Category Archives: Book Reviews

Favorite Books For Gentle Discipline

Posted on by
19

Specifically Regarding Anger:

  • “When Anger Hurts Your Kids” by Mckay, Fanning, Paleg and Landis
  • “love and anger the parental dilemma” by Nancy Samalin with Catherine Whitney

Under Age 9:

  • WALDORF:  “You Are Your Child’s First Teacher” by Rahima Baldwin Dancy
  • WALDORF:  “Beyond the Rainbow Bridge”
  • WALDORF:  “Heaven On Earth” by Sharifa Oppenheimer, although I cannot recommend the references to time-out.  Those of you who read this blog know I oppose time-out.  Many parents do love this book though!
  • WALDORF:  “You’re Not The Boss of Me!  Understanding the Six/Seven Year Transformation” available through www.waldorfbooks.org
  • WALDORF:  Donna Simmons’ Audio Downloads  on “The Changing Face Of Discipline” and also “Talking Pictorially and Living Actively with Your Young Child” – can be found here: http://www.christopherushomeschool.org/bookstore-for-waldorf-homeschooling/audio-downloads.html
  • WALDORF:  “The Challenge of The Will” by Margret Meyerkort and Rudi Lissau
  • DEVELOPMENTAL:  For understanding realistic expectations for each age, I still like The Gesell Institute books “Your One-Year-Old” “Your Two-Year-Old” etc.  They are available at many libraries and are also easily picked up used.
  • DEVELOPMENTAL/LOVING GUIDANCE:  “Mothering Your Nursing Toddler”  by Norma Bumgarner
  • ATTACHMENT PARENTING:  “Attached At The Heart”  by Barbara Nicholson and Lysa Parker (one chapter of discipline)
  • GENTLE DISCIPLINE:  La Leche League’s “Adventures in Gentle Discipline” –this also has a part about time out as mentioned by parents, which I oppose.    The voices of many mothers are throughout this book, so you will have to pick through what resonates with you.  Particularly if you are also a Waldorf family, the “talk talk talk” of some of the families with their tiny children  may not resonate with you!  There is however, a good section as to what “gentle discipline” is and isn’t in the beginning of the book.  A good place to start if you are new to gentle discipline and equate it in your head with children having no boundaries (which is NOT what it is!)
  • ATTACHMENT PARENTING:  “Connection Parenting”  by Pam Leo
  • GENTLE DISCIPLINE:  “Easy To Love, Difficult To Discipline”  by Becky Bailey
  • GENTLE DISCIPLINE:  “Playful Parenting” by Lawrence Cohen
  • GENTLE DISCIPLINE:  “Discipline Without Distress” by Judy Arnall – you can search through this blog for chapter summaries of this book, not all strategies in this book are compatible with a Waldorf approach but overall a helpful book
  • And may I ever so humbly recommend this blog?:)

Over Age 9:

  • WALDORF:  Specific to the Nine-Year-Old Change:  Donna Simmons’s Audio Downloads on Third Grade and also “The Changing Face of Discipline for ages 9 and up”
  • WALDORF:  Specific to the Nine-Year-Old Change:  “Encountering the Self” by Hermann Koepke
  • GENERAL PARENTING:  “Hold On to Your Kids” by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate
  • GENTLE DISCIPLINE:  “Kids Are Worth It!” by Barbara Coloroso.  Has some good examples of how to “hold the space” in it. 
  •  GENTLE DISCIPLINE:  “Loving Your Child Is Not Enough:  Positive Discipline That Works” by Nancy Samalin with Martha Moraghan Jablow
  • GENTLE DISCIPLINE:  “Raising Your Spirited Child” and “Kids, Parents and Power Struggles” by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka  (I put these here because the strategies essentially involve emotion coaching and I feel that is better for an older child).

