Bella Luna Toys has new ownership just in time for the holidays. Sarah Baldwin is a well-known Waldorf educator and has just taken over Bella Luna. She will be maintaining and developing a further relationship with Christopherus Homeschool as well.
For further details, here is a link:
http://christopherushomeschool.typepad.com/blog/2009/09/changes-come-to-bella-luna-toys.html
Many blessings,
Carrie
Melisa is always coming up with new ideas and products to support the Waldorf homeschooling community, including a Web-based radio show, ebooks, DVD’s and more – all whilst she is homeschooling her large family!
Much food for thought in the above post,
Carrie
I thought I posted this yesterday (Saturday) and I didn’t! Yikes! You can tell pregnancy brain is setting in around here, LOL…..At any rate, I posted the first post in the series that Melisa Nielsen of A Little Garden Flower is starting. These are posts regarding developing your own will for homeschooling.
Here is the introduction post from Friday:
http://waldorfjourney.typepad.com/a_journey_through_waldorf/2009/09/developing-the-will-now.html
Let’s all follow along together!
Carrie
This comment came in from a reader of the blog and I wanted her to have some feedback regarding Quiet Time. She writes, “My 4 yr old has not napped since she was three and a half to four, but we continued having “rest time.” I had her stay in her own room to do this since she sometimes would fall asleep, but lately I have had her try doing her quiet time out in the den with me while the one yr old naps. Sometimes she tends to be less focused when I am there and wants to talk to me… I am interested in what parameters others set for quiet times for non-napping kids? Alone in room or out with mom in the den/living room? What kinds of activities – books only, quiet toys, does mom read to the child for part of the time or do they stay silent?
Also, I am curious how interruptions in sleep affect a four yr old… my daughter tends to wake at least once a night, sometimes twice, to use the toilet. And sometimes she just wants to be tucked back in and have one of us lay next to her for a couple minutes. I know at some point she’ll feel confident enough to just go to the bathroom on her own without waking us… But I wonder if this is disruptive to her quality of sleep?”
These are a few of my personal thoughts, but I hope many mothers will leave comments below as to their own practices.
I feel that during Quiet Time, mothers should be resting. This may change as your children grow, but I feel if you are going about the house doing work, folding laundry, etc. and your child is younger than 7 and in that imitative phase, than they will want to be doing what you are doing. Also, as homeschooling mothers, I feel it is an important priority for us to have some true down time to think, evaluate in our heads what happened in the morning in our homeschool time and to prepare in our heads for the afternoon activities.
I personally don’t mind if my child wants to be our big bed with me, but I am laying down with my eyes closed! or if they want to be on their own bed. I also don’t mind when my four year old looks at (a few!) books (not the “ole giant stack!) and then rests, but I also feel many Waldorf mothers would feel this undermining to the point of Quiet Time – which would be the ability to be still and not have to be “entertained” by a book or by reading or by toys. I don’t know, I would love to hear the perspectives of some of the Waldorf mothers out there!
As far as the waking up in the night to go to the bathroom, it seems to me that many four-year-olds are not dry through the night, so this may be a real need. I think as long as she can really get up and go right back to sleep, then it is just where she is. However, if she is up and fully awake, perhaps you could investigate a bit further. Does she wake up at the same times every night to do this? Could you bring her to the bathroom before you go to sleep yourself and would that change these nighttime waking patterns? And then observe what goes on during the day…
C’mon mothers, please give your perspectives on Quiet Time and sleep. Leave your comments in the box below!
Many blessings,
Carrie
Does this exist?
From a Waldorf perspective, children in the first seven year cycle are neither inherently good nor bad but learning. They are not “defiant”; defiance implies a fully conscious knowing of right and wrong and choosing to do the opposite, wrong, thing. Since in the land of Waldorf parenting we believe the first seven years are a dreamy state, a state where logical thought has not yet entered, a state where the child is one giant sense organ (an eye!) and just taking in sensory impressions without a filter, there can be no “defiance”. Many times the power struggles we create with our children are a result of our own lack of knowledge of developmental stages, not having the right tools to guide our child, our own inner issues at the moment and not as much to do with the child as we thought!
Of course a small child wants what they want when they want it. This is part of the fact that the small child lives specifically within their bodies and within their WILL. Remember, Waldorf is about willing, feeling, and thinking. Thinking comes in much later. A two-year-old will push against forms that you create in rhythm; this is why the rhythm is for YOU if you have a child under the age of 6. If your child does not want to participate in what is going on at the moment, you are still DOING it yourself and the child may or may not join in. This is another reason to not “push” official “school” with a child of three or four; in the classroom environment there is a whole class with older children doing the same thing to help hold the space but at home the child has perhaps no other age to carry them along.
