Author Archives: Carrie

Guest Post: Burn-Out in Waldorf Homeschooling And A Special Offer For Parenting Passageway Readers!

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My guest poster today is a wonderful homeschooling mentor many of you are familiar with:  Melissa Nielsen of Waldorf Essentials (A Little Garden Flower)! You can see her website here:  http://waldorfessentials.com/

Melissa is talking today about the topic of burn-out, blame and what to do!  Melissa writes:

I want to thank Carrie for this opportunity to guest post as this topic is close to both of our hearts and it is so funny how it comes up again and again this time of year.  We both felt like it would be a good blog topic.

 

Burn- Out. As a Waldorf homeschooling consultant, I am seeing more and more of this.  More and more moms that I know love Waldorf but some how have decided that it is too hard so they opt for “Waldorf-lite”, falsely believing that is all they can do.   I have taken some heat before for saying that I don’t believe in burn- out. I suppose I should qualify that and say that I don’t believe that Waldorf homeschooling is the cause of the burn -out.

Let me back up. This job is hard. It is dang hard. I think it could be harder than giant monsters fighting giant robots like in my sweet husband’s new favorite flick. It is hard. This job takes work.  I have been mothering for just over 16 years now. Children don’t come with manuals. They don’t know how to turn off on our bad days. They don’t understand menstrual cramps or a fight with our mother. They are just generally happy to be in their bodies and they don’t have a clue why we want them to stop jumping on the sofa or hitting their brother!   In my parenting career, I have been through a bunch – sometimes I stepped in the hole willingly and other times someone dragged me into it.  Each time I climbed out, I got up, made breakfast and we walked on.  I am their rock.  Without me time might just stand still for them.

I knew I wanted to homeschool before I had children. I discovered Waldorf education early on and like most moms that are new to it, I feel in love with the beauty of it.  Waldorf is a delight for the senses for certain! Like many of you, I had no support system.  I had an husband (now former) who was battling wars I couldn’t join him in.  I was alone. I made friends with Waldorf teachers that could direct me.  They gave me all kinds of advice on the curriculum, but none of them had really done this at home and certainly not with this many children. I had to figure it out on my own.

A bunch of children. No manual. All alone.

I learned that Waldorf, while it wasn’t easy, it was SIMPLE.  I learned that simple didn’t have to be easy.  I made goals for each child, goals for myself and then I learned to plan.  I firmly believe that it doesn’t matter how many children you have, you can do this. You just have to want it.  You have to be ready to wrestle some things to the ground – those things have NOTHING to do with Waldorf and everything to do with you.  I found that Waldorf could be this tremendous mirror for me. I learned to take care of myself for the first time in my mothering.  I learned to connect with Spirit in new ways.  I learned that I was a dynamic person, I just had to find her and let her out. We are ALL talented.  We just have to find those talents.   As long as I kept my temperament balanced and my inner work in check, then I had the time to do what I wanted and what I needed.  Sure there were years when it was not so easy, but those times are short.

Be a family with a purpose.

If you read Carrie’s blog regularly, then you know she promotes living ON purpose. Living on purpose takes effort.  It takes a plan.  It takes knowing what you want from life for you and your family. Do you have these Continue reading →

Simplicity Monday: Too Much

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Are we building our families on the four pillars of “too much”:  too much stuff, too many choices, too much information, and too fast? I believe that we are.  But I also believe that we don’t mean to be.  I know it for a fact, and I’ve seen it many times, that parents can bring fresh inspiration and attention to the flow of family life. – Simplicity Parenting, Kim John Payne with Lisa Ross, page XI, Introduction

I think the most well-meaning and loving parents can get caught up in this.  This year, as many of my readers know, was a difficult one and has been a real wake-up call to me to cut my life, our family’s life, down to the things and the people that I hold most dear, the people and things that nourish us as a family.  It is liberating, it is freeing, it is rejuvenating.

I think many parents actually have an easier time with going through material things and getting rid of and simplifying in that area.  However, when it comes to “too many choices, too much information and too fast”, it can be more difficult.    It also can mean hard choices.   One example of “too many choices”, is in activities.  Many of the parents I know whose children are involved in lots of activities are in them simply because  it sort of creeps up, for one, and for number two, we are so lucky in these times that we live in that there are many good activities!    At least, on the surface it can seem that many of these activities are “good”.