 

Over Age 12:

  • WALDORF:  Specific to the 12- Year -Old Change:  Hermann Koepke’s “On the Threshold of Adolescence”
  • WALDORF:  Also, several of Steiner’s works are now available for education and observation of the adolescent:   http://www.waldorfbooks.com/edu/adolescence.htm
  • WALDORF:  “Between Form and Freedom” by Betty Staley
  • GENTLE DISCIPLINE:  “Kids Are Worth It!”  by Barbara Coloroso
  • GENTLE DISCIPLINE:  “Kids, Parents and Power Struggles” by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka and “Raising Your Spirited Child” by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka
  • GENTLE DISCIPLINE:  “Peaceful Parents, Peaceful Kids” by Naomi Drew
  • COMMUNCICATION:  “NonViolent Communication”  by Marshall Rosenberg (and to me, once your child hits 15 or so, why not attend a NVC Group together and practice?)
  • COMMUNICATION:  “How to Talk So Kids Will Listen, and Listen So Kids Will Talk” and “Liberated Parents, Liberated Children:  Your Guide To A Happier Family” by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

 

Let me be clear, one can certainly read the gentle discipline books for the older children when one’s child is younger and gleam things from them, but some of  the approaches are best saved for when your child is older!

And finally, some gentle books for the mother:

CHRISTIAN:  “The Power of A Positive Mother” by Karol Ladd

GENERAL/BUDDHIST: “Everyday Blessings:  The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting” by Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn

WALDORF/GENERAL:  “Mitten Strings for God:  Reflections For Mothers In A Hurry” by Katrina Kenison

Blessings,

Carrie

Links for Dangers of Media for Children

Posted on by
1

This is a great article that describes the phenomenon of “age compression” as viewed by a Kindergarten teacher and some things she did to combat this:

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/23_03/six233.shtml

Here is an article from TIME:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914450-2,00.html

The sad statistics regarding how much media children are watching:

http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/tv-viewing-among-kids-at-an-eight-year-high/

The best antidote you can provide to your children besides the obvious step of limiting media exposure from screens includes providing opportunity for time in nature and plenty of time and open ended toys for imaginative play.

Peace,

Carrie

Nokken: A Review of Two Books and A Few Thoughts

Posted on by
26

(Post updated 6/28/2012)  Nokken has come up on almost every Waldorf Yahoo!Group and Waldorf forum I am on, so I thought it was about time to address the work of Helle Heckmann.  More and more, Nokken is being held up as an example within the Waldorf community of what to do right within child care for young children, and as an example of the value of outdoor play and outdoor time and connection with nature for young children.  For this post, I read both “Nokken:  A Garden for Children” by Helle Heckmann and “Nokken:  A Garden for Kids September 2003 Celebration Edition.”  I hear there is also a lovely video about Nokken that I have not yet seen.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Nokken, Nokken is a Danish approach to  Waldorf-based childcare in Copenhagen, Denmark.  The minimum age for children to enter is walking age.  Helle Heckmann writes, “The child must be able to walk away from her mother and into the world on her own,” on page 26 of “Nokken:  A Garden For Children.”  The center is open for six hours a day only, from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.  “Our idea is that we share with the parents,” writes Helle Heckmann on the same page.  “We look after the children for six hours, the parents have them for six waking hours and the children sleep for twelve hours.  In other words, the family will still exert influence on the child’s development.”  The staff at the center does not change during the day, unlike child care centers in the United States that are open for long hours that necessitate shift changes.  The children are together in one group from walking age to age 7, and sibling groups are welcomed and kept together, which is again different from the vast majority of child care centers in the United States.  Most Americans would agree this is a huge and vast improvement over the majority of daycare centers in the United States.

Helle  Heckmann writes on page 27 of Nokken,”  It is obviously difficult.  Parents often need longer opening hours, while at the same time they want the world’s best early-childhood program with a motivated and relaxed staff.  This is a difficult task, and knowing that we cannot accommodate all needs, we have chosen to favor the children.  It is a conscious choice we have made as a child-care center. Most of our parents also have to make a choice.  They change jobs, reduce their working hours, or work flexible hours:  the solutions are many and varied as they consciously choose to spend a lot of time with their children.”

She goes on to write that the role of child care has changed; in the past it was for primarily for social stimulation and now,  “The centers must teach children the basics to help them achieve the necessary skills to choose their life style at a later stage.  The parents’ role is mainly to stimulate and organize activities of a social and/or cultural interest.”

Ouch.

Okay, I guess since I am home with my children, perhaps I have a different perspective on this as a homeschooling mother.  Why as a society do we throw up our hands and say, this is the way it is?  People have to work, people have chaotic home lives, so the children are better off in child care than with their own families?  Why are we not coming up with more ways to support and develop parents?  Why in this age of abundant information (yet, often contradictory and just plain wrong information!) are parents feeling so confused and isolated as to what children truly need?  Why is there not more understanding of children as children and childhood development and such as opposed to treating children as miniature adults?

