Author Archives: Carrie

Peer Relationships For the Six to Eight Year Old

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I have fielded quite a few emails and questions from mothers in my community about this issue, so I finally thought it was time for a blog post on the subject!

The question I get is from mothers who live in a neighborhood with lots of other children zooming about, and how the six year old girl or seven year old boy is all of the sudden very obsessed with playing with these neighborhood friends every minute.

This, by itself, may not be such a problem (I am sure those of you who grew up in neighborhoods, just like me, remember the “neighborhood gang” fondly), but what is happening in these cases is that the six and seven year old is picking up bad language, is acting surly towards their parents, is protesting vehemently when any kind of limit is set forth regarding not being able to go out and play.  Sometimes the neighborhood children are at these mother’s doors the moment the school bus rumbles away.  Sometimes the children of the mothers writing me are just waiting to play and staring at the neighborhood children’s door waiting for any signs of someone being home and therefore ready to play!  Does any of this sound familiar?

I am all for community, but I do feel in this situation one needs to have boundaries for one’s child.  Possibly very strong boundaries.  The peak of this behavior truly can be the seven year old boy and six year old girl, and since children under the age of 9 are prone to “emotional excess”, they may need your help in balancing things out.

I can recommend several things:

1.  Make it clear that playing with friends is dependent upon being nice within the family.  We don’t take the ugly out of the house. Smile 

2.  Some afternoons are “family only” or family outing kind of afternoons.  And after our outing or playing at home, gee, it is time for dinner and getting ready for bed.  We can play with friends tomorrow.  Six to eight year olds are still very little, and the world will not stop turning if they do not play with peers all the time. 

3.  Communicate with the neighborhood children’s parents and work out a sign or signal that your children are available to play whether it is the garage door being up, children being outside, front door open with just screen door shut, etc.  Sadly, sometimes the reason the children are at the door the moment the school bus rumbles away is because there is no one home at their house.  Sometimes this has to be confronted between the adults of the families as well.

4.  Plan things for the children to do before you they move into  free play – I have had success in the past with juicing lots of oranges by hand, taking turns rolling and cutting out gingerbread men, setting up obstacle courses, etc.  In this way we can all work on using kind words, taking turns, using good manners, including all children, before we go off to play on our own.

5.  Look carefully at the children your child is playing with and your child’s behavior afterwards.  There may need to be limits on how often your child plays with particular children, or where they play.  Some friends just play better together outside.  I find this to be especially true with eight year olds who will often take on the “persona” of the oldest child in a grouping and emulate that behavior, so again, limits are key.

6.  Know the families of the children your child is playing with.  Do try to ensure that if your child goes to a neighbor’s house that you know that family well, and that the playdate will not just turn into a screen fest when the children should be out and expending physical energy in the afternoon. 

7.  Do take the time to arrange play time with children of families that have similar values to yours.  Build that community, and pick the activities outside of your home that involve these children.  It may be easier to hang around with the children in the neighborhood (no driving to a park or whatnot), but as children grow they are able to tolerate going out a little bit more, and if your child never spends any time with the children you want to be that child’s community, the children that live closest will always be ranked as better friends in the eyes of the child.

These are just a few suggestions; I would love to hear your experiences in the comment box!

Many blessings,
Carrie

Collecting And Connecting To A Challenging Child

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In our last post, we looked at the four things the authors of “Hold On To Your Kids:  Why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers” outlined in regards to “collecting” our children after separation.  You can see that post here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2011/02/01/hold-on-to-your-kidscollecting-our-children/

I got a wonderful comment on this post that basically stated it didn’t seem as if the steps outlined in this chapter would really work for a child that was either in a truly difficult developmental stage and where parent and child were feeling disconnected or perhaps in a situation where a lot of separation was going on due to life circumstances.

I have a few thoughts about this and I hope if you are in this sort of  situation you will go through these suggestions and take what resonates with you and your family.

