Author Archives: Carrie

Peaceful Bedtime Dreams

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The post on late afternoon melt-downs (see the post entitled “Smearing Peas” on this blog) got me thinking (thanks Erin!) about how to structure your rhythm and life toward having a peaceful dinnertime hour and bedtime routine.  Here are just a few ideas that have worked for us in the past, and some of them may work for you.

1.  Do not schedule lots of things outside of the home. No matter how much your child loves to go, go, go, most young  children under the age of 7  are calmest when they spend large portions of time at home and are less apt to melt down from an over-stimulating day if they don’t have that day to begin with.  Young children thrive on repetition and rhythm.  If you feel your child needs something “more” to do, look at your own rhythm and work first and what you are doing with them second.

2.  Do make sure they are getting plenty of outside time, no matter what the weather.  If you do need to go out and run errands with your child, see if you can go out in the early morning and plan to be home in the afternoon.  Your whole day should be geared toward working toward that early peaceful  bedtime, and releasing the physical energy that young children have because they live in their bodies is key.

3.  If your children sleep until 9 or 10 in the morning, they will not go to bed at night.  You cannot have it both ways.  I personally would rather have a night and have time with my spouse, so in our family our children go to bed around 7 or 7:15.  If you want your children to go to bed, start moving the time you get up back, and move the naptimes back as well.  If your child naps until 4 or 5 in the afternoon, they probably won’t be ready to go to bed at 7.

4.  Start dinner in the morning.  Use a crock-pot, make things ahead throughout the day, whatever you need to do to make sure you can have dinner ready to go.  Many times mothers say they delay dinner so their husband can get home and eat with the children as well.  I understand that, but how about going ahead and feeding your children dinner, and then providing a snack when dad comes in?  It puts you closer to bedtime, and the children still get to share a small meal with dad.

5.  Offer a snack while you are cooking dinner, and have ways your child can participate with dinner, whether that is washing dishes in the sink as you go, setting the table, chopping up a vegetable.  If that fails to get their attention, is there anything rhythmical they can do while you cook?  Homemade play dough comes to mind, sifting flour through a little manual sifter, having an indoor sand tray with toys, brushing the dog if they are able to do that.   Kids that are just on the edge of melting down that time of day often need something physical and rhythmical to do.

6.  If taking a bath is traumatic and just gears everything up, consider doing the bath in the morning or even after lunch.  Sometimes small children go through phases where they do not want to get in the bathtub.  Perhaps they would like a shower with a hand held sprayer or just being washed with a washcloth, or they need the bath at a different time.

7.  Make sure your whole dinnertime and bedtime routine is not taking too long.  Sometimes we have these elaborate bedtime routines and the kids just need to get into bed.  If they are really melting through the normal routine of bath and brushing teeth and such, you may even be starting it too late.

8.  Consider oral storytelling as opposed to reading picture books at night for small children under the age of 7.  Picture books have pictures for the eye and brain to process, and oral storytelling keeps the child creating their own pictures in their own heads, much more calming and restful.

9.  Consider the use of music – your own singing – as a way to help induce sleep or strumming on a kinderlyre.  Some children respond very well to this warmth that touches them down into their soul.

10.  Consider and rule out allergies to foods and fibers. If your child is completely itchy from what they are wearing, if the tag is bothering them,  if their feet are cold, if they ended up with something for dinner that they are sensitive to, then bedtime and sleeping will be much more difficult.

Peaceful afternoons and nights are possible with small children, it just takes some planning. 

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Give Us Our Daily Juice

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Okay, I have to admit I LOVE my juicer.  I have a simple Jack LaLanne juicer, like the one here:  http://www.powerjuicer.com/index-pro.html.  I get up and make fresh juice every morning, and I rely on juicing to feel great! 

Our favorite juices include making just fresh orange juice, but we also like orange-grapefruit juice, pineapple-grapefruit juice. and pineapple-orange juice.  Just writing this makes me want a big glass of juice right now!

Dr. William Sears in his book The Family Nutrition Book, has this to say about the benefits of fresh-squeezed juice over processed juice: fresh juice preserves the live enzymes in the juice, safer water content in fresh-squeezed juice (since we don’t know where the water in commercial juices comes from), and the ease of drinking a 8 ounce glass of fresh juice as opposed to eating all the vegetables or fruit it took to make that juice.

Commercial juices are made in this way, according to Dr. Sears: “The fruit is juiced at a processing plant, and the water is removed to make a concentrate, which is shipped to another manufacturer, who may put water back into the juice (water that may be more or less safe than the water Mother Nature originally put in the fruit).  The juice is pressure-pasteurized to kill any bacteria in it, and then it travels to the store, where it sits on the shelf in one of several kinds of container with varying degrees of air-tightness.  Throughout all these steps, vital nutrients, such as vitamins and enzymes, deteriorate. Also, much of the nutritious part of the fruit is right under the skin, the skin itself, or in the pulp.  These parts of the fruit, as well as much of the fiber, are lost in commercial juicing.” (page 156).

Some favorite juices to think about include orange, which is higher in many nutrients than apple juice; and the vegetable juices, which often are lower in calories but higher in nutrients than fruit juices.   Juices have more protein and trace minerals than you  are probably aware, so give juicing a try for your morning drink and see how great you and your family feels!  We drink a lot of water throughout the day, but look forward to our morning juice every day.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Using Your First Year of Parenting to Fall Deeper In Love With Your Spouse

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Transitioning to being new parents in addition to remaining lovers and friends can be challenging.  It is difficult to anticipate all the changes a new baby will bring to your lives as a couple and as a  family.  Many new parents have admitted to me that they felt more than a little bewildered by the amount of time caring for  an infant requires, how being a new parent affected the sexuality of their relationship, and how they often felt they and their spouse misunderstood one another, and how distant at times they felt from their spouse.   Some parents confessed to me at some of the three in the morning sleep-deprived feedings, they just wanted to be as far away as possible from the other parent because they were driving each other crazy!