Back to the things that are good about Nokken.  On page 31 Helle Heckmann writes, “Our first priority is to spend most of the day outdoors.  We spend five out of the six hours we are together outdoors.”  The children and staff walk daily to a park with open natural spaces and also have a garden with many fruit trees, berry bushes, sand pits, a hen house, rabbit cages, a pigeon house, a vegetable garden, a herb garden, flower beds and a laundry area.  The children who are younger and need to nap sleep  outside in an open shed, which is common in Denmark.

Children are met in the morning with a handshake, which I find uncommon for Early Year Waldorf programs in the United States.  This seems very awakening for the child, and something I truly only hear of teachers of Waldorf Grades doing with their students in the United States.  Perhaps my Danish readers can tell me if this is a cultural difference?  My husband’s family is from Denmark but have not lived there for a long time, so I have no one to ask!

The daily schedule is something that is lovely and takes into account the ages of the children.  On page 60 of Nokken, Helle Heckmann writes, “We are careful not to let the youngest children participate in story-telling.  If it is a long story, the three year olds sit in another room and draw, because in my experience it is important not to engage them in activities for which they are not ready.”  She also talks about how festival celebrations are mainly for children over 3 as well.  I love this.

The part I have the most difficulty with however, outside of the few things I mentioned above, is the perspective of child development based upon the work of Emmi Pickler and Magda Gerber and their Resources for Infant Educarers.  I realize this puts me outside of most in the Waldorf community, which has embraced RIE.

I liked Helle’s description of the need of the infant to cry as a form of communication.  However, much of the thrust of her perspective of infant care seems to be “to leave the infant in peace and quiet to sleep or, when awake, to get to know herself without constant intervention from her surroundings.  Often it is difficult to show this infant respect and leave her alone. Constantly satisfying your own need for reassurance and your need to look at your beautiful baby will often influence the infant’s ability to be content with herself….By giving the infant peace and quiet for the first months of her life, she will get used to her physical life; the crying will gradually stop, and the baby may start to sleep during the night without waking up at all hours.”

As an attached parent, I believe I can respect my child and still enfold her within my protective gesture and be physically close.  I believe I can still carry her in a sling and nurse her and  have her act as a (passive) witness to my life without overly stimulating her.  I believe in our particular culture at this particular time, parents need reassurance to enfold their child within themselves and their family unit, not to separate their children in their infancy to be independent.  Perhaps this is a cultural difference than Denmark, I don’t know.

However, I also have to say that I  do not believe baby-wearing is an excuse to take my children everywhere I went before I had children.  I believe in protecting the senses but doing this in an attached way.

I do agree with some of Helle Heckman’ s statements regarding infants, including her statement on page 17 of Nokken that, “The more restless the adults are, the more restless the children will be.”  However, statements such as “The less we disturb the infant, the better chance she has of adapting to her life on earth,” rather bothers me.  I agree in not initiating the disturbance of  the infant, but I fear too many parents will take this as license to just set their infant down and let them cry or to keep them passively in a crib.  I do  agree with Helle Heckmann’s assessment that it is difficult to care for children under walking age within a child care setting  because of the high needs of care and because infants need peaceful surroundings.

As a homeschooling mother, what I take away from Nokken is the lovely thoughts of a forest kindergarten, napping outside, using action to communicate with small children and not words (see page 32 of Nokken), using singing as a way of talking to small children (page 51), Helle’s constant inner work and development, her obvious love of the children.

And as a homeschooling mother and attached parent, I don’t like the whole notion that is invading Waldorf Education that children under the age of 4 or 4 and a half should be out of their homes, I don’t like the notion that the child care center, no matter how outdoorsy “shares” the child with the parents, and I don’t like the idea that parents are not as empowered as they could be in childhood development.  Why are we positioning anyone but the parents to be the experts on their children and acting as if someone else knows better?    Waldorf schools are also taking children earlier and earlier into Kindergarten, and I also have an issue with that.   I would like to see more effort to again, empower and inspire parents within the Waldorf movement to be home.   The hand shaking to greet a small child with such pronounced eye contact also baffles me.