  • If you are in the situation where separation is occurring frequently, is there a way to pare things down?  Sometimes families cannot pare it down due to work obligations or school, but if the separation is due to things outside of school and such, perhaps it is worth investigating cutting activities outside the home down.  Can you pare down how many hours you are working outside the home?  Could you possibly homeschool this child to give them extra time at home?  What can you do with extracurricular activities?    Many families will put a stop on sports for part of the year and just enjoy family activities.  Some families will say no activities at the dinner hour.  Perhaps if separation is occurring due to these extra activities, these need to be looked at within the context of the needs of the whole family.  Sometimes we have to give things up in order to gain things.  Simplify.
  • Get out a piece of paper and write down what separation is occurring each day and what happens before the separation and what happens after you and your child are reunited.  What rituals are there around going out the door, or reconnecting after school or work?
  • Do you cook and eat dinner together most nights?  This is really important and well worth the effort.
  • Do you parent your child to sleep?  This is important for all children, but for children nine and older, this may be the ONLY time they open up about their day. It is important to be able to give your child this time.
  • What do you do on weekends?  Is there a family activity one afternoon a week?  Even if children protest, this is an important ritual to establish. It does not have to be expensive, and can involve something as simple as hiking, taking a walk, bathing the dog, having tea.
  • Are you speaking this child’s love language?  Here are the back posts on that: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/06/16/how-to-work-with-the-love-languages-of-children/   and this one:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/06/13/loving-children-in-their-love-language/
  • What kind of language do you use daily with this child?  (https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/08/19/using-our-words-like-pearls/)   Do you connect with this child through your warmth and love throughout the day?  Do you consider yourselves on the same side and maintain your calmness whilst you help your child meet the rules and boundaries of your family?  
  • Boundaries foster security.  If you are being a jellyfish in your family,  (see this back post for an explanation of what a jellyfish is:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/02/10/what-kind-of-family-are-you/) now is your time to stop.  It is not punitive to consider logical consequences for behavior that you would not want your child to do to any relative or friend!
  • If your child is very enmeshed with peers, is there a way to change the scenery?  Is there a way to limit time with peers?
  • If you are going through a rough patch with a child, actually spending more time together and not less is often a key to drawing closer and communicating.  Some mothers I know have even brought their most difficult child home to homeschool with excellent results.
  • Meditate and pray about this child and carry this into your sleep and see what new insights come to you in the morning.  You have the keys to help this child within yourself. You really do!
  • Go slow.  Things are not going to change overnight.  I suggest you look at this as taking at least a six month period.  Write things out on a piece of paper, your plan, and put it into action.  Tweak as you need to, but start small with something tomorrow. 

I would love to hear the experiences of mothers who have survived a difficult period of connection with their child and came out even stronger in the end.  Do you have a story like that to share with us?

Many blessings,

Carrie

The Quiet Beauty of Candlemas

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Every year I am growing to like Candlemas as a holiday more and more.  Our preparations begin the night before Candlemas with prayers celebrating the arrival of Candlemas, that meeting of the New and the Old.

I love what “All Year Round” says in regards to Candlemas (and I know I quote this annually for those of you who have been reading this blog for some years, but I love this quote!).  Authors Ann Druitt, Christine Fynes-Clinton and Marije Rowling write:  “At the beginning of February, when the infant light of spring is greeted thankfully by the hoary winter earth, it seems fitting that we should celebrate a candle Festival to remember that moment when the Light of the World was received into the Temple, when the old yielded to the new.”

 

The above picture is the Presentation of Jesus, the new light of the world, to the old world gone before Him.  I believe Eastern churches sometimes call this day “The Meeting”.  Is that correct, my Orthodox friends?  How lovely.

One way we are celebrating in our home today is with traditional foods.    In the morning, I made apple crepes and for dinner we will have a sunny lentil soup with  tumeric- colored rolls.  We will dip candles this afternoon.  If candle-dipping is new to you, there are instructions in “All Year Round” and my friend Lisa has instructions with pictures on her blog for the preparation.  You can see here:   http://celebratetherhythmoflife.blogspot.com/2011/01/beeswax-candle-dipping-preparation.html

We set up the melted wax at one end of a table and a tall container of cool water at the other.  Once the child dips their wick  in the wax and walks around the table to dip the candle in the cool water, then it is time to dip again.  Over a period  a beautiful candle is born!  We work to keep the candle straight as we go and also to make the base bigger than the top so they can stand freely without falling over.

Here are some back posts I have written about Candlemas with many more ideas:

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/01/29/the-magic-of-candlemas/  and here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/01/10/candlemas-is-coming/

Hope you have a wonderful day celebrating in your home and with your family.

Many blessings,

Carrie

“Hold On To Your Kids”–Collecting Our Children

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So we are up to Chapter 14, “Collecting Our Children”.  Are you excited to get here?  I am!  Connection (to our inner selves and our child)  plus boundaries (along with the tools to help the child meet the boundary)  is what makes discipline hum.  This was actually a very exciting post to write because I think it will really help you put all the pieces of parenting together!

The authors start this chapter by saying, “At the very top of our agenda we must place the task of collecting our children – of drawing them under our wing, making them want to belong to us and with us.  We can no longer assume, as parents in older days could, that a strong early bond between ourselves and our children will endure for as long as we need it.  No matter how great our love or how well intentioned our parenting, under present circumstances we have less margin for error than parents ever had before.  We face too much competition.”

