Author Archives: Carrie

Kimberly’s Story: “Growing Into Motherhood”

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I come to you today with joy in my heart as some of my long-term readers have agreed to share with you, dear reader, their own unique perspective and journey as they have grown and changed and developed into being a mother. Our second story in this series comes from Kimberly.  This is her story and journey for your inspiration:

 

Last week I felt like a new mom again. I hadn’t given birth or adopted another child; I simply found myself parenting in a situation I had never been in before and  in the moment everything I tried to do was failing. Puberty has begun for my oldest and as I tried to help him through an emotional storm I found myself feeling every bit as helpless as I did when I first had a newborn in the house.

Later I sat and reflected and asked myself what my child needed from me and the
answer was the same as it always has been. Presence. Not just physical presence,
but emotional presence.

I used to think that the three most important things in parenting and homeschooling were environment, rhythm, and health, and I still think they are significant tools for peaceful and joyful parenting, but I’ve come to see presence as being the most important gift to give my children. It has also been the very hardest lesson for me to learn. Continue reading →

“Growing Into Motherhood”–Tanya’s Story

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I come to you today with joy in my heart as some of my long-term readers have agreed to share with you, dear reader, their own unique perspective and journey as they have grown and changed and developed into being a mother. Our first story in this series comes from Tanya.  This is her story and journey for your inspiration:

 

Growing up, I had always said I didn’t want to have kids.  It wasn’t that I thought children were loud or messy or inconvenient, I just had no idea how to deal with kids.  They confused me and left me feeling nervous.  What do I do, what do I say?  So I thought that meant I wouldn’t be a good mother.  After all, aren’t you supposed to have that innate mothering nature?  So my plans were to go to college and pursue a professional career, one that didn’t seem “suited” to having children anyways. 

 

Then I met my future husband and everything changed.  Continue reading →

“The Well-Balanced Child”–Introduction and Chapter One

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We are up to the Introduction and Chapter One of our new book study. Is everyone reading along?  This is interesting stuff!

 

The author writes that when her children were growing up, she was searching for information on not just child development and the practical advice for parenting that stemmed from child development, but HOW nature and nurture work together to produce skills that are unique to each human being. Continue reading →

Need Homeschool Planning Ideas? A New Forum

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There is a relatively new forum called “Homespun Waldorf”, put together and run by a group of experienced homeschooling mothers.  I don’t get to personally participate a lot due to time restraints, but I have noticed many threads zooming around on there about combining grades and how to do it from veteran homeschooling mothers.  It may be helpful to some of you who are thinking that you need to teach separate main lesson blocks for everyone in your family; that truly is not the case.  The number of children in your family is akin to the social environment created in a school classroom; you really can get to know your family and what will work best for them all as a group and as individuals.  Homeschooling rarely looks like it does in a school setting.  We are at home.  Our homeschooling experience is first and foremost about family, about the things that unify us as a family in love, the activities we do as a family… and the learning in love as well, of course. 

 

At any rate, without further ado, here is the link so you can join yourself: 

www.homespunwaldorf.com

 

Kudos to Sarah for starting this and to all the volunteers who keep it running!

 

Hope that helps some of you who are planning,

Carrie

Three Books of Import–Christian Book Reviews

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I am back doing less work and projects right now, and more reading.  I recently finished “Making God Real in the Orthodox Christian Home” by Fr. Anthony Coniaris, which was lent to me by a dear local friend.    Thank you, dear friend.

 

There is something so peaceful and soothing about this book.  When I get bogged down in “what is this all about – parenting, homeschooling, juggling all these balls in the air” – this book reminds me:  “the primary lesson for children is to know the eternal God, the One Who gives everlasting life” (St. Clement).  A balm for the mothering soul, and such a great simplifying thought. Continue reading →

Angry- Yell- Cry-Repeat

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Have you all ever been in that sort of cycle with a child?  Maybe the child gets really angry, you get angry and  yell, the child yells, it all comes to a head, you both cry, but the cycle repeats.  So many mothers I talk to feel sad, feel guilty, and can’t understand why things have to “come to that “ in order to really communicate with their child.  Mothers also feel most guilty when they have things going on within their families, adult things, and the stress of what is going on comes out in the way they deal with their child’s behavior. Continue reading →

Gaining Clarity

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I am back from vacation.  Did you all miss me?  I am feeling grateful and gracious these days (more about that in a later post), but I wanted to talk about what I did on my vacation:  I kept silent quite a bit, I prayed, and I thought.

It doesn’t sound super exciting, does it?  But it was, to me, a time and a moment to gain clarity over several issues that I have been wrestling with this summer.  In some ways, this summer has been a Summer of Muddled Thought, of transformation and growth to be sure,  but at times perplexing and challenging and just muddy.  I guess it really has just been an extension of “The Overwhelming  Year”, if you all remember that post and its follow-up post.

I had two things that really came together this past week and juxtaposed themselves on top of each other. I love it when life does that, don’t  you?

The first thing  was regarding this practice of silence.  Continue reading →

This Blog Is On Vacation…

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Or will be as soon as this is published.  Smile  I hope you all have a blessed and wonderful week of summer, and I will see you back soon!

In the meantime, if you would like to drop me a comment as to things you would like to see addressed in future posts, please feel free to do so.

Many blessings,

Carrie

This Could Be My Favorite Post

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…. ( A reader alerted me on 11/7/2012 that this link didn’t work and she couldn’t find the original post.  On quick search I couldn’t either, but this post is similar: http://www.elizabethfoss.com/reallearning/2012/08/lets-talk-about-learning-with-little-ones.html   Enjoy!)

,,,,of all the things Elizabeth Foss has written.  Go and check it out!

http://www.elizabethfoss.com/reallearning/2011/07/lets-talk-about-learning-with-little-ones.html

 

How is that for lovely heading into the weekend?

Many blessings,
Carrie

The Foreword of “The Well Balanced Child: Movement and Early Learning”

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Our new book study is here!  We will be going through Sally Goddard Blythe’s “The Well Balanced Child: Movement and Early Learning”

The foreword to the book begins by stating this book is written by a therapist (Goddard Blythe is a physiological psychologist), and is an exploration of the “age-old truth “Sound body, sound mind”, and explains why early movement is vital for developing sound balance as well as the interrelated and dependent foundations for normal or sound language, learning, cognition, and affect.”

Harold Levinson, the MD who wrote this foreword, states that his research in 1973 was the first to understand “that the many and diverse symptoms characterizing dyslexia and related learning, sensory-motor, attention deficit, and anxiety or phobic disorders were caused by medically diagnosable and treatable  signal –scrambling dysfunction within the inner ear and its “super-computer”, the cerebellum…” and states that this book will be helpful to parents and professionals interested in children.

The guest introduction by Ewout Van-Manen talks about how difficult parenting is these days due to a lack of community, the lack of practical task for children to participate in, and how mothers today are divided between working and motherhood..and not to mention those conflicting books, articles and media reports of “how-to” parent.

“How do we sort through, and make sense of, this information in order to be in a position to make informed decisions as to what is best for our children?  Clearly, the best way to begin is to look at these issues is by looking at general child development.  It is only by understanding child development and by observing the children in our care that we can begin to be in a position to make appropriate, informed judgements and decisions”  .

 

On page xv:  “A society that does not promote the sensory development of its younger generation is at the same time diminishing its overall intellectual capacity.”

On to the author’s introduction to the book and Chapter One in our next book post!  Is everyone excited?

Many blessings,
Carrie