There are many wonderful things at Nokken, and many American parents who need child care would be thrilled to find a center such as Nokken in their neighborhood.  Many mothers attempt to create such an environment as part of their homeschooling environment or take in children from outside their family for care so they may stay home with their own children.  These are all realities.

However, I would love to see a movement toward empowering and inspiring mothers to be homemakers, to be truly spiritual homemakers, to encourage families to make tough choices to be home with their children,  because I feel this is where the power of the next generation is truly going to disseminate from.

Blessings,

Carrie

Book Review: “A Lifetime of Joy: A Collection of Circle Games, Finger Games, Songs, Verses and Plays for Puppets and Marionettes”

Posted on by
1

This book was “collected, created, adapted and translated” by Bronja Zahlingen, a familiar name to many of us in Early Waldorf Education.  I adore this book.  Bronja Zahlingen was born in Poland in 1912 and went to Germany at the onset of WWI.  She first encountered anthroposophy in high school and after graduation and kindergarten training began a kindergarten in Vienna.  She went to conference in England at the time of invasion of Hitler’s troops and stayed in England for a number of years.  She returned to Vienna in 1950 and began her life’s work of creating linguistic games, poems and stories for young children.  She died in 2000, and this lovely book is so wonderful for small children and is such a testimony to her creative spirit. 

The rhymes and stories really are wonderful for children up to age nine and will convince you of the wonder and appropriateness of puppetry in bringing these stories.  Many of Bronja’s articles are also included.  In her article entitled “In Praise of Early Childhood” she points out this fact”:

“Human beings can change and develop beyond their natural genetic and biological dispositions, on which their spiritual, soul and moral qualities never entirely depend.  Here we begin to understand the great responsibility that rests upon us adults, as parents and educators; in fact, upon the whole attitude and environment that a particular place, culture or civilization has to offer.

In the presence of young children, this responsibility is especially great because in their earliest years, children are endowed with an immense power of imitation that can also reveal the great trust and confidence they have in us and in the world around them.  They cannot yet distinguish values, and seem to assume that everything around them is good.  During this period of life, body, soul and spirit still exist as a unity.”

In this book there are also articles entitled, “Movement, Gesture and Language in the Life of the Young Child” and “The Pedagogical Value of Marionette and Table Puppet Shows for the Small Child”.   There are verses and songs, circle games, stories and plays for puppets for every season along with Christmas legends based around nature.

These puppet plays are fabulous and could really make up the block of your entire school year for the Kindergarten-aged child.   The puppet plays do include music and songs, so it would be advantageous if you or someone you know could read music.

Consider this book as an essential book for your shelf for your young child (and those who are young at heart). 

Many blessings,

Carrie

“Discipline Without Distress: Chapter Four”

Posted on by
7

t So, I am continuing to slowly work my way through the book “Discipline Without Distress” by Judy Arnall.  Today is Chapter Four:  “Punishments and Bribes Don’t Work:  Look for the need or feeling under the behavior.”

The author starts out with a statement about punishments:  “Punishments are used more for the person giving them than the person receiving them.  They are meant to fill a need in the person who was wronged, or in the case of parents, who perceive the wrongdoing and are in charge of teaching the child that what he did was wrong.”

She goes on to write, “Punishments often impede the learning process.  Children become immersed in their anger, fear, and hurt and don’t often get the lesson.  Or the lesson they take away is that they can’t communicate with their parents.”

The author has a long list of problems against punishments on page 99 of this book, which would make a handy list to copy and put up somewhere as a reminder to yourself!  She also talks about “time-out” (which you all know I despise completely if you have been reading my blog for any length of time) as the most confusing and overused discipline method to come out of the last two decades.  She looks at both the advantages and disadvantages of time-out and the disadvantage list is much, much longer than the advantages list.

She writes, “Generally, parents want children to have appropriate time-out behavior such as being quiet, reflective, and still. They are supposed to behave that way for a certain amount of time.  That is very hard because the time a time-out is most often prescribed is when a child is out of control emotionally.  Their inability to calm down sufficiently enough to take a time-out can ire parents.  Both parties are now in a power struggle and are very angry.”   The only time-out I recommend is if YOU, the PARENT, needs to gain control of yourself.  Time-out is a tool for the PARENT, but not the child. 