So, the question becomes how we collect our children DAILY and REPEATEDLY.  This fits in so well with Waldorf parenting due to our extensive use of rhythm in parenting.

The authors outline the four steps of the attachment dance:

1.  Get in the child’s face or space in a friendly way.  Evoke smiles, look into their eyes.  With children who are older sometimes the only contact a parent has with these children is when something is going wrong:  it is cited in this book that the average toddler experiences a prohibition every nine minutes to direct them somewhere else.  Then, as children grow past the toddler stage, parents are with children less and less to just be together, to just spend time together and the majority of time is spent on correcting behavior. 

We must collect our children after any separation.   Separation includes not only school or when a parent goes to work, but after a child is occupied in something such as play or reading or homework or spending time with a screen or upon waking up!  How this is done will vary family to family, but start by greeting your children after they have been gone from you, connect with them.  Connect also with the children of your friends and the children in your neighborhood. 

My thought is also that  de-cluttering how many activities your family is involved in outside the home and holding  dear such daily rituals as cooking and eating together will also provide a strong basis for attachment rituals.

2.  Provide something for the child to hold on to emotionally from you – warmth (hmm, another Waldorf principle!  Imagine that!), emotional warmth, attention, interest, listening, a hug or a kiss, a pat on the back or a rub on the head.  Whatever suits that child! “The child must know that she is wanted, special, significant, valued, appreciated, missed, and enjoyed.  For children to fully receive this invitation – to believe it and to be able to hold on to it even when we are not with them physically – it needs to be genuine and unconditional.”

Carrie’s  note here:  This is very important even if you don’t feel like it because your child is in a difficult developmental stage.  Connect with this child, love this child.  Guide this child and hold those boundaries because you are the mature adult with life experience.  If you have the attitude that you are going to raise this child to be a good human being, no matter what, then you will be committed to doing this!  There are many posts on this blog about this. 

The authors write:  “We cannot cultivate connection by indulging a child’s demands, whether for affection, for recognition, or for significance.  Although we can damage the relationship by withholding from a child when he is expressing a genuine need, meeting needs on demand must not be  mistaken for enriching the relationship……This step in the dance is not a response to the child.  It is the act of conceiving a relationship, many times over.”

For children who are insecurely attached, the authors note that this can be exhausting to parents and that “the condundrum is that attention given at the request of the child is never satisfactory:  it leaves an uncertainty that the parent is only responding to demands, not voluntarily giving of himself to the child.  The demands only escalate, without the emotional need underlying them ever being filled.  The solution is to seize the moment, to invite contact exactly when the child is not demanding it. “  I think this is especially effective in situations with blended families with step- children.

3.  Invite dependence.  The authors look at the process of courtship, where one is continually offering help with a polite and happy attitude.  “Can you imagine the effect on wooing if we conveyed the message “Don’t expect me to help you with anything I think you could or should be able to do yourself?”

Dependence begets independence in the right season.  To push separation of a child evokes panic and clinging.

I think one thing the authors do not point out here, though, is looking at this through the lens of normal developmental behavior and what typically comes when, when children are experimenting subconsciously with power and what are developmental wants and what are developmental needs.  Some parents need to have their children become more dependent upon them and need to learn to  respect the older child’s cues for not separating and such, but I also see some parents where the child is ready to separate and needs this, but the parent fails to recognize that the child needs support to try and do things apart from the parent.  I think depending upon the age of the child this can be a fine line and one that a mindful parent must navigate in a very conscious way for the older child.

4.  Act as the child’s compass point.  We must guide our children.  The authors write, “Things have changed too much for us to act as their guides.  It does not take children long to know more than we do about the world of computers and the Internet, about their games and their toys. ….Despite the fact that our world has changed – or, more correctly, because of that fact – it is more important than ever to summon up our confidence and assume our position as the working compass point in our children’s lives.”

The authors, on page 191, have a list of phrases that may help orient a child, such as “Let me show you how this works”  “This is who you need to ask for help”  “You have a special way of…..”  “  You have what it takes to…”

These are the ways I see this step in real life:  showing your child REAL work and how to do things through imitation at first (birth through age 7) and then helping them accomplish real work on their own; finding their strengths and building up their confidence in those areas and using that to help them tackle areas that are more challenging for them; grounding your child in a spiritual life of DOING; orienting them to how you perceive the world through your actions and how you treat family members and people outside of your family.  By being an upright human being yourself – if your personal life is not aligned with how you would want your child to act, then you better change it and show them what being a moral human being means.  There is no disconnect in raising children.