However, if we take a closer look, we see the displacement of the family life that “too many” activities cause, and also that many of the activities actually are “too fast” for the age.  I posted this link on The Parenting Passageway Facebook page, but here is a good example by a noted orthopedic surgeon in regards to children in competitive sports:  http://www.cleveland.com/dman/index.ssf/2013/02/noted_surgeon_dr_james_andrews.html

“Too much information” can also be difficult.  In an effort to not be the Continue reading →

Screen Time Rules

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I love the writings and musings of  Elizabeth Foss and her mighty blog, In The Heart of My Home.  She is a lovely mother to nine children of varying ages,and wrote this all-encompassing post about “Screen Rules”.  I do hope you check it out:  http://www.elizabethfoss.com/reallearning/2013/07/screen-rules.html

Some of these rules are really wonderful for all of us, especially as homeschooling mothers.  Wouldn’t life in your home run more smoothly if your computer or phone was tucked away by 9 AM and not taken out again until school and chores were over? And,  I really appreciate the integrity represented here as the public image created on the Internet should always be what a person really is in his or her heart. I know many of my readers have younger children, but this would be a great list to tuck away and bring out for discussion with older children when the time is right.

Many blessings,
Carrie

Simplicity Monday: Reducing Time In The Car

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Americans, in most parts of the United States, do have a love affair with their automobiles.  After all, here you can drive eight hours or more and be in the same state, whereas in most places in Europe you can cross several different countries during that time!  The United States is very large indeed!

And our urban areas often sprawl.  I live in a sprawling Southern metropolitan area that covers about twenty counties.  We have just about everything and anything one would want to do – but it often comes at a high driving price.

I love this insight by Jack Petrash in his book, “ Covering Home: Lessons On The Art of Fathering from the Game of Baseball”:

I can still remember my parents packing the car for our summer vacation.  The trunk of our ‘52 Ford was filled to the capacity with suitcases and boxes of food.  The back seat belonged to my brother and me and we were told in no uncertain terms that we had better behave.  “You are going to be in the car for a long time.  Bring something to play with and don’t fight.  This will be a long trip.”

That “long trip” was a fifty-mile drive that we made once a year to stay at a little motel on a small lake on Long Island.  Nowadays, this distance is a daily commute.  Back then, during most months, I was not in the car for even two hours.”

Spending hours in a car is difficult on small children, and on us as well.  It is an area that can almost creep up on us as we realize the amount of time we have spent in the car in the past week, the past month, the past year.  My husband and I  were driving back from his parent’s home yesterday and we looked at each other and marveled how many hours we must have spent in a car together in the past 25 years – together, without children and together with children.

I think there are some simple ways to think about reducing time in the car, and the first step is to being aware and wanting to change that pattern for your children.  Spontaneous, outside play at home is far more important than being in a car.  As Jack Petrash writes, “If our children today are wired and wound up, it is often because they have been denied an outlet for their nervous energy.”  So if your children do not seem robust, but instead whiny, difficult, demanding, nervous and anxious – double check how much time you are in the car!

To reduce car time think of: Continue reading →

Emptiness

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In many ways, this has been one of the best summers I have ever had.  It has been a series of carefree camping, swimming and kayaking dates,  interspersed with lots of time with friends and family.  It has been wonderful and healing for my soul in so many ways.

My friend Catherine wrote a post about emptiness and about having compassion for oneself.  It is a must-read, as is the post she linked to as well: http://catherine-et-les-fees.blogspot.com/2013/06/emptiness.html

It so resonated with me because underneath my really fun summer, emptiness and grief has been a theme of this whole year for me.  Time can be so healing, but yet not enough time has passed, so those emotions and events are still there in my soul, digesting and breaking down.

Empty.  Drained. Exhausted.

Sad.

Not full, but empty.

There is still laughter and fun, but it is there underneath, this feeling.

Sometimes life is like this tide of outward expansion, inward contraction…full and empty, alone and then in companionship.  But it can be so hard when one feels so unsafe, so unprotected, so…challenged and swimming upstream at every turn.  It can be so hard when your “ho hum” has left the building and run away because you feel so raw about everything.

Yet, a curious thing has come out of this summer, simply because I really took some steps to protect myself in rest, to protect myself in peace.  The emptiness has not gone away, there are really raw moments,  but I am starting to see it all as something different.  I am starting to see it all as gifts.

A gift of Continue reading →

Simplicity Monday: Inner Work II

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In our last post on Simplicity Monday I talked about a new  regard for  inner work in this season of light held so lovingly by St. John the Forerunner.  I mentioned taking just ten minutes a day in order to stand or sit in silence.