Most parents go into their first pregnancy and having children because they have a deep love for one another and wanted to add to their family.  So, given all the challenges mentioned above, is it still  possible to maintain your deep connection to and love for your spouse in the first year of parenting?  I think it is possible, but it does take some time and consideration.

Beth Muscov wrote an article for La Leche League’s NEW BEGINNINGS magazine entitled, “Surviving the First Year of Parenthood While Growing Deeper in Love.”  This wonderful article was published in March-April 2000 and can be viewed through this link:  http://www.llli.org/NB/NBMarApr00p36.html .  In the article, the author writes about how many family therapists use Systems Theory in their practice and how part of Systems Theory includes the idea of an equilibrium point in relationships.  She points out how the first thing many couples do when that equilibrium is disturbed is to try to go back to the way things were before the change and how this may not always produce the desired result or it may create additional stress for one or both parents.  And besides, once, you have an infant in the house there is no going back!

The article points out that one simple tool new parents can use to help is the use of  normalizing statements.  Normalizing statements, to me, are almost “rationalizing” statements (uh, statements you would make if you were not so sleep deprived and could make sense and be rational?)  The article points out a few of these, such as “ Emotional ups and downs during the first year of parenting are completely normal”.  You can view more of these normalizing statements at the link above. 

I think normalizing statements in some ways are a good start, but in some ways, this is a coping mechanism that perhaps hides what is underneath the feelings of isolation, separation from one’s spouse, frustration or being overwhelmed that can happen during that first year of parenting.

I offer this to you:  a series of questions for you to ponder; because as usual it all starts with you and your inner work. You are now the mother of the home, the keeper of the home and the person who will bring peace into your home.  So here are some questions and some thoughts:

How do you feel about being a mother?  How do you feel about being a wife on top of being a mother?  If you have taken some time during pregnancy to ponder this (see the three part series on this blog entitled, “Pregnancy is Preparation for the Soul”),  and believe in this idea of being called into motherhood, as motherhood being a very important thing that you were made to do and called to do, then this can help carry you through some of the rockier moments in parenting a newborn.

The more difficult part for many women is to make that transition from being a mommy to being focused on their spouse, to being able to be absorbed in the intimacy of the spousal relationship emotionally or physically once again.  How do you feel about having an intimate relationship with your husband and your baby?  What would this look like?  Have you discussed this with your spouse?

Dr. William Sears in The Baby Book, mentions this:  “Your husband can sense when you are physically connected to him but mentally connected to your baby.  He does not expect you to be thinking primarily of him during breastfeeding; should you be thinking about your baby during lovemaking?”  He goes on to point out these are normal feelings for a new mother.  I would gently add that a baby is small only once, and that getting to be able to balance motherhood and being part of a couple takes time to adjust to, and practice.

How much do you understand about newborn babies and how newborn babies are?  How much help is Dad with the newborn baby and how will Dad and the baby connect?  All of you out there will smile when I tell you I remember thinking when I was pregnant with my first  that having a newborn baby wouldn’t be easy, but really, how hard could it be?  The baby would sleep a lot and there would be some kind of rhythm to it, right?  I would have time to keep the house clean, cook meals and probably work out as well!

Um, yeah.  In reality, my first baby was a baby who nursed about every hour or so, who needed to be held much of the time, who was not very content out of arms.  The reality of parenthood did not meet my expectations.  There were many things I had read in books, but none of it really sunk in until I had spent time with my own newborn and we learned about one another.  Every baby is different, and no matter how many babies you have, you still  have to learn each other.  Newborns require much time and care in order to achieve that connection and the feeling of one-ness that a newborn baby and a mother can have.  In our society, too many mothers are missing the opportunity to fall deeply in love with their baby and also the opportunity of deepening their relationship with their spouse through the love they have for their whole new family.  Too often in our society we are willing to put the needs of being a couple above the needs of a young baby.

Many mothers who are planning to solely breastfeed ask about when they can feed the baby a bottle so the dad has “be connected to the baby.”  This may be what happens in your family and what you choose as a family, but something else to consider is that if the dad can take care of and support the mother while she takes care of the baby, if he can cook and clean while the mother is consumed taking care of the baby, this is being connected to the baby through the baby’s natural habitat – the mother. More about this in the paragraph below.

How do we balance our needs as a couple with the needs of a breastfeeding baby?  Babies have intense needs connected to the mother.  The mother is the baby’s natural habitat, an idea originated and developed further in the book, “Breastfeeding Made Simple :Seven Natural Laws for Nursing Mothers” by Nancy Mohrbacher and Kathleen Kendall-Tackett.  A baby and a mother, if given a chance, often feel and function as one unit in the early years.  This is normal.  Fathers can do lots of things in the postpartum period and in the early months of the baby’s life, but they cannot breastfeed.  However, as mentioned above, fathers can get involved with their baby in plenty of other ways from diapering to bringing the baby to the mother to nurse to supporting the mother with meals or in housework or care of older children.  Mothers and fathers can use this time to connect more deeply if they plan it out right.

There is no doubt that a baby is a baby only for a short while, and many parents accept that this is a season in their marriage that involves putting the baby first.  Dr. William Sears, in his book The Baby Book, writes; “For three or four months after childbirth (and sometimes not really until weaning) most wives do  no have the energy for a high level of intimacy both as a mother and a mate.”  He adds, “Dads, appreciate that a new mother is biologically programmed to nurture her baby.  You are not being displaced by the baby, but some of your wife’s energies previously directed toward you are temporarily redirected toward your baby.  This is a time primarily to parent and secondarily to mate, and ideally a time to find opportunity and energy for both.”  He talks about how wives need to be treated in the postpartum stage in a progression similar to courtship, but he also points out that men experience no hormonal shift in parenting a new baby such as women experience and therefore men still need to hear they are needed and wanted as well.