Most of all, the child’s compass points includes boundaries in a loving way with the right tools for the right time.  For all ages, controlling your own anger and using your own maturity to be adult enough to guide the child is imperative.  For all ages, showing the child HOW to make restitution is so important, it is key.  For the under –7 child you have imitation, using your gentle hands to help, singing, rhythm, distraction, stories for a sideways approach, painting pictures with your words and using movement to help you help that child.  For children five and a half or six, you can add more pointed phrases about what needs to happen or not.  For seven and eight year olds, a brief explanation with still much protection from being overstimulated.  For those past the nine year change, a sincere connection, talking, problem-solving.

I hope this chapter really helps you, as a parent, put the pieces of connection and boundaries together to make guiding your child in a gentle and loving manner, a mature manner where you are the adult, a reality. 

All of this is in the striving; we are not all perfect, we have ALL had times as  a parent where we second-guess ourselves or wonder if we are doing the right thing, if we are “messing” our child up for life; yes, we have ALL been there!  But have confidence and joy in your parenting; with connection and boundaries for yourself and your family you will raise a healthy adult!!

Many blessings,

Carrie

Guest Post: What’s The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Child?

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Wonderful Raelee Peirce from over at  http://www.noblemother.com/             wrote this in response to reading an article by Dr. Gabor Mate.  Dr. Mate, as many of you may recognize, is one of the co- authors of The Parenting Passageway’s featured book we are studying:  “Hold On To Your Kids:  Why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers.”

You can see more about Raelee and her journey here:  http://www.noblemother.com/raelee/   These are Raelee’s powerful words about parenting and the best thing that you can do for your child.

What’s The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Child?

By Raelee Peirce

Our choices for our children have positive and negative consequences.  Sometimes we are more aware of these consequences than other times.  We simply do not always know the impact of everything we do in nurturing to the best of our ability. 

Therefore, it is my belief that mothering is a completely unique responsibility.  I feel like I am constantly stretching and growing spiritual qualities of patience, flexibility, assertiveness, and self-discipline.

I work every day at learning ways to make parenting less stressful for myself and for my clients.  It has been so rewarding to find small ways to incorporate simplicity into our lives.  I am learning to balance the active moments and days with more low-key moments and days.  Lighting a candle for prayers or for a meal can bring a peaceful tone to an otherwise tense activity. Storytelling with my kids brings us closer together and keeping to a regular bedtime rhythm provides a familiar predictability to our days.

So when I read this article by Dr. Gabor Mate…
Trauma: How We’ve Created a Nation Addicted to Shopping, Work, Drugs and Sex….Post-industrial capitalism has completely destroyed the conditions required for healthy childhood development.
http://www.alternet.org/story/149325/trauma:_how_we%27ve_created_a_nation_addicted_to_shopping,_work,_drugs_and_sex/?page=entire
…over this past weekend, I felt like jumping up and down in complete joy. 

Joy for my work in simplicity and joy for us as mothers who have made difficult choices in order to nurture our babies.  In today’s modern times, intuition and spiritual understanding are appreciated but not revered as much as science.  Well, it is with pleasure and amazement and excitement that I share with you the science in this article that validates what we intuitively have known all along – our babies need their mamas and we need to live in a cultural climate – a climate where the attitude, expectations, and social services – provide mothers with emotional and financial support in order to nurture their own babies.

As a parent coach I have heard personal stories of moms who are isolated, lonely, unsupported and left questioning their decision to stay home or go to work.  Dr. Mate explains that this isolation is not optimal for us and is a new phenomenon…
"The normal basis for child development has always been the clan, the tribe, the community, the neighborhood, the extended family. Essentially, post-industrial capitalism has completely destroyed those conditions. People no longer live in communities which are still connected to one another. People don’t work where they live. They don’t shop where they live. The kids don’t go to school, necessarily, where they live. The parents are away most of the day. For the first time in history, children are not spending most of their time around the nurturing adults in their lives. And they’re spending their lives away from the nurturing adults, which is what they need for healthy brain development."

So many parents feel forced to spend time away from their babies and young children because of the tough economic situation of our day.  I feel that burn on a very personal level.  My husband and I are currently both working from home due to the tough job market.  As a result, many families live with a great deal of stress in order to make ends meet. 

Certainly all parents are interested in supporting the healthy brain development of their children. Interestingly, a calm brain is a healthy brain.  In the article Mate says that stressful parenting and time away from mothers is changing the chemical make-up of our baby’s brains.
…"dopamine is simply an essential life chemical. Without it, there’s no life. Mice in a laboratory who have no dopamine will starve themselves to death, because they have no incentive to eat. Even though they’re hungry, and even though their life is in danger, they will not eat, because there’s no motivation or incentive.  And if you actually look at how the dopamine levels in a brain develop, if you look at infant monkeys and you measure their dopamine levels, and they’re normal when they’re with their mothers, and when you separate them from mothers, the dopamine levels go down within two or three days."