As far as “not listening” which seems to be the most common compliant hooked into “defiance” (ie, I tell them something and they don’t do it) (and by the way, I hear this in the part of the country where I live starting with one-year-olds! My one-year-old doesn’t listen! They are so naughty!), a small child is not SUPPOSED to listen.
Yes, re-read that for a moment. You may think this is a very radical statement!
Read it again. Your 2, 3, 4, and yes even 5 year old is living in their BODY, not in their head. When you give them a “verbal command” and they have to go up into their head to process it, this is involving thinking, which is something Waldorf educators see children using as a dominant way to respond to an environment LATER. It is NOT that small children do not think, it is NOT that they do not have thoughts, important thoughts!!, but that they live in the moment, they have this will to do what they want without many overriding mechanisms at this point to slow things down. They are LEARNING.
From an attachment parenting perspective, we also do not look at the small child as being “defiant” or “naughty.” We look at what the child might be feeling underneath the behavior being displayed. We look at what we can modify in the environment. We look at how we can calmly guide the child in the situation.
We look at this in Waldorf as well, it is just in Waldorf we tend not to ask as many questions of the child because we feel words may not be the best way to communicate with the small child who is living in the BODY. We try to communicate through movement, through fantasy, through song and verse. This changes as the child grows! It does not last forever!
With both Waldorf and attachment parenting, we strive to look at NORMAL developmental behavior. A three, four and five ear old, even a six-year-old may throw themselves on the floor, throw an object, scream and cry. Dressing themselves with only a reminder comes in at the AVERAGE age of five. If you are having trouble with a specific age, please, please use the tags sidebar and click on the age that is problematic right now to you: the three-year-old, the-four-year-old, etc etc. Four and six seem to be ages that give parents the MOST trouble. There are many posts specifically geared to these ages.
If you feel you are having difficulty with changing your mindset from a punitive, punishment, my –child –is –wrong –and- I –am –right- mindset with a small child, this is not going to get you going anywhere great. Here are some posts to help you!
https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/08/17/raising-peaceful-children/
and my personal favorite regarding how we create battlefields where we and our children are on opposite sides:
https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/22/the-battlefield-of-the-mind-anger-and-parenting/
This is about realistic expectations for toddlers and includes the different disciplinary styles of families:
https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/06/10/tripping-into-the-toddler-years/
If you are still saying, well, but MY child does this and i have no tools, I urge you to call your local La Leche League Chapter or Attachment Parenting Chapter. Many times the Leaders there can help you troubleshoot discipline issues and challenges over the phone and give helpful, gentle suggestions! They may also have special meetings geared JUST to gentle discipline.
Gentle discipline does NOT mean not setting boundaries, but we try to do it in a way that respects the child’s developmental stage, keep the child’s dignity intact and guide the child. Here are examples of ways to set limits for toddlers in gentle ways with consideration for the child:
https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/06/11/common-toddler-challenges-and-how-to-solve-them/
https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/02/09/potty-training-with-love/
THE FOUR YEAR OLD: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/06/03/more-about-the-four-year-old/ and this one: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/02/07/peaceful-life-with-a-four-year-old/
THE SIX YEAR OLD: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/02/23/peaceful-living-with-the-six-year-old/
THE SEVEN YEAR OLD: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/04/19/peaceful-living-with-your-seven-year-old/
and for the big picture, some tools:
https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/10/29/top-10-must-have-tools-for-gentle-discipline/
We set boundaries, but many times we often deal with things indirectly! Here is an example a mom sent in, and here is how I might have handled that:
(This is a four-year-old): The situation was this:
This morning, she wanted to sit in our car-daddy got in & drove away to work -she pitched a fit, threw a little car she was holding. I told her she may not throw her toys. So she threw a little soft toy she was holding with her other hand. So I told her to sit down right where she was. “i will not sit down’ hmmm. So I say, you may stay put until you sit down & carried on with the skipping game with her older sister. Eventually she sat down.
What was the feeling of the little girl? Perhaps she wanted her daddy to stay home, perhaps she just wanted to play in the car but daddy needed to go right then, perhaps she just wanted to try out pretending to go to work with daddy. Let’s attribute positive intent!