How do we balance our needs as a couple with the needs of an older baby, toddler or preschooler?  As the baby grows and settles into a more rhythmic pattern, perhaps then there will be time for sitting together , and even finishing sentences!  With an older child, it does become okay to say that mommy and daddy need some time together and the child can play.  Many parents work hard to have at least one night a week where they focus on each other after the children are asleep.  Even if your child only stays asleep for an hour or so after they initially go to bed, this is still usable time for your needs as a couple.

How do we combine the roles of parenting with the roles of being friends and lovers to one another?  Like everything else in life, both of you have to put effort forth.  It does take commitment and planning to be friends and lovers throughout the parenting years.  Do not let yourselves drift apart, but build each other up.  Assure your husband what he means to you, and tell him what you need. You may be surprised what happens!

What does emotional intimacy mean to you?  It has been said that men use physical intimacy to feel close to their spouse, but women have to have the emotional intimacy in order to get to the physical intimacy part.  What is true for you?  Can emotional intimacy include just saying “I really love you and miss spending time with you”?  Have you talked about this with your spouse? 

What about physical intimacy?  How do you think parenting affects this?  Does co-sleeping affect this?  Many couples still find times and places to be intimate, even with co-sleeping and multiple children!  There can be romance even while parenting!

And most importantly, how do you communicate with one another?  Respect for one another’s feelings and needs are so important during times of change and finding a place in new roles within the family.  Finding time to communicate is important – sometimes with attachment parenting one feels that the baby or children are always there and it is difficult to find the time to talk about things…Yet this is imperative!

And HOW we say things makes such a difference!In the book “How to Listen So Kids Will Talk and Talk So Kids Will Listen”, Faber and Mazlish discuss an office situation and the responses to this situation by seven different friends. From this scenario, they detail ways we can respond to one another, including: Denial of the other person’s feelings, being philosophical about the other person’s situation, giving advice, asking questions, defending the situation/accusing the person to whom you are speaking, pitying the other person, giving out amateur psychoanalysis, blaming and accusing, name calling, giving threats, commanding, lecturing and moralizing, giving warnings, responding with martydom statements, providing comparisons, or sarcasm.  (This is from pages 51-56, Faber and Mazlish’s How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk).  See this book for other examples and details!

Whew!  Imagine if we lived in a world and had relationships where we could have authentic communication.  So, if all of the above is ineffective communication that just puts up blocks in our efforts to be authentic with one another, what IS effective communication?  Effective communication is compassionate communication, and here are some tools to get you started! Faber and Mazlish suggest the following ways of communicating in their book: describing a problem in neutral terms, giving information in neutral terms, talking about your own feelings and needs and I would add asking what your spouse’s (the other person’s) feelings and needs are.

NonViolent Communication (see www,cnvc.org for more information) includes the following steps to compassionately communicating:

  1. Observation – the CONCRETE actions we are observing that are affecting our well-being
  2. Feelings – How we FEEL in relation to what we are observing
  3. Needs – The needs, values, desires that are creating our feelings
  4. Request – The concrete actions we REQUEST in order to enrich our lives, understanding that a request is different than a demand.

Hopefully by communicating in an authentic style, we can grow deeper in love during the early years of parenting and have a marriage that lasts and stands the test of time. 

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Changing Your Rhythm With The Seasons

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I had a friend recently ask me how our rhythm has changed with the change of the seasons, now that the shorter days and longer nights are settling in.  My rhythm actually changes quite a bit according to the rhythm of the year, so let’s delve into that for a moment.

Once you start building a daily rhythm, hopefully by starting with consistent waking times, naptimes and bedtimes, you will then build in even more rhythm around meals and then your daily activities.  Some of these activities will happen every day and some may only happen once a week.  For example, once you start trying to do some real work with your 3 to 6 year old at home, you may decide to bake once week, garden once a week, do laundry on Mondays, clean on Fridays – whatever works for you and your family.  This may stay pretty consistent throughout the seasons.

However, once you have a daily rhythm in place and a weekly rhythm in place, the next thing to look at is a YEARLY rhythm.  This may affect your daily rhythm, depending on the season.  Summer to me is the epitome of expansion; being outside, summer activities.  Winter to me is contemplative, meditative, contracting, looking inward to prepare for the coming Spring.  An practical example of this is that in the summer it is part of our rhythm to swim every afternoon in our neighborhood pool.  Of course, I can’t do this in the winter, so the rhythm changes.

My friend gave me the example that part of their rhythm was to take a walk after dinner, and now due to the darkness and cold, they were no longer able to do that.  Therefore, their bedtime routine now needs to change.  One thing I thought of when she mentioned this was the notion of warmth.  Some families work hard to include much of their nightly routine around one of Steiner’s twelve senses at this time of year: warmth, to counteract the darkness and coldness this time of year.  So, a nightly routine may include a warm supper, a warm foot bath or bath by candlelight, warm tea or warm milk with honey, and telling a story by candlelight before drifting off to sleep under some heavy blankets.

Some families change their rhythms around the solstices and equinoxes, other families use more of the start of school and the end of the school year to signify change in their rhythms.

The other piece of the YEARLY rhythm is to decide what festivals you will celebrate and how you will do this as a family.  I have a friend who has a great method where she figures out the date of the festival she is going to mark, and then works backwards several weeks and plans what she will do with her family each day leading up to the festival.