The cultural understanding that thrives in America is that our babies are fine and that they will adjust without us.  Mate believes that the rise in ADD, ADHD, Autism, behavior defiance, and addiction is not genetic.  He has found that these disorders are increasing because stress has increased for parents and kids, lowering dopamine levels.  Unfortunately, our society’s response to this isn’t to support families, mothers, babies – it’s to find a drug that will increase the dopamine levels.  But whether a child is put on these drugs or not, children need emotional connection regardless. By de-stressing ourselves and the lives of our babies and children, new positive pathways are developed in the brain and dopamine levels can rise, naturally.

Our children in our country are suffering from lack of emotional connection.  We lack rhythm and downtime which allow children to unfold into growing into their true selves.  As a result, there is an increase in children being diagnosed and labeled and at the very least making their parents feel crazy with their "misbehavior." 

Mate points out that "yes, a lot of children are acting out, but it’s not bad behavior. It’s a representation of emotional losses and emotional lacks in their lives. And whether it’s, again, bullying or a whole set of other behaviors, what we’re dealing with here is childhood stunted emotional development—in some cases, stunted pain development. And rather than trying to control these behaviors through punishments, or even just exclusively through medications, we need to help these kids develop."

 

It’s no mystery – many parents are stressed, most children are stressed living in these modern times of too much stuff, too many activities, too much information, too much screen time — all of which pulls us away from the one thing that can make it better – each other.

Let’s acknowledge that time with our babies and children is time that is not wasted.  It is richly valuable.  The home environment is a space to create warmth, love, patience, calm – for the sake of our children’s developing brains. "…which circuits develop and which don’t depend very much on environmental input. When people are mistreated, stressed or abused, their brains don’t develop the way they ought to. It’s that simple…And the essential condition for the physiological development of these brain circuits that regulate human behavior, that give us empathy, that give us a social sense, that give us a connection with other people, that give us a connection with ourselves, that allows us to mature—the essential condition for those circuits, for their physiological development, is the presence of emotionally available, consistently available, non-stressed, attuned parenting caregivers."

I think motherhood today can be completely characterized as overwhelming and stressful.  I firmly believe because we collectively have been convinced that a "good" mom juggles a high power career and/or "gives up" her career to be home, makes organic meals, knits hats and sews their child’s birthday goodie bags, and still has time to respond effectively to tantrums, not to mention be somehow connected to her spouse, that there’s no question why parenting today is stressful.

The more that I know and understand, the better choices I can make.  It doesn’t make the choices easy – but I do have more clarity and conviction. 
"The child’s brain development depends on the presence of non-stressed, emotionally available parents."

I want the cultural climate to change.  This article validates a formula like Simplicity Parenting  ( http://www.simplicityparenting.com/)  as a formula that families can apply in order to find the calm connection each of us craves.

It is not my intention to share this message with you so you can become riddled with guilt or anger.  My intention is for us to learn and grow together.  What are we doing right and what do we need to improve upon for ourselves, and as a result, for the next generation of mothers? 

Certainly we want our children to appreciate education, to go as far as they are motivated, to find financial success, to be content, inspired, passionate about life.  Can we also instill in them a deeper understanding of the critical role they play in the healthy development and happiness of their own children?

I’m not a politician and I don’t want to be.  I think change begins first in me.  The more all of us stand up and advocate for the well-being of our babies, the more things will begin to shift.  We are a powerful force when we stand together. 

The most important thing you can do right now for your child is to reduce the stress in your own life and consequently, the life of your child.  When your child receives unstressed parenting he/she is able to optimally develop.

________________________________________________

Thank you Raelee! 

Many blessings to you all,

Carrie

In These Dark Days

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January can be such a difficult month in parenting.  The days can be dark and long.  Much of the U.S. has been under sub-zero temperatures, and that can make days with small children rather long indeed.  This can be the kind of month where mothers are feeling tired, cranky, even depressed or overwhelmed.

This is a good month to focus on the importance of warmth: warm thoughts, warm deeds, warm and gentle hands, quiet voices, warm clothing, warm foods. 

This is a good month to make sure you, Mama, are at  your peak physical and mental health.  Get those Vitamin D and thyroid levels checked; get screened for depression if you think that may be a possibility; menu plan for nourishing food.

This is a good month to tweak your rhythm or change it entirely.  What will your older child do whilst your younger one is trying to go to sleep?  What will you do to get out physical energy if you are stuck in the house because it is literally that cold? 