Maybe I would have said, “You really wanted to go to work today! Did you know that even animals go to work? Once upon a time, there was a frog who really wanted to go to work too, but he couldn’t jump! (take chalk and draw two lines, I assume this situation happened in the driveway or the garage to involve a car??). Can you be a frog and show me how to hop over these two lines?”
Perhaps I would have said, “Oh, I see cars on the floor! Maybe they need a road! “ and get out something to draw or build a road.
Perhaps I would have said, “Wow, I really could use your help! I can’t figure out how many times in a row your sister can skip! Maybe we could count together?”
Perhaps she needed a snack and then we put the toy cars back in the garage together!
Those are just some examples of an indirect way to approach things; distraction is a very viable tool even up through age 7 and we often forget! Restitution is also VERY important, but we cannot force restitution in the moment of flooding emotion, we must calm down and go back to it. Forcing the child to do “X” when they are upset and you are upset is not a productive learning tool; a sincere opportunity exists for learning when the flooded moment has passed. But this is still through action, not so many words!
Hope these thoughts are helpful and many blessings on your day as you become the peaceful parent you want to be!
Lots of love,
Carrie
I got an email this morning from Rahima Baldwin Dancy regarding resources for the nine-year change and since it was so timely I thought I would pass the suggestions onto all of you:
First of all, I have mentioned this article in other posts on this blog but here is the link again for the free article regarding the nine-year-change: http://www.waldorfinthehome.org/2005/01/parenting_the_nine_year_old.html.
I have passed that article on to many parents, Waldorf and non-Waldorf alike!
I love Daena Ross and her presentation on the 12 senses. Here is one I have not heard but will be checking out soon: her workshop on “The Nine-Year Change”. It is available in CD format for only $12.50 plus shipping at http://www.waldorfinthehome.org/2007/07/the_nineyear_change.html.
And finally, Rahima writes, “If you have a daughter who is approaching (or in the midst of) puberty, I highly recommend signing on for our free tele-seminar with DeAnna L’am, author of Becoming Peers—Mentoring Girls into Womanhood. On Tuesday, Oct. 6th I will be interviewing DeAnna, who was a keynote speaker at our last conference in California, “Educating Our Children—Changing the World.” If you are a mother, grandmother, stepmother, aunt or any woman with a special girl in her life, you won’t want to miss this discussion of ways to prepare yourself for her puberty and ways to lay a foundation for lifelong friendship with your daughter. If you can’t make the live interview at 1:00 pm Pacific Time on Tuesday, Oct 6th, you can still sign up to receive the free recording. To learn more, or to sign up, click on http://www.deannalam.com/deannalam_020.htm.”
Other audio resources include the CDs of Betty Staley’s keynote, “It’s Never too Early to Prepare for Adolescence” (which I have the CD of and really should review on this blog! Boy, so many things to cover and so little time!). William Bento’s workshop, “Adolescence: A Grail Journey of the Heart.” I am not familiar with William Bento, but it may be worth checking out. Rahima advises just entering their last names into the search engine at www.waldorfinthehome.com.
Hope that helps some of you! Happy Friday!
Carrie
(In Waldorf homeschooling, a child should be eight for most of second grade, so hence the references below to a second grader is also reference to an eight-year-old – Carrie)
Donna Simmons writes in her “Waldorf Curriculum Overview for Homeschoolers” that: “The difference between First Graders and Second Graders can be quite startling: the way they play together, run around the house, behave in group situations…one really gets a sense that Second Graders have arrived!”
Torin M. Finser writes in the book “School As A Journey: The Eight-Year-Odyssey of a Waldorf Teacher and His Class”: “After the first day of second grade I found myself scratching my head and asking: Where are the real Doug, Marc, Kirsten, Michael, Eben, Susan, Jacob? Did they forget to show up? After the second day my inner questioning was more intense: what had happened to the open-hearted, naive, reverent, respectful children I had enjoyed last year? Was this some kind of cruel joke?”
He notices that the children had changed, that they were more lively, that they were in constant movement, that they lived in extremes over the smallest thing, and every child now had an opinion about everything!
In “Second Grade”, an article by Manette Teitelbaum in the book, “Waldorf Education: A Family Guide”, the author writes how “Energies freed from the process of forming the body now awaken the subjective world of feeling – wonder, pity, joy, tenderness and sorrow. These are the currents of air upon which these new little butterflies will rise, on which they will find their relationship to the world about them.”