Like myself, the author recommends TIME-IN.  Time-in is a calm-down strategy and does not leave the child to figure out how to handle out his or her flood of emotions without any help or guidance. 

The author than goes through the problems with spanking.  I am happy to go through this list if someone needs this help – just leave a comment  in the comment box and I will happily write a post on spanking.  There are also some posts about “no spanking” available by clicking on the tag in the tags section. 

YELLING is a habit many mothers seem to have.  Yelling loses its effectiveness over time and can be very threatening to young children and also encourages children to yell back at you!  Grounding, withdrawal of privileges, the use of “logical consequences”, lecturing, threats, blaming and shaming, withholding love and affection, withholding money or allowances, extra chore assignment, sarcasm and name-calling and scolding and correcting are all also addressed.   Bribery is also addressed.

One tool to think about using is ENCOURAGEMENT.  Sometimes we point out so many critical things about our child with no encouragement at all.  “If someone corrected us 18 times in an hour, I think we might explode at that person.  Yet, the effects on children go unseen for many days, months, and sometimes years.” 

The author’s suggestion is to stop giving negative attention to the behavior in the form of a correction and to start noticing every tiny little thing the child does “right”.  She even suggests filling up a bag with 25 marbles and carrying it around and each time you notice something positive, take a marble out and put them in a container.  If you correct, put a marble back in your bag that you are carrying around. 

This is a list of why children “misbehave”, what need might underlie this behavior. 

  • Hunger, poor diet or food allergies.
  • Not enough sleep.
  • Boredom.
  • Over-active – children need to expand energy every two hours.
  • Illness or health problem
  • Developmental changes
  • Needs more social activities.
  • Needs less social activities.
  • Hormonal changes in puberty. 
  • Feeling contrary
  • Over-stimulated
  • Watches too much violence
  • Over-scheduled.
  • Unrealistic expectations!  Young children do not get “logic”!
  • Rule following is inconsistent in the family.
  • Not enough positive attention.
  • Feelings are negated by family members.
  • Not staying with “NO” consistently and therefore the child does not realize No means No.
  • Too rigid of rules ( I think this often goes back to unrealistic expectations).
  • Too many transitions (May go back to over-scheduled)
  • Not enough control or choices, especially for those age 9 and above. 
  • Conflicts are not solved with mutual respect
  • Stress due to job loss, divorce, move, holidays, etc.
  • Insecurities
  • Labeling children in such a way it becomes a big self-fulfilling prophecy (This is a MAJOR PET PEEVE OF MINE!)

A great chapter to read yourself!  I hope everyone is following along!

Happy thinking,

Carrie

Book Review: “Gardening With Young Children” by Beatrys Lockie

Posted on by
2

I have to admit right off that this is one of my favorite books because I feel it brings the experience of a wonderful gardener and Kindergarten teacher and marries it to an imaginative approach to nature and gardening for children between the ages of three and seven. 

This is one of my favorite quotes in the entire book, presented in the “About This Book” section (and this is after the author presents a case that children live in pictures, in stories, in the imagination):  “Many grown-ups, by contrast, live in a world of the intellect, of logical cause and effect. This is foreign territory for a small child.  The child can make little of this approach, and quickly becomes bored.  Worst of all, a child fed nothing but intellectual fodder can later become emotionally stunted.  An intellectual adult  often finds it more difficult to conjure vivid images than does a more intuitive person.  But we can all try.  Otherwise, what we give to children goes right over their heads.”

Many parents coming to Waldorf lament that they “don’t know how to NOT teach” or they have no idea how to answer children’s questions in a pictorial way.  This book will give you some great ideas!

The first chapter of this book talks about some of the practical aspects of gardening with small children that the adult needs to be aware of: soil acidity, plant preferences, soil acidity,  weather, fitting gardening into your schedule.  The next four chapters cover each season with plentiful suggestions and examples of stories, activities, songs, arts and crafts ideas, baking and cooking ideas.  Such traditional festivals as Advent and Candlemas are also covered.    After that, there is a section on “The Town Child” for folks who live in densely populated cities and how to work with that, and the last chapter includes a month-by-month gardener’s calendar.