In our Waldorf-inspired homeschool, we celebrate many festivals, but not all of them are marked with the same intensity.  The ones we mark with the greatest intensity are the following:  January: January 6th – Epiphany; February: February 2 – Candlemas; Spring: Lent, Ash Wednesday and the Holy Week leading up to Easter; September: Michaelmas; November: Martinmas; December: Advent,  Saint Nicholas Day, Christmas and the Twelve Days of Christmas leading up to Epiphany.

The more minor festivals that we mark include January: First Monday after Epiphany – Plough Monday- General Spring Cleaning; February – Saint Valentine’s Day; Spring –  Spring Equinox;  May– May Day; Ascension Day and Whitsun; June – June 21st- Summer Solstice, June 24th- Saint John’s Tide (Midsummer’s Day), July: July 4th; September: Autumn Equinox; October: Halloween; November – All Saint’s and All Soul’s Day; December – December 13th – Santa Lucia Day and December 21st- Winter Solstice.

Part of festival celebration for young children intertwines family tradition, religious tradition (within the homeschool environment), science (the passing and changing of the seasons).  It is a wonderful way to involve young children in the passage of time and the joy of intimate celebration.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Smearing Peas

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Yes, this  is the title of my post.

My friend was describing a wild and tired three year old who was smearing peas all over the kitchen and as fast as my friend was cleaning it up, there was more being smeared. We have all been there, haven’t we?  My friend was stating the cause was that the child was transitioning out of naps during the day, leading to the afternoon “melt-down” phase.  She was asking what would be a way to handle this situation.

This situation is so familiar!  The transition out of naps can lead to the inevitable afternoon “melt-down” of the child that may involve the child getting more and more wild and  into some kind of mischief that causes the parent to feel frustrated.  Some tired children just wind up and up and up in the late afternoon, don’t they?  And sometimes the parent is feeling tired and less patient at this time as well as they also may not be getting that typical afternoon break when a child no longer naps.

So, what to do with smearing peas or other melt-down kind of situations?

Well, this is just my opinion but here goes.  There is a fine line between a time to distract and provide humor in order to set a boundary versus a time to just set the boundary.   These meltdowns do happen when you are in the nap skipping stage to make nighttime better, and so it is great to talk about this!     This is where the physical piece of parenting comes in and I don’t mean physically beating your child :); you will see what I mean in a moment.  Donna Simmons actually talks about this quite a bit in her discipline work (see www.christopherushomeschool.org) and this is the piece which many parents are uncomfortable with, but it is so necessary with the three and four year old population (I think so, anyway, from my experience).

My thought would be to not say many words at all, not to really distract with humor or anything else, the answer really  is just that this is not okay.   If a child is doing something to hurt you, hurt their neighbor or just plain irritate you, and the child is wild, you need the physical piece beyond the words.  Does the three- year- old or four- year- old do these kinds of things on purpose?  No, of course not.  But you can still guide the situation.

The physical piece in this situation may have  been  to softly cover the child’s hands, gently pry whatever utensil is in the child’s hands out of the hands, catch the child in the eye and say, “I think your hands forgot what they were doing.” Put the peas up!  And then physically hold the child,  and take the child with you to get two wet cleaning cloths or whatever and hand one to the child to help clean up.  If the child  cannot control herself enough to do that, then the child could sit on the counter or near you or whatnot while you clean and rhythmically hum.

Or the answer may have been to just take the child who was probably also pea-smeared to the bathroom and get cleaned up and leave the kitchen until a bit later  (and if they had a dog, it may have solved the cleaning up part before they got back from the bathroom, right?)  But the beginning steps would have been the same – gee, your hands forgot what they are doing, physically removing the child from the situation gently and then making the situation better.

Small children under the age of 7 in general and especially those  who are being wild, (whether this is from being tired or not), do not need words.  They need a loving, physical presence to help bring them back into themselves.  And they need help to see if they can make the situation better.  We should not be afraid of physically holding our children when they are wild or upset if this is what they need.  We should not be afraid to physically help our children come back into themselves, whether this is through a hug or through helping them clean up a mess they made. 

I think parents are afraid of the physical piece needed with small children so many times because they  feel angry and they rightly don’t want to touch their child when they are angry.  However, when you get good at it, you can still be angry or frustrated inside BUT have gentle hands and a calm voice with your child.  You can almost be outside yourself, observing the situation, if that makes any sense at all, but still be present and doing what you have to do.  Many parents who cannot do that do find if one can get centered then the physical piece works.  If you have to get centered before you can offer that which is needed, then you can go  off to the other room or just scoop your child  up and both of you go outside till you are both a little more calm.  Just stand against the back door so your child cannot go back inside and smear more peas while you are pulling it together :).

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Waldorf First Grade At Home

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Teaching a Waldorf-inspired first grade at home is so much fun!  For those of you who are new to Waldorf homeschooling, Waldorf first grade is for children who are close to the age of seven.  This works in conjunction with Steiner’s observations of child development according to seven year cycles, so yes, a six year old is still typically in their second year of kindergarten at a Waldorf school.   Academic work is not directly taught until the first grade.  At home especially, I encourage parents to view first grade as a bridge between the kindergarten years and the other grades to come (more about this in a minute).

The Waldorf grades work in conjunction with “blocks” where subjects are taught daily for a certain length of time – from three weeks to a month, for example.  This is called a “main lesson.”  The children have main lesson books that they draw summaries of their lessons into and try to showcase their best work.  Main lesson work is considered work of the HEAD and typically involves good morning verses (memorized), a seasonal circle time that is very active (also memorized verses and songs and may include playing a recorder or pennywhistle), and then the main lesson on whatever subject the student is learning about.  The teacher memorizes the material presented and the students write summaries in their books, so there really are no textbooks or worksheets involved in this active learning method. 

