And to myself, I think, slow down because my Creator is saying, look, I put this here for you to see, to notice, to have it all sink into your skin, into your bones.

A good lesson for me…and.in the midst of all of this challenge and struggle, I pray.  I look for beauty. And I wait to be awed by the good things, the things that pop up when I least expect it, the miracles that do happen.

When things happen to me, I often take a breath and gently say, “May it be blessed.”   May it be blessed anyway!   It is not my plan, it is hard to watch,  I feel so sad people I know are going through things, what can I do to help them, what will happen?

And yet, may it be blessed.  May there be a glimmer of goodness, of grace, of love, somewhere in all of this.

Be blessed today and every day,

Carrie

Real Life Resources For Children With Challenges

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I just wanted to thank all of you who have been so supportive of my recent postings on children who have challenges in the realm of sensory modulation, and also regarding my postings on our twelve senses.  This work is really important to me as a physical therapist and in how I see the generation of children coming up now who are really struggling in these areas.

Many parents are looking for resources that could be helpful in real life for their children with sensory challenges, children who have been diagnosed along the autistic spectrum, or children who are facing other challenges that are deemed “medical” but as we know from a holistic perspective involve the whole being.

Here are some resources I have been gathering since the workshop I attended on the twelve senses: Continue reading →

“Music And The Brain”–Chapter 6 of “The Well Balanced Child”

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Music is processed at ALL levels of the brain – from heart rate, breathing and arousal to feelings and emotions to visual images and associations- it is all there.

Infants respond to music and imitate rhythm before they even develop speech.  “Nursery rhymes, songs and movement to music can all be used in the first five years to develop other skills in preparation for literacy.  Musical training also helps to develop left-hemispheric abilities such as sound discrimination, timing, numeric skills, and expressive language.  These abilities are essential for the understanding of phonics, and for developing short-term memory in the absence of visual cues.”  Music involves sequencing, and successful tonal memory actually bears a close relationship to reading age.

This could be promising for children with dyslexia.  Several interesting studies were mentioned on pages 79 to 80 of this chapter, including one Danish study that involved 1000 children who used a specific series of frequency-specific music tapes to improve the hearing discrimination and speed of processing.  At the end of one year, there was a 70 percent reduction in the signs of dyslexia in the group.  Continue reading →

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 →

Ten Year Old Girls In The Homeschooling Classroom

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Ha!  Long title, but it reflects exactly what I want to talk about today.  I have been talking to other mothers of nine and ten year old little girls, and it seems we all have a common problem…The nine year old girls seem to either cry and crumple with many of their studies at that age, and the ten year olds do their work but with the pacing of a slug.  Is this happening to anyone else out there?  For those of you with nine and ten year old boys, is the behavior similar or different?

I have found for my ten year old personally, the lessons have to be extremely enlivened.  Art, music, poetry, movement are all exceedingly important to teaching.  Those things are the learning.  Today we practiced fractions through an invention of my dear friend Samantha Fogg who is a dog trainer, by looking at the number of trials our dog got right in different tasks.  What fraction of the trials did she get right?  What fraction did she get wrong?  Can we add fractions across trial tests to garner totals?    At the same time, my first grader painted giant letters with washable tempura paint and a roller, walked the letters, and then walked the letters with our dog, training her to walk on a loose leash and not pull.  This, of course, would not be any kind of a main lesson in a Waldorf school, but in a home environment it was very enlivening and very practical.  I think Rudolf Steiner might have liked it.

However, don’t we always worry?  We think, well surely there also has to be a point, “that something has to get done!”   Not that art, music, poetry, movement, cooking, etc are not “doing something” but that sometimes perhaps just as adults, we like to see something of our own traditional learning background in Main Lesson Book entry and pencils.

It can be easy to get into a very dry two or three day rhythm:  present the material, work with the material artistically, draw in the Main Lesson Book and write a summary and yet this is not all that a Waldorf teacher would do at school and it is not all we should be doing at home. (And I am not suggesting we abandon a two or three day rhythm here – sleep is an integral part of learning in Waldorf Education!  However, I am rallying against only a  Main Lesson Book.  Maybe you do a puppet show as part of your block and it arches over several weeks; maybe cooking over several weeks fits in..etc)

At home, we want to keep things simple.  I think we must face it that by the time we get through a long and complicated opening of verses, songs, poetry, flutes with older and younger children present that someone will need to go to the bathroom, someone will need to eat, someone is crying!  Have you all ever experienced that?  I sure have! Meredith, a sixth grade Waldorf Teacher, has some fine tips here for managing a classroom that I think could work well in the home environment as well: http://www.awaldorfjourney.com/2011/10/managing-the-masses/

But, it is good to keep in mind:  how can this be enlivening?  What needs to go in a Main Lesson Book or is there another way to do this?  And, when do I need to push a bit – does this child really need to complete this artistic presentation, this summary?  Because sometimes it becomes more about life than just the simple lesson.