This book packs in a lot of information and suggestions for its 136 pages, and I feel is a resource one will refer to for multiple years.  Again, this would be an especially wonderful resource for those just starting out in gardening and those unsure of how to approach gardening and nature in a more imaginative, wonderous way.

Blessings,

Carrie

Book Review: “Earthways: Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children”

Posted on by
2

“Earthways:  Simple Environmental Activities for Young Children” by Carol Petrash is a much-loved book by a Waldorf teacher (and her husband, Jack Petrash, as many of you know, is a Waldorf Class Teacher) and is an easily accessible place to start to learn about how to construct a nature table, how to look at arts and crafts from a natural materials standpoint, how to work seasonally within your homeschool. 

My copy was published in 1992, and has about 202 pages.  It opens with an introduction regarding the environmental problems that are facing us today, but places this within the context of the developmental age of the young child:

“They come into life with a sense that the world is good and beautiful.  Our interactions with them and the ways in which we bring them into contact with nature can either enhance these intuitions or destroy them.  When children are met with love and respect, they will have love and respect to give.  Our task as the parents and educators of young children is not to make them frightfully aware of environmental dangers, but rather to provide them with opportunities to experience what Rachel Carson called “the sense of wonder.”  Out of this wonder can grow a feeling of kinship with the Earth.

She has a whole section of how to use this wonderful book, and how the book works in many projects from whole to parts (a foundation of Waldorf Education!)

Fall includes such things setting up an Earth-Friendly home and classroom, creating a Seasonal Garden (some of us may call this a Nature Table or Nature Space that changes with the seasons), and then a myriad of arts and crafts using natural materials – leaves and paint, pinecone people, baking activities, using pumpkins and Indian corn for baking and crafts.  Winter focuses on the indoor play space, what your Seasonal Garden might look like for Winter, some finger knitting, woodworking and other indoor projects and things that would be appropriate for Saint Valentine’s Day.  Spring focuses on the use of natural products to clean your home and classroom, the Seasonal Garden, experiences with the element of wind, working with wool from whole to parts, starting a garden.  Finally, Summer focuses on creating an outdoor play space, the Summer Seasonal Garden, harvesting and eating berries, and more arts and crafts projects designed to capture the feeling of Summer.

There is a complete listing of mail-order supply companies, an extensive bibliography for teachers, and a list of picture books for small children arranged by season. 

This book can sometimes be found on the shelves of local libraries, but I do think this is one you may want to have on your shelves.  You will return to it time and time again!

Blessings,

Carrie

Start Now!

Posted on by
4

I think this may be part of the July doldrums following we mothers around, (or perhaps panic in the midst of planning for homeschooling to start in a month of so for many of us in the United States?), but I have heard so many mothers lamenting lately:

  • “I found Waldorf so late.”
  • “My young child was so intellectually awakened and now I look back it and I don’t think it was the right decision.  She really burned out at age 8 and seems so unhappy.”
  • “The way our family handled discipline was not good, and now we are paying for it.”
  • “I didn’t know enough about connecting to my child when they were younger and I did everything wrong.”
  • “I am still doing everything wrong even though I know more now than I did!  I just can’t seem to put it all into place!”

Mothers, I am here to encourage you.  This wonderful child came to you, to your family, for a reason.  You are the right mother for this child.  No other mother could do a better job than you can with this particular child that was called to be yours. 

You did the best you could with the information you had at the time, and you did the best you could do with your child being the person you were at the time.  The wonderful thing is that we are all continually growing and learning. You are a different parent with each child you have and that is truth!  But it is okay to be that different parent and not lament the past!

The question is, what would help you today?  What would help your child  MOST today?

Evaluate – what is working for me with this child?  What I am doing that is NOT working with this child?  Where does this child need help in being balanced out the most?  What is absolutely most challenging for this child?  What is my role in helping this child?  Where am I right now?

Pray, meditate and listen.  Where you need to go from here?  Where is the Divine, the Spirit, God, leading you in this question?    Some mothers write things down and journal, some mothers just listen and absorb.

How will I put this into action?  What does it require of me?  Wayne Dyer, in his book, “What Do You Really Want For Your Children?”  notes, “Imagine going to your dentist and having him give you a lecture on the importance of oral hygiene, while all the time smiling at you through rotting teeth.  Or, visualize yourself talking to your doctor and having him tell you about the evils of nicotine addiction  while blowing cigarette smoke in your face.”