This is a good month to revisit singing and music to warm the atmosphere of the home.  Some of you have emailed and asked about music resources.  Here are a few of my favorites (if a book, also includes CD’s because I know some of you may not be able to read music!):

This is a good month to do some story-telling.  Try Suzanne Down’s Juniper Tree Puppetry website and sign up for her email newsletter:  http://junipertreepuppets.com/blog/

For inspiration in story-telling, how about this book by Nancy Mellon called “Body Eloquence”?  http://www.amazon.com/Body-Eloquence-Power-Awaken-Energies/dp/1604150289/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1296213082&sr=8-1

This is a good month to do some some art with your children.   Pink and Green Mama reads this blog and has 400 projects on her website here:  http://pinkandgreenmama.blogspot.com

This is a good month to get ready for February festivals!  How about getting ready for Candlemas (https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/01/29/the-magic-of-candlemas/),  Chinese New Year (https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/02/09/chinese-new-year-in-the-waldorf-home/) or Valentine’s Day? 

Many blessings,

Carrie

“Hold On To Your Kids”–Chapters 12 and 13

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We are going to tackle these two chapters today so that we will then be ready to jump into Part Four of this book which details the whole HOW as parents we can hold onto our children or RECLAIM our children if we feel that connection has been lost.

So, Chapter 12 is entitled “A Sexual Turn” and starts by discussing that the age of first sexual activity is becoming younger and younger.  In 1997 study by the Centers for Disease Control, 6.5 percent of ninth-grade girls and 15 percent of ninth-grade boys  reported having sex before the age of thirteen.  The authors also discuss the general debasement of sexual activity and the difference between the use of sex as a primitive tool of attachment and having sexual intercourse as an expression of genuine love and intimacy.  The authors point out that even in a very short period of time a teenager’s ties with the family can weaken, for example if parents are suffering with depression or preoccupation with their careers, because that is how very vulnerable our children are today.  Children today are using sex as a way to attach to peers, how sexuality in children leads to hardened emotional states with little vulnerability. 

Chapter 13, “Unteachable Students”  documents the disruption children attaching to peers causes in the classroom with academics going downhill.  The authors write:  “The reading abilities of schoolchildren appear to have declined, despite the heavy emphasis many schools have placed on literary skills in recent years.  Our teachers have never been better trained than today, our curriculum never as developed, and our technology as sophisticated.  What has changed?  Once more we return to the pivotal influence of attachment.  The shift in attachment patterns of our children has had profoundly negative implications for education.”

The authors state that four elements are of import for a child to have a teachable mind:  a natural curiosity, an integrative mind, an ability to benefit from correction, and a relationship with the teacher.  Peer attachment undermines that as curiosity is considered “uncool” and the academic subjects being studied at school have no importance in being connected with peers so therefore become unworthy of time or energy on the part of the child.

For those of you reading along, any thoughts on these chapters?  I am looking forward to delving into Part Four!

Many blessings,

Carrie

At What Age Should Children Attend A Place of Worship?

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I have gotten this question several times in The Parenting Passageway email, so I looked up this exact question on the Internet.  Honestly, I  didn’t find much about this topic other than a few message board questions and an article about taking your child out into the hall of the church and PADDLING them when they misbehave!  (Really?! Insert my look of complete and utter HORROR here!!)

I am sure the way parents feel about this are going to be all over the map, but I thought I would throw a few things out there about this topic and maybe you all can add your experiences and thoughts to the comment section below………

I think if having a community of faith is  really  important to you, truly important to the family,   then you will make it work.  I don’t think it is so much the age of the child as it is the commitment and feeling of the parents.  If you,  as a parent,  feel so comfortable in your place of worship, that this is the place that helps you to be and become a better human being, that this is a place  of love and warmth and community, then your child will feel that as well and you will help guide your child as to the appropriate behavior and actions for that place and time.

My current personal case in point is our little fifteen month old who has no choice about attending church.  He has to go because we can’t leave him home with the dog, LOL.  He doesn’t understand the liturgy or notice the colors of the church changing with the liturgical seasons.  He doesn’t have the prayers or responses memorized.

But I think he knows this place that we go to twice a week.  He knows it is a place where the  adults love him and there is music and beauty and wonderful smells.  It is the place where every week  he is smothered in kisses by my African American friend as she says, “If he grows up to marry a black woman, this will be why!” and kisses him until he falls over laughing.  This is the place where my Polish friend speaks to him in Polish and helps me chase him down the hall.  It is the place where he hangs out in the choir room as we watch his big sisters practice singing (and the place he runs down the hallway to if he escapes out of anyone’s arms!  And then he stands there utterly disappointed if no one is singing at the time).  It is the place of meals, and the place of The Plastic Popcorn Popper  in the nursery that can sometimes entertain him for up to ten minutes as I quietly run in and out of the mass to hear his sisters sing in focused concentration and then pick him right back up again.  I think he knows there is something special and wonderful about this beautiful place where silence is respected but the people still have a twinkle in their eye and a love for the smallest of God’s kingdom.