A HUGE part, the MAIN part of Waldorf Second Grade is to work on the balance and harmonizing of the child. For example, the juxtaposition of the Legends of Saints and the Trickster Tales speak strongly to the child searching for a balance between the duality of emotions and actions here on earth.
Donna Simmons notes in her “Waldorf Curriculum Overview” this important note: “Unless they have been prematurely woken up and have already slid into acting like the jaded child caricatures seen of TV, eight-year-olds are still very open and trusting about the world. If one takes to heart the Waldorf pedagogical maxim that beauty, truth and goodness should surround the child to thereby aid his full development as a human being, then one will take care to shelter him from societal influences that encourage premature sexuality, intellectualism and cynicism.”
Steiner lectured about this age in the compilation “Soul Economy” in a lecture entitled, “Children From the Seventh to the Tenth Year” given on December 31, 1921. He discusses the changes with the coming of the second teeth and how the spiritual forces are now affecting the rhythmic movement of the heart and the lungs. “During the first phase (and by this he means the change of teeth until about the end of the ninth year), children want to experience everything that comes toward them in relation to their own inner rhythms- everything associated with beat and measure.” He discusses how the images formed by seeing everything in the world now acts mainly on the rhythmic system of movement.
He goes on to comment, “With the change of teeth new soul forces of feeling, linked to breathing and blood circulation, come into their own, with the result that children begin to distance themselves from others, whom they now experience as individuals. This creates in them a longing to follow the adult in every way, looking up to adults with shy reverence.”
All of these passages highlight important clues as how to best live with and help guide an eight-year-old. In our next and last post regarding the eight-year-old, we will look at how to peacefully live with an eight-year-old.
Many blessings,
Carrie
This is a GREAT comment from a reader regarding my post on “Social Experiences for a Four-Year-Old” that can be found here: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/09/07/social-experiences-for-a-four-year-old/ and a few thoughts from me I wanted to share. Here is the comment:
“I’m two ways about this idea. On the one hand, humans are social creatures, and I think that includes children of all ages. In a close knit community, children would have endless opportunities for playing. It would be more like an extended family, rather than a “play date.” On the other hand, children in our culture really do not seem to play that well together. And I’ve found over the past couple days of my parents and brother being away (my son (2.5) and I live with them), my son’s behavior has improved tremendously, which I have found to be the case before when we’ve been alone for a while together. Anyway, I wonder what your thoughts are on only children, and on our isolated nuclear families (which seems unnatural to me, since humans are so social) in relation to this idea of staying home.”
I agree with you! In a close-knit community, a community that is like an extended family, there are LOTS of opportunities to play and to see play modeled for our smallest children by other children of all ages. My neighborhood actually still functions much like that with children in third and fourth grade playing alongside the preschoolers.
I also love the idea of just extended family in general. I grew up as an only child raised by grandparents, which does not sound like the pinnacle of socialization…..However, my grandparents were in business with my Dad and my Uncle who came to dinner every night during the week, my great-grandmother also lived with us, my grandmother had five brothers and sisters who would come frequently for extended visits (weeks, a month, whatever) and bring along their children and grand-children and I lived in a neighborhood where probably ten of us or more played outside daily. I also have so many cousins; last time I went home for Thanksgiving I think there was at least 40 or so of us who gathered. Our household was also the kind that always had neighbors, kids, everyone just hanging out. So, while I was and am an only child, I felt anything but alone!
However, and I think this is the caveat, is that in our society at this time, the push is not toward extended families for socialization or even for free play experiences of children that span wide ages. Let’s focus on free play for a moment. The push is for four-year-olds to all be together, or for four and five year olds to be together, but not to put eight and nine and ten year olds together with preschoolers. (That is why I ALWAYS advise to start play dates with children of the same age with some structured activity because unless they are very, very social and have had lots of group experiences (and even if they have had these experiences!) there are bound to be problems without the modeling influence of children who are four or more years older or parents).
I also feel due to the general nature of our fast-paced, get-in-the-car-go-somewhere-every day society, our children probably need way less stimulation than they are getting and need parents who are more conscious about keeping those twelve senses protected. This includes play dates, playgroups and other outings, especially for children under the age of 6.
Another interesting issue with “play groups” etc, is that parents act as if it is unnatural if their small children want to stay near them and just watch. We forget that indeed if a small child was playing with a large group of truly mixed ages, a small child would likely be watching more than participating, or they may be imitating and playing along the sidelines, so to speak rather than in the midst of everything. I am thinking of videos I have seen of village life or whatnot. The smaller ones watch and participate when ready. Here, I think it is more, “I bring my child to playgroup and they just stand there and what is wrong with my child?!”