In other words, if there is something that your small child needs to work on, work on it as well.  Set the example, live by the example.

Be the change you want to see in your children.

Peace,

Carrie

“Discipline Without Distress”: Chapter 3 “Discipline, Not Punishment”

Posted on by
Reply

This chapter talks about the differences between discipline and punishment.  Punishment means to hurt by causing physical, emotional or social pain whereas discipline means to teach. 

I like this quote:  “Punishment disconnects parent and child.  It also produces anger, resentment, retaliation, fear, submission or passive aggression in the child.  It produces  guilt, remorse, and inconsistency of action in the parent because no one likes to see their child suffer for very long.  Discipline, on the other hand, is respectful, caring, and gives attention to the relationship.  Discipline does not intentionally hurt.  Both sides are left feeling connected.”

I think this is a major point; in Waldorf parenting we talk about how if you start out thinking you versus child in your head that you have already lost.  The magical and sacred connection between a child and a caring adult is broken, and no good teaching or imitative example for the child to follow can come from that. 

This chapter also talks about the difference between praise and encouragement and how encouragement is what one gives another during the process, and how praise is given at the end of a project.  Praise is frequently a judgment of the child, and in a way a kind of bribe as the child must “earn” the praise by doing the “right” thing (which is judged by the parent).  Encouragement, on the other hand, is something you can give a child that is not doing well, a child who is making mistakes, a child who needs to feel accepted and capable. 

The author talks about “overindulgent children.”  She mentions in this quote:  “Overindulgent children are ones not embraced in love, caring, and  nurturing their feelings.  They are not picked up when they cry as babies and don’t have anyone to acknowledge their feelings or care about what they think as children.  They are undernourished in caring, love and attention, and over-nourished in consumer goods.”  The author goes on to paint a very specific picture of what a overindulged child looks like, and what an overindulgent parent looks like.    This involves the whole concept of boundaries, which is something that Donna Simmons of www.christopherushomeschool.org talks about with frequency. 

The reality is that parents and other family members do have needs, and it is okay to teach your child that other people have needs!  Setting limits can be for the safety, health and sanity of all family members. 

The author writes, “The essential component of setting limits is sometimes we have to say “no” to our child’s request.  True discipline is not about making a child do what he is told, making a child come when called, or making a child keep his room clean.  It’s about helping him to be an interdependent person in charge of his future.  It’s about raising him to respect other people and to be responsible and caring also to himself.” 

She goes on to write, “Somehow, we expect our children to accept our “no” with pleasantness and  politeness, which is pretty  unrealistic when we can’t even muster that as adults!  The key is to stay calm after you say “no”.  You are dealing with a child’s anger.  You’re modeling self-control and self-discipline and that will go a long way in teaching a child to handle theirs.”

Children are  often verbally corrected many times a day, and the author points out that “no” can lose its impact.  Save your “no” for the big things, and let your rhythm carry the day.  Save your “no” for the things your family has decided is important in your family mission statement. 

Till next time,

Carrie

“Rite of Passage Parenting: Four Essential Experiences to Equip Your Kids For Life”: Heading Up to the Nine-Year Change and Beyond!

Posted on by
17

HI am currently reading this book; it is a Christian book that comes from a Biblical perspective, but I feel even if you are NOT Christian you would  find it  fascinating! 

The premise of this book so resonates with me.  Walker Moore, the author, takes a close look at the difficulties our children are having today with the transition between childhood and adulthood and this odd notion of adolescence.  Adolescence was a term created in the early 1940s that did not exist before then.    He talks about how the transition of society from an agrarian focus to an industrial one has had dire implications for our children. 

He writes, “In the post-World War II era, as our culture completed its move from the farm to the suburbs,it managed to take away even more of our children’s responsibilities. The new suburbanites enjoyed the ease and comfort of their modern lifestyle.  Many of them were thankful that their kids didn’t have to work as hard as they had during their own grown-up years.  What the parents failed to realize was that this hard work had actually helped them in their progress toward capable, responsible adulthood.  The fifteen-year-old, once thought of as a man with adult skills who could drive and run a farm, was now stuck in high school and told he was “just a kid”.

