A mom wrote in and asked what to do with a household that i s very calm and soothing, a household that is very conducive to rest but really needs a kick of energy!  What to do?

I think one thing to think about is this issue of balance. There  is an anthroposophic meditative exercise called The Preview where you essentially run through your day in your head before you really get up.  So, I would encourage you to make this part of your meditative practice.  When you run through your day in your head, where are the points of energy?  Where is the music, the singing, the movement. the running around outside, the scrubbing of the floor, the work? 

Many children need help in being quiet, but I also have run across quite a few who are only quiet and are very content to sit and look at book after book or draw for hours and hours on end and would prefer to be inside rather than outside expending energy.  Sometimes this is necessary, for example, if you live in an area where the weather is truly frigid and you cannot get outside, but I would also encourage you to look at balance.  Can you promote movement inside with very active circle times or singing games?  Can you set up an obstacle course inside?  Most of all, if your children are under 9, can you structure the environment so they have active things to do and put up the books and crayons and such that they come down only at certain times?  Balance, balance, balance.

Getting everyone together several times a day to sing and play singing games is an excellent way to promote some energy!  If you have forgotten all the singing games from your childhood, “Lavender’s Blue Dilly Dilly” by Mary Thienes Schunemann has 28 singing games in it: http://www.naturallyyoucansing.com/books/lavender.htm

Other mothers I know in this situation have had success in looking at themselves.  Think about your own energy and where you are.  Are you stuck?  We want things to be calm at home, but I also think when we model to a child that during “down time” we are always sitting down knitting or reading as opposed to singing a song while we scrub something or grabbing a shovel and heading out to the garden, we send a message as to what kinds of activities are important.  Our children are the great imitators!  What kind of energy are you showing your children?

If your own personal energy is lower than you think it should be, please try this post to assist you:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/06/making-yourself-a-priority-in-the-parenting-equation/

I think energy is also seasonal though as well. In the Northern Hemisphere, this just seems to be the time to hunker down and enjoy the warmth of inside right now, with increased energy and vitality to come as the days warm.  Bringing in the light with the Winter Festivals is an important shift of energy for our yearly rhythm.  

Look toward the balance of your day and your activities,

Carrie

Donna Simmons stayed at my house a bit back, and one of the things she commented on was how quiet our house is after seven at night.  The house is dim, you can hear the wind or rain outside and the house is quiet with small snoring sounds coming from the dog 🙂 and/or children.

This comment led me to think of the tone of our home, the energy of our home.  What is the energy like in your home?  Does the energy in your home change over the course of the day? What changes the energy in your home?  Is your home quiet during the day t any point?  Are your children ever quiet or just going, going, going? 

I think there are three main stumbling blocks to achieving quiet in the home.  The first one is visual clutter, and I think with the holidays right around the corner this is an important one to consider.

I wrote this post last year at this time (click here for the full post: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/11/23/holiday-gifts-for-children-how-much-is-too-much/ ).  Here is part of that post, referring to gift-giving surrounding the holidays:

“Unfortunately, in our society, the person(s) many families are most likely to spend the most money on are their children.  Whew.  I invite you to make yourself a cup of tea, and have your husband take your kids to the park for a few hours.  Now go into their rooms and the playroom and look at the amount of stuff that is there.  Seriously.  Count the number of puzzles they have, the number of pairs of shoes, how many bags and boxes of craft supplies there are. How many board games do they have?  How many dress up clothes?

The first step is always the hardest.  I invite you to think about purging at least a third or more of your toys this holiday season.  If you cannot purge them all, or you do purge all the junky made in China plastic toys and have some nice open ended toys to keep, here is a thought for you.  Some families pack up toys and  put them away somewhere.  Then they rotate the toys so only a few things are down at a time.  The toys can be changed out either monthly or seasonally.”

Where are you going to put the new holiday things? Think about that a bit this week! I would like to challenge you to use some of this time to de-clutter your physical space.  It seems every good Waldorf Early Years teacher worth their salt  knows that when a child is starting to get wound up, just straightening the space around the child helps shift the energy and is calming.  Think about your child’s room, and how you could make that a calming space to relax.