The Main Lesson has a three part rhythm to it that involves the child using sleep as an aid to learning.  No other method of education uses sleep the way that Waldorf does, as a true help for memorizing and living into subjects.  For example, on Monday, a concept is introduced through a story that may involve puppetry or other props.  Tuesday may then  involve re-visiting the story and something such as art, drama, modeling, going outside to look for something in the story; essentially expounding on some part of the story that has been already been told.  Wednesday then involves a re-visiting of the story with the academic piece drawn into the main lesson book.  Some families, for first grade, do a three day rhythm for Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and then do wet on wet watercolor painting on Thursdays.  Some families fit in two main stories a week with two three-day rhythms. 

The HEART portion of school may involve foreign language practice, being outside and playing organized games, eurythmy (something special to Waldorf education which has been called “visible speech”), or music.  The HANDS portion of the lesson may come in the afternoon and may include knitting for first graders, wet on wet watercolor painting, drawing, woodworking or other types of handwork.

In our home, I chose to do one block a month for first grade so our outline for main lessons for the year looks like this:  September –Form Drawing based off of Nature Stories, October – Language Arts, letters A-J based off of Fairy Tales, November – Qualities of Numbers block, December – Quantities of Numbers where all four math processes are introduced and a once a week form drawing block, January – another one week form drawing block and A Look at the Four Seasons and the Four Elements, February – Language Arts based off of Fairy Tales, letters K- Q, March- Math Block Number Three, April – Language Arts based off of Fairy Tales, letters R-Z with a review of AEIOU – (vowels are often taught separate from the consonants), May – two  weeks of a Backyard Nature Block with form drawing and two weeks of writing based off the Fairy Tales, one week of review in June and a show of all main lesson book work for family.  Many families also will do form drawing on one day of the week during other blocks of subjects. 

Our daily rhythm looks essentially like this – A walk in the morning through our neighborhood with our dog, morning verses and the lighting of a candle, finger plays and a story for my Kindergartner, circle time and bean bag games and rope jumping rhymes for both children but more geared to my older child, main lesson work for my First Grader.  The HEART portion of our daily rhythm looks like this – Mondays, German tutor comes to our home; Tuesdays, practice Spanish or go hiking with a local group; Wednesday, Spanish tutor comes to our home, Thursdays, practice German; Fridays, special songs for whatever festival is upcoming.  After we have lunch, reading books aloud and quiet time, we have the HANDS portion of our day.  This part of our rhythm looks like this – Mondays, wet on wet watercolor painting; Tuesdays, bread baking and modeling while waiting for bread; Wednesdays, handwork/knitting; Thursdays, gardening or drawing and Fridays, housekeeping.

Many parents consider learning the letters and sounds of the alphabet and perhaps starting to read a very important part of first grade, along with an introduction to the four math processes.  Master Waldorf Teacher Eugene Schwartz (www.millennialchild.com)  contends that the most essential part of first grade is really form drawing and math.  For many reasons, I agree with Mr. Schwartz.

(For those of you who are not familiar with form drawing, form drawing is a way of working with lines and curves that Rudolf Steiner outlined in three of his lectures as a way of working with children of different temperaments (in Waldorf education there are four temperaments identified).  Form drawing is a precursor to handwriting, geometry and also observation of nature for future scientists).

Important and necessary parts of first grade besides the above really do include knitting and other types of handwork, wet on wet watercolor painting and its polar opposite of  modeling, drawing and coloring with block crayons and beginning to learn to play a recorder, pentatonic flute or pennywhistle.  I personally would also include foreign languages as a necessary part of the first grade but we are a very  foreign-language oriented family.  Fairy tales and nature stories are the soul nourishment of this age and it is a beautiful year.

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that first grade can be viewed as a bridge from kindergarten and the other grades.  This means that while first grade is indeed important with lots to learn and do, it also important in the home environment for first grade to be fun, to know when to take the day off and head to the park and to be sure to allow lots of time for free play and outside play along with time for preparation for festivals. In mind’s eye, the child in the early grades is forming association with subjects through experiences.  Everything in first grade should be active, rhythmical, musical, artistic and inter-related.  The Waldorf curriculum keeps building and building and growing more and more in its intensity; there is no reason to make yourself or your child insane with heavy, dull work in the early years!

Having a Waldorf-inspired homeschool means the ability to really create and choose stories that speak to your child’s temperament and experiences, to work indirectly through the curriculum with the things that are challenging to that child, and to be able to provide the child with a lot of time to be outside and dream! Homeschooling is an excellent way for siblings to connect and be together and for families to leave peacefully together. Waldorf within the home is a beautiful sigh of wonder.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

How Much Is Enough?

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I recently heard about a mother who felt resentful about “having” to give up her corporate job in order to stay home full-time with her two small children.  She was giving them “150 percent” of her time and energy, and was contemplating returning to the outside work force full-time.  She characterized her husband as “loving, but uninvolved.”

Hhhhhmmm.

Homemaking and parenting can be rather daunting tasks for many women.  Many mothers transitioning from working outside the home to staying find it difficult because their time, and even their bodies and their personal space, no longer seems to be their own anymore.  It all is shared with their small children.  This is part of the sacrifice of parenting.  Sacrifice is a thing that is not popular among many parents today in general, but necessary.

However, I am certain that devoting “150 percent” of ourselves directly to solely and only our children is not a wise idea.  Much like the child who has everything done for him or her, who is always told what to play and how to play it, who continues to be treated like a 2 year old when they are now 7, this is detrimental.

The idea of a mother giving 150 percent of themselves to her children, at least to me, brings up the notion that they must be hovering, micromanaging, and list-making the daily lives of  her children.  Parenting is different than working outside the home.  We cannot approach our lives and the creation of peace at home the way we approach a meeting in a boardroom. 