Moore talks about the four essential experiences every child should have in order to transfer to being a successful, responsible adult:

1.  A Rite of Passage – Jewish custom demonstrates this rather clearly in the tradition of Bar Mitzvah, Hispanic culture demonstrates this clearly in the fifteen-year-old girl’s quinceanera.   Moore notes that we as a society have “begun to increase the age of expected adult responsibility while the age of physical maturity continues to drop.” (By this, he means the physiological signs of puberty are occurring earlier than they have in the past but we entrust our teenagers with less and less true responsibility and less and less let them experience the consequences of their own decisions). 

How will your family develop a rite of passage for your thirteen to fifteen-year old child?  Some families have developed their own rite of passage, some families have their thirteen to fifteen year old participate in a community service project.   Moore talks about for Christian families to consider sending  their thirteen to fifteen year old on a mission trip to another country.   Think about the importance of rites of passages  for your family and share your ideas in the comment section!

2. Significant Tasks – Moore writes on page 75, “Parents, let me ask you a question: What does your child do that demonstrates her worth and add value to your family?  If she were away today and unable to perform this assignment, how much would your family suffer?  If you struggle to come up with an answer, your child is probably missing significant tasks.”

Children in agricultural societies are important to the family.  If they don’t go out and gather firewood, then the family cannot cook their food.  In our modern, suburban civilization, children are seen as a financial liability and a luxury to have and raise by many people. 

This really resonates with me as I have been thinking more and more about the significant tasks my children should be doing each and every day.  Not all of us live on farms, so what is truly significant in your house and home?   What tasks are significant that just you couldn’t go without?  Moore talks about having his nine-year-old learn how to pay the electric bill with the checkbook and how this was significant because if the bill was not paid, the electricity would be turned off!

To me, cooking is a skill that could be significant for girls and for boys.  Unless you are a raw foodist, unless one cooks, one does not eat.    I believe Don and Jeanne Elium addresses cooking for boys and its importance in their book, “Raising A Son.”  Well-worth checking into!

Taking care of the grounds also resonates with me.  Pet care as well.  These are areas where the child starts by imitating you when they are young and slowly moves into responsibility as they mature past 7.

Laundry is another area.  Walker Moore says he feels an eight-year-old (Waldorf folks might be this age a bit  higher, like after the nine-year change)   should be capable of sorting, washing, folding and putting away their own laundry.  You may be to be present to keep it going along, but as homeschoolers I feel we have a unique opportunity to devote some extra time to these important life tasks.  I also like laundry because of its built-in natural consequences – if you don’t do your laundry, you have no clothes to wear!

3. Logical Consequences– He talks about how parents in our society today too often jump in  to “save” their children from the natural consequences of their own-decision making.

There are many parents who feel the foundation of childhood is laid in the Early Years and then you have to trust your child and let go.  I agree with this in a certain respect, although I do think the seven and eight and nine year olds still need guidance and protection.  In many Waldorf circles, the world starts opening up a bit more after the nine-year change, in the fourth grade when most children are 10.

I would love to hear from all of you – do you let your under 10 children go to sleepovers at friends’ houses, what things do they get to do when they are 7 or 8 that is different than before, or do you have them wait to do things until they hit 9?  Jump in on the comment section!

4.  Grace Deposits – Walker Moore’s way of talking about filling up your child’s love tank, their emotional bank account.  In Waldorf we don’t use so many words to do this with children under 7 , but we use our warmth, our joy, our happiness, the tone in which we speak to our children, the way we run as calm and steady a household as possible to show that our children are loved.

As your children grow and their temperament becomes more pronounced, we have the opportunity to figure out what really makes our children tick, even more than in the first seven years where we think we know as attached parents but honestly we don’t!  There is a big shift that comes at 7 and 8 as children move into themselves more…

The language we use with our children is SO IMPORTANT.  Frame things positively!  If you keep framing things about your child negatively, especially in front of the child, that is what the child is going to think of themselves.  Employ other adults outside of your family – friends, other trusted adults – to help you find the wonderful things about your child and build your child up as your child grows!   Steiner talked about the importance of building a supportive, trusted and wonderful community for the child of ages 7-14. Your child is a wonderful, spiritual being who joined your family and needs you to uplift them, guide them, help them!

This was an interesting book that stimulated much thought in me today,

Carrie