I think the other problem we are encountering as a society is that we are pushing so many classes and lessons and structure for this age group (3-6) that we are really destroying the foundation of the Early Years of childhood. We are taking the time period when in years gone by a four and five year old would still be napping and seen as little and playing with mud pies and essentially filling up their days the way we do as adults and then counting these classes and lessons as “social” experiences. In the United States I feel public PreK and Kindergarten is also turning into this as well, because the push is not to play with blocks and color and put on plays but to sit as a desk and learn to read and write.
In order to combat all of these realities of where we are today, I do believe that the family is the structure for socialization at this point and the preference should be for firm entrenchment within the home and then branching out into the neighborhood. I prefer having the big extended family for socialization, but realize that this is not reality for many people these days. Some families create their own “extended families” out of friends with small children, but unless you live in the same neighborhood it seems this involves lots of planning, getting in a car, etc, all of which can be hard on a small child.
My vote is to work on creating the rhythms within the home, strengthening your own inner calm, simplifying life, carrying your child warmly within the family structure you have, forming your own adult network of parenting friends (but not necessarily dragging your child into it because this is adult support for YOU!) and then when your child is five and a half or six thinking more about the once a week out-of-home play date and such.
I am well aware this is a counter-cultural view. However, the protective bubble of staying home that Waldorf parenting should be about really is for the first seven years. Around eight years of age, rest times every day are VERY important, sleep is very important, but it is a good age to get out and do things. This time of less stimulation is really short! And the time to socialize is quite long; many children also experience profound changes within their social relationships around the nine-year-change and into the teenaged years. It seems to me the experiences of a three-year-old and four-year-old socializing plays way less into successful later socialization than we consider, but that the effects of over-stimulation and of assaulting the twelve senses lingers and influences things for much longer and in much greater ways than we probably imagine.
Much food for thought tonight, I probably will be pondering this at 2 am!
Many blessings,
Carrie
Here are some general developmental characteristics of the eight-year-old as according to our friends at the Gesell Institute in the book, “Your Eight-Year-Old: Lively and Outgoing” by Louise Bates Amers and Carol Chase Haber.
That is a traditional viewpoint; we will look at an anthroposophic view next post!
Peace,
Carrie
A mother recently wrote in and asked about how to consider social opportunities for a four-year-old who has an infant sibling. There are many choices out there for the three to five year olds, at least in the United States, ranging from classes to playgroups to park dates to field trips.
Well, you asked for my opinion so here goes!
I believe truly that the best unit for socialization for a four-year-old is the family and is siblings. This is one of the best things about being home with our children; we get to spend so much wonderful time together. In our society we talk a lot about “quality time” which in many ways I think is a fallacy for a young child. It takes a lot of repetition for a child to remember what happens in childhood – sometimes YEARS of doing the same things on the same day is what they later remember into their teenaged years! “Quantity time” is the truth.
Some four or four and a half year olds are socially interested, depending on the type of little person that they are. Awhile back this age used to be when all Steiner/Waldorf kindergartens started accepting children; this has since dropped lower and lower to include three-year-olds in Kindergarten and also now Mother-Parent groups that may include walkers to three-year-olds. (And I guess once you are three, you don’t need your Mommy anymore! But I digress!)
Some four-year-olds are not very socially interested, or act as if they are interested until they have to be in the car, and then they are hungry and ask when they are going home after about five to ten minutes. At any rate, I believe the best social opportunities for social interaction outside of the family would be meeting once a week or so with one other family at a natural park or playground and to be able to plan to start with something STRUCTURED, whether this is a little craft, a song or singing games, digging in the sandbox together where the adults can hold the space and MODEL for the four-year-olds all those areas that are problematic – taking turns, resolving conflicts.
This is also unfortunately NOT the time for adult socialization, I am sorry to say. I know that is what so many of us as isolated, stay-at-home mothers crave, so I feel badly saying that. However, many four-year-olds really need you there to see what is going on, and they need your help! Just as you would not leave them to learn how to cook and operate a stove on their own, why do we feel it is okay to leave four year olds alone to “work things out”? Four is a very expansive, out-of-bounds age (typically! maybe not if you have a quiet little person!) and fours typically do need help and guidance because otherwise things quickly deteriorate into tears, aggression or other not so fun areas!
My last thought would be to keep the playtime short – an hour truly is plenty.
Food for thought,
Carrie
The Parenting Passageway 