A dear friend once pointed out to me that being home is difficult because of lack of immediate gratification.  In other words, a three year old is not going to say to you, “Gee, mom thanks for trying to model how to be a good human being today. I am so glad you showed me how to be calm under stress when I was screaming, I saw how you folded that laundry and will try it soon as well!”  This can be wildly different than working outside the home.  The results of our work as homemakers often cannot be seen for years until our children are out on their own and raising their own families.  Too many times it seems that a parent is looking for that immediate gratification of parenting in seeing immediate results – behavioral or achievement- from their small children.  Children, for lack of a better term or analogy, are a long-term project that does not always require direct hovering, but rather occasional stirring and a presence in the kitchen.

Children have the need for your presence.  It is not okay to take your interests and exclude your children from your totality of life, or to hurt their rhythm and well-being under the guise of your own interests, but everyone certainly needs something that they can call their own.  Many parents work this around their child’s nap or bedtime schedule. It is okay for an older toddler and preschooler to see your interests, and also to see the things you do around the house that does not directly involve them, but that makes your home a wonderful place for all.  Many mothers who love to sew or garden report that this comes out in their children’s play and what they want to try in their free time.  This is healthy and wonderful.

Another healthy and wonderful thing that children also need to see is a mother-father relationship that is intimate, respectful and loving.  Parents who spend time together provide a sense of security and stability so important for the child to see and take into their subconsciousness for their own future relationships.

Many mothers I meet who stay at home do it all.  Their husbands never have the children alone, without the mother, at any time on a consistent basis.  This is a shame and prevents a child from developing a relationship with the father that does not include the mother’s thumbprint.  One mother wailed to me, “Well, he doesn’t do it the way I do it!!”  Um, exactly the point.  A child needs both a mother and father, and thank goodness we are different. 

And this leads to an interesting Other Observation.  What other trusting, caring, loving adults does your child consistently spend time with?  A small child under the age of 7 needs his mother or a loving, kind father to act as a “filter” for the events of daily life.  However, in some cultures it is interesting that it is not just the mother or father acting as a filter but an entire extended family whom the child spends time with daily. 

I had an interesting experience not too long ago.  I have many, many Hispanic friends whom I love.  One of my dear friends was having a birthday party for her little girl who was turning three years old.  Her mother was handling much of the party and I observed several times when her little girl wanted or needed something and was always interested to see that nine times out of ten a close family friend or relative would take care of what the little girl needed or wanted before my friend could even get there.  And nor did she try to get there all the time.  At one point, her little girl fell, and her mother calmly saw that her best friend helped the little girl up, smoothed the little girls’ dress and fixed the little girl’s hair.  My friend went over after all this was done and gave her daughter a hug, but she felt safe in knowing all of the wonderful adults in the room would take care of this small child as if she were their own. These family members and friends were people the child saw on a daily or almost daily basis.  And they did care for this child as if she were their own, and reacted with an almost group consciousness to situations. 

How very different from the American experience were many time a child will only be satisfied in their mother’s lap or arms.  I am not saying this is bad at all, my children have been that way, but it is certainly very different than the “village” mentality taking place across much of the world.  I am in contact with friends from many different Central and South American countries, Iran, Germany, the Netherlands, China, France and several African nations who can attest to this truth!

“But Carrie,” you say.  “I have no one.  My family lives far away, my parents are crazy and I don’t really involve them in my child’s daily life.  See, no one but me.”

I know this is a Waldorf-related blog so we don’t watch any movies at all :), but have you all seen the Ben Stiller movie “Meet the Parents”?  In this movie, there is an entire (very funny) line about “The Circle of Trust”.  So let me borrow that for a moment. Who is in your own Circle of Trust?  Some mothers honestly don’t trust Dads with their small children.  Is that you?  Who is in your child’s Circle of Trust?  Do you have a friend?  A mother whose parenting you admire and could trust?  Could you start by cultivating a close relationship that your child could see and perhaps over time you and your child would come to see this other mother as part of your community?  It just a thought, it takes an effort to find people whom you trust, who parent similar to you and share your values, but it is worth the effort.

A child over the age of 7 still needs you deeply and needs your help in “filtering” situations, especially things above routine and simple.  But your over 7 child, and certainly your child over 9,  needs safe situations with people you love and trust to practice this important life skill – being able to be connected to people outside of you, and to experience that good things happen with caring adults.  Are there elderly neighbors, a teacher of an outside class your child is taking, other mothers,  whom you trust?  We want our children to feel safe in the world and to have them know that other people are good and kind besides just their own immediate family.

Consider how you feel about things such as the loving adult relationships your child has with other family members and friends.  Think about how you feel responsibilities and privileges should change over time for your child within your family.  Think, ponder and meditate on what you “do for” your child every day, and what your child sees you do for the child’s siblings, yourself, your spouse and your home.

Perhaps the mother who is giving “150 percent” to her children would benefit from some inner work focusing not only on the spiritual side of homemaking that maybe remains hidden within her “to-do” list, but also on letting her children soften and relax into being themselves and  what role she and other trusted adults are playing.  Perhaps then, instead of being a resented chore, parenting would become the wonderful part of life it is meant to be, a means for not only raising moral human beings but a tool for self-growth, self-discovery and contentment.

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Great Read-Alouds for Waldorf At Home First Grade

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For those of you who have ever looked at a “pre-packaged” curriculum for homeschooling, there is usually a package of read-alouds that correspond to the grade level your child is in.  Waldorf homeschooling automatically  has many stories built into the curriculum, but doesn’t always have an automatic stack of read-alouds to accompany each grade.  There are some books that have suggestions for books though! One wonderful book is entitled, “Waldorf Student Reading List” by Pamela Johnson Fenner and Karen L Rivers.  Donna Simmons also has suggestions for read-alouds within her “Living Language” book, available through her website at www.christopherushomeschool.org.