Don’t get me wrong.  Getting small children to a place of worship, at least in my household, is no easy task.  Take Sunday – I forgot the baby’s shoes and my husband had to drop us off and go home for them, there were the inevitable tears surrounding The Doing of The Hair, the inevitable tension of trying to get to church early for the oldest to practice singing in the choir for the mass,  the waiting impatiently of the other children whilst the older one practiced.  On the car ride home, there was the loud singing  with the even  louder antagonizing remarks between siblings  and even the baby joined in with loud screams just to be heard over the din.  It was like watching our own circus and  my husband and I just laughed until I had tears rolling down my face.  (I think you had to be there to hear the comments Smile) With small children and a place of worship one needs to have a sense of humor, just like one needs to have with small children and life!

So, that leads me to this next point:  one needs to find a place of worship that understands and respects children.  A place where the leaders of the place of worship have a twinkle in their eye when dealing with families and children, a place where the people you attend services with have not forgotten about this task of raising small children, a place where the educational programs and activities take into account the developmental stages of the children. 

So, perhaps it is not so much the age, but how you feel on the inside regarding the doing of your spiritual life, and the place of worship itself and how they view small children.

Looking forward to hearing what all of you think, and sharing any FUNNY stories about your children in your place of worship would be a wonderful way to brighten up this day that is so cold and dreary around much of the U.S.!

Much love and many blessings,

Carrie

An Oldie But A Goodie: Five Things Every Parent Needs

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This is an older post that I found and thought it was worthy enough to re-print for all my new readers.  So here is my oldie but goodie post of the week!

These are five things every parent needs to have right now; these are the keys to parenting!

Compassionate Connection :  Connection is the number one tool to parenting and to discipline, to that guiding of a child throughout these years at home.  You get it by choosing to connect with your child, by  choosing to view you and your child as being on the same team instead of being against each other.  You get it by choosing to love your child as you guide them over the bumps of life and development instead of being mad at them for being immature and making mistakes, which is what small children are and what small children do.

Kindness :  Kindness in the home is of utmost importance.  Your small child is watching everything you do and say and how you treat other people, including how you treat yourself.  Do you have boundaries for how other adults treat you?  Your children are watching this!  Boundaries is a part of being kind to yourself and to others.

How do you promote kindness in your home?  How do you model forgiveness for yourself for being human?  Try this one for ideas:   https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/03/kindness-in-your-home/

Gentleness:  Your child always deserves to have gentle hands.  If you cannot be gentle with them, you must take a parent time-out.  You can set a boundary, stick to a boundary, and still be gentle and loving.  It is possible!  You can parent peacefully!   See here for one of the many posts about this on this blog:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/01/05/an-emergency-how-to-how-to-parent-peacefully-with-children-under-age-9/

and here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/08/17/raising-peaceful-children/

Patience:  Many parents will ruefully sigh and say, “I am not patient enough with my child.”  I agree it is important to have patience regarding the day to day and minute to minute interactions with your child; I have many posts about that,  but the kind of patience I am really talking about right now  is being patient with the process of DEVELOPMENT. This means not rushing a child out of childhood, and being willing to set boundaries to preserve that child’s innocence in early childhood and in the grades of school as well.     Understanding developmental stages and having realistic expectations for each age is vital.  There are many posts on this blog about this, all the developmental stages are currently covered from the age of twelve months through age nine.  There are also many posts regarding  babies under the “Baby and Toddler” header.  Here is one post regarding patience for your reading pleasure:

https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/10/15/the-power-of-patience-day-number-18-of-20-days-toward-being-a-more-mindful-parent/

Maturity:  Having a baby and a small child in the home SHOULD cause a change in your lifestyle.  Please do not use the fact you are breastfeeding and can carry your child in a  sling as an excuse to drag your child to all kinds of adult places with no rhythm in sight.  Why should your toddler  behave while you have coffee with a friend?  Why should your small baby sleep through the night when biologically they are not there yet?  Why should your toddler or younger preschooler willingly separate from you when they consider themselves to be a part of you?    Have the maturity to know that this is a season, this too shall pass, and that these early years of childhood are remarkably short.

A Positive Attitude! I have written about this repeatedly.  Here are a few back posts for your reading pleasure: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/09/19/day-number-three-of-20-days-toward-being-a-more-mindful-mother/

and here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/06/17/the-power-of-being-a-positive-mother/

Simple parenting entails just these five steps to start.  A great beginning!!

