Author Archives: Carrie

Blog Post Round-Up

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Here are some lovely blog posts that have recently caught my eye:

 

Yours,

Carrie

Other Questions Parents Have About Six/Seven Year Developmental Change

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Parents have many questions about the developmental leaps of the six/seven year old.  A few key points for this age:

I highly suggest you go back to all of these back posts for review as these will most likely cover some of these questions:

For more about the intricacies of peer relationships at this age:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2011/02/05/peer-relationships-for-the-six-to-eight-year-old/

Favorite books for gentle discipline to inspire you:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/11/27/favorite-books-for-gentle-discipline/

Hitting:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/03/28/boys-under-age-7-and-hitting/

Potty words:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/12/20/how-to-handle-potty-talk-in-small-children/

A review of my favorite book for the six/seven year change:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/02/19/a-book-for-parents-of-the-five-to-seven-year-old/

Step Up And Be The Parent

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Just for today, step up and be the parent.

Just for today, stop making excuses and explaining all the reasons things can’t happen in your household and just make it happen. 

Just for today, live your life in accordance with your values in front of your children.

Just for today, model how you want your children to behave.

Just for today, show your children the world is a place of beauty, truth and goodness.

Just for today, have empathy for all the hardships present in growing up.

Just for today, speak to your children kindly, even if they are not speaking kindly to you.

Just for today, get a sense of humor.

Just for today, set boundaries and stick calmly to those boundaries even  if your children don’t like it.

Just for today, be the parent you want to be for the sake of your grandchildren.

Just for today, have fun.

Just for today, step up and be the parent because you are the only parent your children have.

Love to all,

Carrie

How To Best Support Your Child’s Development During The Six/Seven Year Change

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From about five and a half onward, the six/seven year transformation is a time of change. It is can be an overwhelming but profound period for children.  Children at this time are working out of not just imitation, but also with short, simple and clear phrases. They  need to be supported by speaking in pictures to them, not intellectually, and by setting strong boundaries.

During this time, many children often experience the need to be the boss. A “bossy” six year old is pretty typical of this age.  (Alhough I personally think if the child was spoken to as a little adult and given a myriad of choices from early on the bossiness in the six and eight year old years is probably worse than in children who were not parented that way). 

My favorite book on this subject is “You’re Not The Boss of Me: Understanding the Six/Seven Year Transformation” as edited by Ruth Ker and available through Waldorf booksellers.

Here are some ways to best support your child in this challenging phase:

  • Do your  own inner work and personal development.  Your authority and your calm response to things, whether it is door slamming or saying “I hate you, Mommy!” is really, really important.  They do not have equilibrium in this stage and you must have it for them.
  • Matter of fact responses are best:   “Teacher (Mommy) knows the lay of the land.”  “This is my job to help you.”  “You may do x” 
  • Don’t forget though, that movement and imagination and speaking in pictures still predominates – no lectures, no intellectual debates, no reasoning. 
  • Focus more on what you do want, rather than the behavior that is challenging you.  Help guide the child and cue them to what you want.
  • A strong rhythm is important, even if they are fighting against it.  You do the things in your rhythm.
  • Practical work is paramount at this time as the children are in a crisis in play.  You may need to sit down and plan longer projects, and really figure out where they can help alongside of you.  Here is a great article regarding work in the Waldorf Kindergarten written by an Atlanta colleague and friend, Karen Smith:  http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/purposefulwork%20doc.pdf
  • Assisting younger children is also helpful
  • Loving authority and boundaries—authority is demonstrated through knowing how to do something and through our calm and unruffled presence.
  • Manners are another way to provide form and boundaries for children.  Manners are very important to bring to the child gradually, through modeling, through treating the child respectfully.  Here is a lovely blog post from over at Christopherus pertaining to small children and manners:   http://christopherushomeschool.typepad.com/blog/2008/03/helping-little.html
  • Spending time in nature so the child can soak in quiet impressions is important.
  • Sleep, rest, warming foods are anchors for the day.
  • Love your child, be with your child, enjoy your child.

Many blessings,

Carrie

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