From a Waldorf perspective, the most important thing to remember when choosing books and stories for the child under 9 is that the child is still one with the world and all things in it. Therefore, most appropriate are not the books and stories where one empathetically identifies with the protagonist, but ones where the archetypal images still prevail. 

Therefore, fairy tales are a wonderful basis for read-alouds. Here is a list of read-alouds we have enjoyed so far this school year or are planning on reading this year:

Grimms’ Fairy Tales

Russian Fairy Tales – we used a copy from Dover Books

Japanese Fairy Tales – we used a copy from Dover Books

All of the books by Virginia Haviland “Favorite Fairy Tales Told in (Poland, Russia, Norway, etc)”  There are quite a few of them and you can find them quite cheaply used on Amazon or possibly at your local library.

Andrew Lang’s “The Red Fairy Book” – most of the tales seem about right, some of the books in these series are best left until your child is much older!

The Junior Classics Volume One “Fairy Tales and Fables”, published in 1938 – we have read the fairy tales and are saving the fables for next year.  This volume really has especially wonderful tales from Czechoslovakia that we adore.

Isabel Wyatt’s The Seven Year Old Wonder Book – always nice to read leading up to your child’s seventh birthday, a Waldorf tradition

The Tiptoes Lightly series by Reg Down

Any and all Elsa Beskow books (picture books)

Any and all Jack Prelutsky books (poetry)

The Book of Fairy Poetry by Michael Hague (poetry)

Here are some that don’t especially fit the fairy tale mode but your child may enjoy, depending on their attention span:

Any and all of Edward Ardizzone’s Little Tim series – picture books, rather droll, where Tim goes out to sea on many adventures and everything works out well in the end.  Pre-read for sensitive readers because there are bad guys, shipwrecks, etc.  Boys especially may like these, but my girls like them as well.

Twig and Big Susan, both by Elizabeth Orton Jones

The Racketty Packetty House

And all Thornton Burgess books, although some parents leave these till second grade.

The Paddington Series of books by Michael Bond

Mr. Popper’s Penguins by R. and F. Atwater

Winnie the Pooh and other works by AA Milne

Okay, and three where you will identify with the protagonist, so not the Waldorf ideal per se,  but still lovable –

B is for Betsy by Carolyn Haywood, published in 1940.  Betsy goes to the first grade – innocent, sweet and for the adults, totally points out what is wrong with First Grade today (uh, did that political commentary slip out??!!)

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder – save the other ones in the series till later.

and somehow my eldest found the hardback classic Heidi amongst my things so we read it last year in early December and we will read it this year as well.  Not really appropriate for a first grader, but it really speaks to my little girl.  Heidi does show an ideal rhythm though, doesn’t it?  Fresh air, goat-herding, delayed academics …..heeheeheehee. 🙂

There are other favorites I could go on about from Kindergarten, but those are probably best saved till another post.  🙂

Two  last thoughts:  Please tell stories before bedtime, don’t read!  We started with reading and I have found it so difficult to get my kids to accept storytelling in place of reading.  Start early with your storytelling, it will serve you and your children well.  Many families do reading after lunch before quiet time and tell stories before bedtime.  The best stories you tell are the ones you make up yourself!!

The second thought is this: for voracious readers, like my eldest, do not feel you have to get them new reading material all the time.  We re-read, and re-read and re-read.  First grade (and Kindergarten) should still be about being in the body.  Reading books and having to have a new book all the time can be a form of stimulation just like wanting constant entertainment, so if your little one wants to sit and read or thumb through books for hours on end, consider your rhythm and what times of the day reading is okay.

I feel another post coming on…..

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

Wonderful Waldorf

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People who know my husband and I in “real life” were somewhat surprised to hear we had chosen a Waldorf-inspired path for the home education of our two children.  Most people who know a little about Waldorf say, “Isn’t that the method where children do not learn to read until they are nine?”  Other parents we knew who had actually visited a Waldorf school usually only visited a Waldorf Kindergarten, and  the “pink bubble” of the Kindergarten did not impress them as setting the stage for an academically rigorous education.  These are a few of the common but pervasive myths surrounding Waldorf education that I would like to bust today in this post.

I would like to list for you all the 10 most wonderful things I have found about Waldorf education, why I consider it the best way to educate a child, and why you truly should consider it for your own family.

1.  No other curriculum I have found takes on the task of educating the entire child – body, mind, soul and spirit – and also takes into account what the adult who went through this kind of  educational process will be like as a result.  In Waldorf Education, what kind of adult the child will be in thirty or forty years really matters.  The health of the child and the future adult the child will become is of utmost importance.

The “con” to this is that Rudolf Steiner based this upon his way of seeing the child, which may or may not be in agreement with your religious or spiritual views.  Some people would say they cannot work with Waldorf at all because the curriculum is based upon that.  I feel the curriculum is well coordinated with Piaget, Gesell and often does things that are done in European education, irrespective of Steiner’s spiritual base.  I leave that to you to decide and wade through.

2.  Waldorf education respects the stages of childhood development.  This is why formal academics are delayed until the first grade, why a nine year old in the third grade studies house building and farming, why a fifth grader studies the Greeks and Ancient History.  I appreciate the fact that nothing is random within the curriculum, and that the curriculum is built upon what will feed the child’s soul at each and every age.

3.  I am glad to see a high emphasis placed upon the arts and teaching through the arts throughout the grades.  This resonates within me that we as human beings should be close to the wonderful and beautiful things that we can create – art, music, handwork.