I also like to go back and review the parts of the Main Lesson on Meredith’s blog:

New Content, the end of a Main Lesson:  http://www.awaldorfjourney.com/2011/01/new-content/

Bookwork/Practice:  http://www.awaldorfjourney.com/2010/12/bookworkpractice/

Recall:  http://www.awaldorfjourney.com/2010/12/recall/

The Warm-Up (the beginning of the Main Lesson):  http://www.awaldorfjourney.com/2010/12/warm-up/

I would love to hear your experiences and thoughts.

Many blessings,
Carrie

Paring Down

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This is the time of year where I always start to just withdraw a bit…the colder air, the darkness, the holidays coming and needing time to prepare….it always causes this shift in me.  Does it in you?

I think about…

Clothing for myself and the children:  what do we really need, what do we really wear?  How much is enough?  If I have just a few outfits, I especially like skirts, and some tops, I am fairly happy.  I find the more clothes my children have, the more overwhelmed they are.  I love paring down clothes.

Clutter.  This is such a good time of year to really go through closets, drawers, and really get things to be neater and simpler before the holidays.

The garden.  What needs pruning, what needs fertilizing, what needs mulching?

The kitchen.   What can I pare down and give away and what will I really need for holiday baking and cooking?

Our schedules.  We often are much better at cleaning up our homes than we are to say no to things in our schedule.  (At least I am!)  But, almost every winter we take breaks from things and honor our need to be home and together, to celebrate that inward journey of Advent.  This year I am making my way through this little book for Advent:  http://www.amazon.com/Monastery-Journey-Christmas-Victor-Antoine-DAvila-Latourrette/dp/0764820818/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320292679&sr=8-1  and want to have the space and time to just be.

It feels good to let go of things, to pare down, to relax and slow down.  Where are you these days?  How are you feeling?

Many blessings,

Carrie

Links To Love

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November is the time of year when I think we could all use a little love, a little light, a little fun…I mean, after all, the days are getting darker, homeschooling has gone on for several months now, and the holidays are coming…

So here are a few links to resonate with your spirit and inspire you:

I really enjoyed Annette’s post here:  http://ourseasonsofjoy.com/musings/nostalgia/  The closest place I can think of right now that is close to what Annette is talking about is www.homespunwaldorf.com because it is not associated with any curriculum provider.  I don’t get over there as often as I would like, but when I am there, folks are friendly and helpful and kind to others and there are reviews of all kinds of Waldorf related books and curriculum, along with good old-fashioned parenting and homeschooling advice.

I love this link about “Imperfection” over at Simple Mom: http://simplemom.net/imperfection/#more-15872  The blogosphere is so odd; folks assume you must be perfect if you have a blog that talks about homeschooling or parenting and yet here we all are: human with our flaws, our quirks, our fallacies.  I have many!   Many!

I thought this post was really inspiring:  http://simplehomeschool.net/sarahs-mistake/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SimpleHomeschool+%28Simple+Homeschool%29

I am sure many of you have seen this article in the NY Times about Waldorf Education: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/technology/at-waldorf-school-in-silicon-valley-technology-can-wait.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

And what could be more inspiring than muffins?  I come back to this recipe again and again:

http://lifesafeast.blogspot.com/2010/02/chocolate-chip-buttermilk-muffins.html

Oh, and I nearly forgot this really important post about the benefits of taking your children to church:  http://charmingthebirdsfromthetrees.blogspot.com/2011/10/take-kids-to-church.html

Anyway, please do link to anything you have found recently that resonated with you or inspired you. I would love to read it!

Many blessings,

Carrie

The Christopherus Questionnaire

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http://surveys.verticalresponse.com/a/show/169523/bc48187947/0

Here is a questionnaire that Christopherus Homeschool Resources Inc is running in order to garner feedback.  If you fill out this free survey, you have a chance to enter a drawing to win one of three twenty-five dollar gift certificates……

http://surveys.verticalresponse.com/a/show/169523/bc48187947/0

Many blessings,

Carrie

Squirrel Fun

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I know much of the Northeastern United States is currently buried under snow and even some power outages, so I feel almost bad for saying that fall is finally here in all its glory in the Southeastern US.

I love fall; I always have.  Crunchy leaves of many splendored colors, smoke rising from chimneys, crisp air and sunshine, squirrels and chipmunks scurrying about, fall foods such as apple, squash, greens and pumpkins!  Oh yes, my favorite time of year!  I am gathering up Thanksgiving recipes and getting ready to start on some holiday crafting as well.

So, in that vein, I wish to bring some fun poetry, verses and movement about squirrels to our homeschooling this week, especially for my sweet little toddler who has finally figured out that not every four legged animal is a doggie like his giant Leonberger!

Here are some squirrel ideas for this week if you would like to play along with me: Continue reading →