Many blessings,

Carrie

A Guest Post: Take Pause With The 10 X 7 Rule

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I have a lovely reader who told me about a valuable tool she uses to “keep calm and carry on”.  It was so profound that I asked her to write a guest post and share her thoughts with all of you.  Thank you, Jennifer S.!

Take Pause

by Jennifer S.

"Our behavior is a reflection of who we are at the moment. Hating your child’s behavior is like saying you don’t love the part of your child that wants to behave that way." Author Unknown

My mother was a gem. She mothered me like a lot of others mothers did in the early 70’s – the natural way. Quite frankly, she mothered me in the spirit of Rudolf Steiner’s teachings without knowing who Rudolf Steiner was. My memories of how I was mothered, coupled with my inherent nature and my experience teaching Waldorf preschool have all shaped how I mother my 22- month –old- daughter. I’d venture to say to that I am doing an exceptional job. But I do have my moments. We all do. After all, we are mothers which typically means we wear a couple of hundred hats a week. We are allowed to be human and to have not so stellar mothering moments.

For me, the hardest part of mothering is not having that knee jerk reaction to behavior I consider bothersome or unwanted. I get in a tunnel sometimes and when my daughter does something that pulls me out of my mothering tunnel, I find that I react with an immediate exasperated sigh. I hate this. I do it more when I am tired and feeling like the weight of the world is upon me. (Which it is – I am, after all raising a human being!) I am conscious of the fact that I do this and I am also conscious of the downcast look on my daughter’s face.

I know mothers who do this very same thing and often times their reactions are even more extreme. Dealing with unwanted behavior (and by unwanted, I am referring to behavior that is annoying to us as mothers, not behavior that can cause harm to the child or others) is a daily, hourly, sometimes minute by minute challenge. So how can mothers put their negative reactions in check in an effort to be a peaceful parent to their child?

When I asked myself this question about a year ago, I thought back to my gem of a mother and some pearls of wisdom she provided me with long ago as I struggled with little ones both as a nanny and in a preschool setting. She told me to “take pause” and consider what impact your child’s behavior will have in seven different increments of time. I asked her what she meant by “seven increments of time.” It turns out that it is very simple and quite frankly works. When your child acts in a way that causes you annoyance, exaggeration, anxiety and the like, take pause and consider the following:

  • What impact will your child’s current behavior have on you and others in 10 seconds?
  • What impact will your child’s current behavior have on you and others in 10 minutes?
  • What impact will your child’s current behavior have on you and others in 10 hours?
  • What impact will your child’s current behavior have on you and others in 10 days?
  • What impact will your child’s current behavior have on you and others in 10 weeks?
  • What impact will your child’s current behavior have on you and others in 10 months?
  • What impact will your child’s current behavior have on you and others in 10 years?

For me, I usually calm down and am no longer irritated with my child by the time I hit “10 days.” I very rarely have to look much further down the timeline.

Taking the time to play out the effects of my child’s behavior is a calming moment in and of itself and it almost always makes me realize how trivial my child’s actions are and that it is some problem in myself that I need to address. Using this ten by seven rule simply lets a mother catch her breath before she expels it in an exasperated sigh (or worse!)

Honestly, my daughter is too young to know what I am doing but she watches me and realizes that I am taking a moment to push myself into a better parenting space. And she appreciates it. I know this because she will often give me a hug or a snuggle along with a grin that says “you’ll miss my antics when I outgrow them!” And she is right! I will miss her sneaking onto the top of the couch, just to fall off moments later. I will miss her dumping over the entire contents of the cat’s food bowl. I will miss her taking all of the trash out of the trash can. I will miss her unstuffing all of her cloth diaper inserts. I will miss her smearing her food all over the table. I will miss her dumping all of her water on the floor. I will miss all of these things and more because someday she will be off living her grown -up life and I will long for the pitter patter sound of her little feet followed by the perverbial “uh oh.” And I will wish that I had taken more time to savor those moments which caused me annoyance. The ten by seven rule allows me to do this because I ultimately realize that my daughter is just being her “age” and that I need to take pause and enjoy it for it is a mere fleeting moment.

It’s funny but I have seen similar concepts circulating around blog land recently. I would like to think that my mother was the mastermind behind this idea but hence, it really does not matter. What matters is that she gave me a tool to became a better mother. I hope that I have given this to you in turn. And on that note, I leave you with another great quote: “Believe in your child beyond today’s problem or behavior.” Author Unknown

Carrie here:  The other thing I love about this is the demonstration of passing on how we parent to the next generation.  Grandmother to mother to granddaughter. 

What kind of legacy are you leaving for your children in the way you parent?

Many blessings,

Carrie