4.  Waldorf is one of the only methods I know that looks at what Steiner termed “soul economy.”  Steiner’s thought was this, as written in the lecture “The Waldorf School“ in the lectures compiled in Soul Economy:  “The aim of Waldorf education is to arrange all of the teaching so that in the shortest possible time the maximum amount of material can be  presented to students by the simplest means possible.”  He goes on to say:  “This helps children retain an overall view of their subjects – not so much intellectually, but very much in their feeling life.”  Some may read this last statement as evidence that Steiner did not mean for Waldorf education to be academically rigorous.  I view this as evidence that Waldorf education is more than just the rampant “Factoid-ization” that is occurring within our educational system today and causing the United States to be behind in nearly all educational standards by the time our children graduate from high school.  Memorizing facts does not equate to knowledge and the ability to problem –solve.  Waldorf education does require a lot of memorization – verses, songs, rhymes, multiplication tables, addition tables, scientific facts – but it also looks at the memorization of these facts within a bigger picture of understanding and knowledge.

5.  The beauty of music resonates throughout the kindergarten years with the pentatonic scales and rich singing through the use of a blowing instrument in the early grades leading up to use of a stringed instrument in the third grade and going through a History of Music in high school.  Music has important ties to math and should hold a high place within educational standards.

6.  The way Waldorf education approaches reading makes perfect sense to me.  Oral storytelling, verses and singing within the Kindergarten years provide that deep, rich basis for language.  Waiting until a child is likely to have the attention, handwriting skills and visual tracking abilities to successfully  read also makes perfect sense.  In Waldorf schools, children learn to read by reading what they themselves have written and drawn in a main lesson book.  Waldorf education traces the letters through how people long ago may have started to devise symbols for things and how that translates into the alphabet.  The pictures of stories of the letters really stick in the children’s minds, as opposed to them just trying to remember which way a “g” goes and how is that different than a “j”? 

There probably are always children within a Waldorf Kindergarten who have taught themselves to read, and that is fine and much different than having phonics lessons shoved down your child’s throat.  Many of the children who have taught themselves to read literally go from reading nothing to being able to read whatever they want.  It is innate and inborn, and guess what?  They still enjoy hearing the stories of the letters in first grade just as much as the other children!  Waldorf education focuses on not just the academic education needed for life, but the stories that build a child’s soul for where they are.  First Grade is still just the bridge between Kindergarten and the more rigorous work to come.

7.  Waldorf’s approach to science focuses on moving from whole to parts and involves more than giving a child a hypothesis to prove with an experiment.  For more information regarding the Gothean approach to science that Waldorf utilizes, please see the following website:  www.natureinstitute.org

8.  Throughout all of the school years, Waldorf education places utmost importance upon the child developing into a moral human.  In this day and age, how can anything be more important than that?  This is to me what schools try to approach through “character development” classes but far misses the mark compared to the beauty and morality that rings throughout all of Waldorf education in EVERY subject – including math and science! 

9.  Waldorf education takes the tiny, delicate wings of a child’s imagination and makes them fly and soar like an eagle.  The world our children will inherit will be even more fast-paced than today most likely.  The adults who will succeed in this world will be the ones who will be imaginative, creative, out-of the box problem solvers.  Will your child be one of those adults?

10.  Waldorf education, through the use of its shared values, celebration of festivals and rites of passage within the curriculum, promotes a wonderful and close knit community that families are glad and proud to be a part of!

If you would like more information regarding Waldorf Education, please visit one of the following websites:

For use of Waldorf within the home environment, please see the following:

David Darcy:  www.ddarcy.com

Barbara Dewey:  www.waldorfwithoutwalls.com

Marsha Johnson’s Yahoo! Group

Melisa Nielsen’s website (she is also a reader of this blog!) (she also has a Yahoo! Group):  http://www.alittlegardenflower.com/

Eugene Schwartz:  www.millennialchild.org

Christopherus:  www.christopherushomeschool.org

For general information regarding Waldorf, please see the following:

http://www.whywaldorfworks.org/

http://www.waldorfearlychildhood.org/

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.

For All The Jellyfish In The Sea

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I recently had several “self-confessed jellyfish”  mommies contact me.  They had read my post entitled, “Developing Healthy Boundaries,” but still were unsure about what they should really enforce in their homes as “none of it seems worth fighting over.”

I am not advocating fighting with your child.  If you approach a child that way, even just in your head before you open your mouth, the whole exchange between the two of you is lost.  I am saying, however, that your child  does deserve the dignity and respect that a peaceful home and good behavior provides.  You are worthy of a child who eventually embodies self-discipline, self-motivation and self-responsibility. Your family is worthy of  having a clean, peaceful home to live in.

My suggestion for “things worth quibbling over” would include the following:

Having the child respect himself, others and the Earth with his or her body and words.  Everyone deserves to be safe. 

Keeping the home environment picked up and clean within the child’s ability and with the parent’s help.

Everyone should have the right and ability to rest when they need.  Quiet time and the need for quiet activity should not be a dirty word within the home.

Manners that will serve your child well throughout his or her life are worth demonstrating and working on.  Good manners include such things as how we speak to others, table manners, how we act in different environments outside of our home with other people, even the importance of being on time in our culture.

Some people write a family mission statement to try to embody the things that are most important to them.  This may be helpful to you.  Remember though, with small children under the age of 7, we mainly show these things through modeling and physically helping the child.  This will mean infinitely more than a bunch of  head-oriented, verbal demands.  Please see the post entitled, “Take My Three Day Challenge.”   We command by using our Authentic Leadership, we do not work with our children by verbally wearing them out!

These are just beginning thoughts and I would love to hear from all of the wonderful mothers out there:  What is vitally and essentially important for my little jellyfish of the sea to think about in their homes?

Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.