One thing to consider is the art of daily recollection.  In the book, “The Desert Mothers: Spiritual Practices from the Women of the Wilderness”, author and priest Mary C. Earle writes: Continue reading →

Links To Love

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First of all, a great link about nighttime breastfeeding for all the tired parents out there: http://breastfeedchicago.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/5-cool-things-no-one-ever-told-you-about-nighttime-breastfeeding/ Continue reading →

Guest Post: Reflections On St. John’s Tide

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Some of you may be familiar with  fiber artist and teacher Judy Forster from her handwork shop on Etsy called Mama’s Jude’s Plant Dyed Stuff (http://www.mamajudes.etsy.com ) and a post she wrote for this blog some time ago here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/03/28/handwork/.  Today she is sharing her personal reflections upon St. John’s Tide.

Judy Forster grew up in a family where all kinds of Handwork were important and appreciated. While working as an adjunct instructor of English, she was happily recruited to her first position teaching Handwork at the Susquehanna Waldorf School where her son was a kindergarten student and her husband had taught German. She completed the first Applied Arts training offered in the United States at Sunbridge College. Over the years, Judy has taught Handwork to students of all ages in Waldorf schools and private schools, for homeschool Collectives, and at summer camps. She is currently working at home while enjoying time with her younger daughter; her son is now graduated from college. Judy teaches homeschool students, homeschool parents, and runs her on-line business for naturally plant dyed stuff at  Mama Jude’s Plant Dyed Stuff.

This is Judy’s meditation on the meaning that St. John’s Tide holds for her:  Continue reading →

Simplicity Monday On Summer Time!

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Well, today is Simplicity Monday on Summer Time.  Monday was the wonderful feast of light and cleansing and renewal in St. John, and yesterday I spent time at the horse farm and then at the lake with dear friends, fireflies, live bluegrass music and swimming…so today is Simplicity Monday!

To take up this theme of renewal and cleansing, I think one must be clear:  inner work in order to discern what needs renewing and cleansing is so important.  The seed of light cannot grow within us unless we take the time to be in stillness. And without that, it is difficult to lead a family, to model for our children what we want them to be if we ourselves cannot do it.

So, for today, create a space in your day where you can spend just ten minutes a day in silence at a rhythmical time each day.  More to come on inner work all this week and next.

Many blessings,

Carrie

The Nativity of St. John The Forerunner

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Today is the day of St. John, the Forerunner!  It is a time where the earth is exhaling as if in a deep dream, the deepest of languid sleep,  the height of  summer light and a time where perhaps the Christian Celtic vision of the “thin places” – the veil between the material and spiritual worlds – is so readily apparent.

 

We can feel this rhythm within us, and with this special time in June comes this Feast.  St. John comes to us, with his fiery spirit reminiscent of the Prophet Elijah, to connect us to a sense of repentance, of anticipation, of movement forward with connection to Christ. 

 

There is a renewal held in fire and for centuries people have celebrated this time with bonfires on the tops of mountains and hill tops.  This makes me think of “Hind’s Feet On High Places”, where Hannah Hurnard writes, “The life of the praying person is a journey farther and farther up and farther in, to places God Himself has spoken about to the attentive heart.”

 

Where is your attention?

Where is your Holy Silence?

What is God telling you?

Where is your renewal and your reconnection to God?  What does that mean to you?

How are you being cleansed and renewed by the circumstances in your life?

 

There is a cleansing held in the water.  We see St. John the Forerunner conveying the great spirit of cleansing, of binding and abiding, in his baptism of Christ.  

This weekend I went tubing with a group of friends. It was fun, and it was so much like life. There were banks and shoals and rocks, fast water over rapids and slow lazily drifting pools.   If you didn’t work with the person you are connected with, you didn’t get very far.  If you were not thoroughly yoked to your partner, the rapids would take you apart.  You may have thought you had it all figured out because you had a pole in your hand to keep yourself from getting stranded, but then your pole would be swept away in the current and drift away and you were left with trying to figure out another plan and relying upon people who were coming down the river path to assist you.  Such a loss of control, swept along in the vastness of the current. 

So much like life, and so much to say about this time of cleansing and renewal. 

 

What can you let go of?  What is not serving you anymore and why are you holding onto it?

Who  and what needs to be in your life?

Is it really that serious or should you be floating instead of trying so hard to use your pole to push against the current?

Where is your cleansing and your freshness of the soul?  What are you doing spiritually to support yourself as you go “farther up and farther in”? 

 

Here is to a fresh vision, a new hope, a cleansing and renewing, a new chance for meaning,

Many blessings,
Carrie