The second challenge to achieving quiet is VERBAL clutter.  Stop sharing so many details of your adult life with your child!  Even a seven, eight or nine-year old does not need to know many of the things we” overshare”.  It is only in this day and age we have the expression “TMI”!     Can you share your adult conversations with adults, and your children conversations  with your children?  Keep asking yourself, does my child really need the ten minute adult thinking process of how many outside activities they can do and why, about the child down the street and why their family does X and we don’t, about this and that.  Really?

Think about how much space and quiet you are cultivating between your words.  Model for your child your thinking in silence, drawing a conclusion after thought, and then saying your thoughtfully worded conclusion (not the thought process).  This a wonderful skill for a child to see!

The other place to reduce your verbal clutter is to stop asking them how they feel.  Children under the age of 9 change emotions on a dime, and to put too much weight on how they feel at any given moment is an awful lot of pressure.  Kim John Payne talks about this in his book “Simplicity Parenting”

On page 199, Kim John Payne writes this wonderful food for thought:  “Children under nine certainly have feelings, but much of the time those feelings are unconscious, undifferentiated.  In any kind of conflict or upset, if asked how they feel, most kids will say, very honestly, “Bad.”  They feel bad.  To dissect and parse that, to push and push, imagining that they are hiding a much more subtle and nuanced feeling or reply, is invasive.  It is also usually unproductive, expect in perhaps making a child nervous.  While young children have feelings, they only slowly become aware of them.  Until the age of ten or so, their emotional consciousness and vocabulary are too premature to stand up to what we ask of them in our emotional monitoring and hovering.”

There is much more in this section about emotional intelligence and how this develops, is fascinating.  “(Emotional intelligence) can’t be bought or rushed.  It develops with the slow emergence of identity, and the gradual accumulation of life experiences.  When we push a young child toward an awareness they don’t yet have, we transpose our own emotions, and our own voice, on theirs.  We overwhelm them  For the first nine or ten years children learn mainly through imitation.  Your emotions and they way that you manage them, is the model they “imprint”, more than what you say or instruct about emotions.”

Here is a worksheet to review your level of “information simplicity” with your child from Kim John Payne’s website:  http://www.thechildtoday.com/files/SimplicityReviewForm

His book is just excellent, please see the link for it on Amazon here:  http://www.amazon.com/Simplicity-Parenting-Extraordinary-Calmer-Happier/dp/0345507975/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260846766&sr=8-1

So many of the things we talk about on this blog are here in this book;  I am sure you will enjoy Kim John Payne’s writing.  His stories of working with parents and helping parents with their challenges are amazing!  Read this book and enjoy!

If you need more help, please see this post:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/04/14/stop-talking/

and this:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/08/19/using-our-words-like-pearls/

Remember Carrie’s Golden Rule:  The less you say, the more weight your words will hold.  Smile and be warm, give hugs, but try less speaking and more listening!

The third challenge to achieving quiet is too much PHYSICAL ENERGY.  Mot children under the age of 9 need hours outside running off steam.  Without getting that physical energy out, you are setting yourself up for children who are bouncing off the walls and who cannot be involved in something focused; it also sets one up to listen to a lot of chatter!

Calm, quiet times,

Carrie

I have to confess, I am not a morning person.  In college, I was pretty rhythmical and got up at 6 AM almost every day in order to go workout, but I also didn’t have to talk!  I am working hard to go to bed and get up and be pleasant, LOL.  (Again, I don’t mind being up, it is more the being up and talking :))  Are you a morning person?  Are you up before your children?

In order to have any sort of a chance to be a morning person, you have to actually go to bed at a decent time.  And to go to bed at a decent time, you have to get off your computer, stop your reading or knitting, and go to bed!  Many mothers I know seem to have no problems setting limits on the TV, but have difficulty turning off the computer or putting down their crafting.  What are your own limits for your computer time??

One thing that helps many mothers is to have a nighttime routine.  This may include making sure the kitchen is cleaned up, having  things ready for homeschool the next day, having clothes laid out for family members, taking a bath or shower if need be.  The morning sure goes so much easier when you prepare the night before!

Many mothers ask how they can get up early and ahead of their family if they are co-sleeping; in other words, the minute they put their feet on the floor their child wakes up.  That is frustrating and a challenge!  One thing I think about it is what if you used this early time to sit on a chair in your room with a small booklight and use this early time, even if it is only ten minutes, to read something that is uplifting to you?  This season of your children being small and co-sleeping will not last forever!  Your child is a precious gift, and I think when we can just approach this with a “ho-hum” attitude that “Mommy is awake and doing her special work” rather than “I can’t believe this child is up again!  I never get any time to myself!” things go so, so  much better.  Think positively on the fact that your child may sleep or rest and give you ten minutes to start this special work on preparing yourself to be a good Mommy for the day!  I think too, if you can be persistent over time, your child will see you are not up doing anything “fun” and may at least learn to rest through this time.  Too often we give up after only a few days of trying!

Some mothers say they cannot get up early because their children are already up so early.  This too, is a season that will not last forever.  How about trying to get up even 15 minutes ahead of your children?  How about using a special night light that tells children when they can be “up” and that they must rest in their beds until that light is on……Here is an example of one my husband’s friend created: http://www.goodnitelite.com/index.php?page=product   He gave us one to try yesterday and we tried it last night.  Our girls really liked it, because they knew when it was time to get up even though it was dark outside and my oldest, who is an early riser, didn’t seem to feel so preoccupied with checking the time every few minutes to see if it was time to get up.

Some mothers say they don’t want to go to bed because this is their time with their husband.  I understand that; I love my time with my husband as well!  However, one trend I notice is that husbands and wives are on their separate computers at night for several hours and then come together for talking and intimacy.  How about trying to shorten your computer, reading, crafting, or TV time so you can be together or plan to spend time together first?  Isn’t your relationship with your spouse much more important than your reading time?

Some couples also have designated nights to work on things on the computer or in reading material, and designated “nights off” where they just come together!  How wonderful!

Going to bed and being refreshed benefits you and your whole family!

Happy meditating on this important subject,

Carrie

Why is it that FUN is the first thing that often seems to run out the door when trying to “get it all done”?  I alluded to this in my last post about trying to put people before things, think about this time with small children as a season so as to not get so upset that every single thing is not being done from scratch right at this point.  It takes time to build traditions in the family, your children will  be watching you for many years as you build up the time you spend crafting, sewing, knitting, as they grow!  They will not remember that when they were two years old you did not knit all their winter sweaters by hand!  I promise!

So  where is the FUN??

I think FUN should be as much as a priority as crafting, sewing, cooking and cleaning.  And judging from the mothers I speak with, this is an area that is highly challenging for many of them and  they find this  difficult to develop.  “I just am not silly.  I can’t be silly.”  “It is hard for me to relax and spend time with my children without seeing everything else I should be doing.”  “My husband is the one that really can get down on the floor and have fun with them!”

Okay, yes, but  think back to some skill you had to learn – knitting, sewing, parenting in general! etc.  Did you just throw up your hands and say, “I can’t knit!  I just am not a knitter!” My point is that these things take time to develop.

Here is my Advent Adventure for you.  And here is the best part:  you only need ten minutes a day!  Set a timer if you have to, and set aside five minutes a day to just roll around on the floor with your kids climbing all over you.  Maybe the dog will join in!  Call it Monster or whatever you want to call it and just hug each other and wrestle and have fun!  If that doesn’t appeal to you, how about a five minute game of hide and go seek or tag?  Or five minutes of horsie rides?

For your second five minutes, try to cultivate a playful and FUN attitude whilst you are doing some of that work.  Make pancakes as part of a restaurant, do laundry as part of a pretend dry cleaners, use a silly voice, sing a silly song whilst you are doing something.  Too often we show our children that work is not fun; show them that anything can be fun if one has the right attitude!

Be in Joy this holiday season!

Carrie