Category Archives: Development

More About the Four-Year-Old

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I recently went back and looked at the highest ranked posts for the past year, and was surprised to see  that while the top 10 posts mainly involved Waldorf-related things, the top developmental posts amidst all those were the posts regarding the four-year-old (and then the six-year-old).  Ages four and six are obviously ages where parents are finding challenges and difficulty!

I wanted to throw out a few more words about the four-year-old for you all.  These are random thoughts from my own experience in having two four and a half year olds in our family, so please do take what resonates with you and what works for you and your family!

First of all, if your four year old is attending school, please do be aware it takes A LOT of energy for them to hold it together, follow the rules and listen, not to mention sitting down and focusing.  Most four year olds, according to traditional childhood developmental standards, have the “wiggles”, have short attention spans, and have more physical energy than they know what to do with.  Compare that description to what is going on at school, and plan for lots of outside time to blow off steam when they get home.

If you are homeschooling your four year old with a method different than Waldorf, please be aware of “cramming” facts down your child’s throat, and how many times a day you are asking to do them something passive such as seated schoolwork that is not especially hands-on, how much television are they getting, how many books are they reading.  Do they have lots of time for imaginative play, creative play, crafts, being outside, helping with practical work around your home, and work with repetitive sensory things such as kneading bread, playing in mud or dirt?  These are the most important things for a four-year-old.

How many words are you using?  Many four-year-olds in a stage of disequilibrium actually need less words, less choices, more warmth and more calmness from YOU.

The inner work of your parenting at this time is several-fold.  One thing to do is to make sure you are being nurtured by your own things in some way, and make sure you are getting a break at least every day by yourself for a few minutes without ANY kids, and having a break each week is also essential.  It will make you a better mother if you husband can take all the kids in the backyard for even a half  hour or so,  to give you some time.   If your children have an early bedtime, you can also use this time to recharge and reconnect with yourself.

The other part of inner  work at this time is to make sure you are not viewing your child as “the enemy”, or as some mothers I have heard lamenting, “Where did my sweet, nice child go?”  They are still there!  Trying to learn boundaries, trying to be big, but really being small!  They are not “bad” – they are LEARNING.  Go meditate over your sleeping child when they are peaceful.  Think about all the good qualities they have, see them as they are:   still really very, very small.  Meditate on what kind of adult you are hoping you shape them into.

A four-year-old doesn’t need a lecture or a speech or guilt.  Short explanations, possibly.  Restitution for what they did – fixing it in some way- is so important.  But not the lecture or guilt-trip.  They really cannot comprehend it the way you as an adult can!

If you need a time-out, by all  means gather yourself together.  But, don’t expect a child in “time-out” is going to do what an adult would do – sit there and think about how they could have done things differently, sit there and reflect.  The four-year-old is not cognitively ready to do this from any developmental perspective!  Time-in for calming, WITHOUT TRYING TO TALK ABOUT THE INCIDENT, is the first step.  Then comes the action they must do to fix what the problem was.  And you must be there every step of the way to help.  Did I mention mothers of four-year olds really do need their children to go to bed early, LOL?  This takes a lot of energy to do this all day!

And last of all, be easy with yourself.  Parenting a four-year-old is a lot of work, working to structure your days, working toward less words, less explanation, more warmth, how to fix something rather than just talk about the anger and upset you are feeling at that moment – whew, it is hard work!  Be easy with yourself, love yourself as you grow as a parent.

Just a few thoughts,

Carrie

Where Do I Go Now?

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What do you do when you realize your method of homeschooling has been more detrimental  than the goodness you thought it was bringing to your child? Or that your child just has tremendous imbalances between their body, their head, their social and emotional skills?   I am talking about parents of very,very bright children who were reading at age three fluently, the very smart child who is so incredibly “gifted”, the children who are so ahead of themselves and so logical…..

Until the parent begins to notice that this very bright child can relate to no one of his own age at all.  That the child has poor gross motor skills.  That the child is only drawn to books and textbooks and such.  That this child has very little creative ability, is very serious, has difficulty playing.  That the child seems very in their head, worried about adult things, in fact seems more like an adult than not…..

In my experience many of these children do  feel isolated, depressed, anxious – and they are still children and whether they can verbalize it or not, they are looking to you to take the lead, to make it better.  They are still small, they still need your protection.

And the parent is thinking now this child is 7,8 or 9, what to do, what to do?  Can Waldorf education help this child?

My first recommendation is this:  Call one of the national Waldorf consultants for a consultation.  This is important, because  sometimes you are dealing with an out of the ordinary situation, not just where the child is coming in late to Waldorf, which also may have its own challenges, but there may be therapeutic issues to be dealt with.   Here is the link with all the names of consultants I know:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/01/03/waldorf-consultants/

My second recommendation is to look at yourself!  This will take hard work, change, motivation, being matter of fact and peaceful with your child as things change and they complain about the change!  Can you:

1. Stop talking and putting adult decision making on them?   Do not ask them if they want to “do Waldorf homeschooling.”  It is not their choice at this point.  They should have completely limited choices at this point on life issues.  They already have had enough pressure and the decision making process has worked on their psyche to the point where they are no longer children.  Help them reclaim their childhood by being the Authentic Leader in your home. You set the tone right now.

2.  Can you read some of Steiner and really penetrate what teaching first, second or third grade is  about?  What level these children are normally at in these grades in Waldorf? And there is more than academics at stake here – where are they gross motor wise, emotionally, socially, artistically, fine motor wise?     It is probably going to be very different than what you are used to.    Can you be okay with that while you take a year to heal and to shift toward balance?

3.  Can you be okay with balancing the child without the use of textbooks in these early grades, with the use of outside time, hiking, gardening, being in nature without identifying trees and bushes to death?  Woodworking, knitting, dyeing things, having an aquarium without all the plant and fish identification, having an art farm or worm farm, looking at the stars with the naked eye with Native American legends and stories as the backdrop would all be healing.  Apple picking, berry picking, making jelly, going to the zoo and aquarium (without writing reports or taking one of the those damned nature journals around with them to draw and identify everything by the latin name? just looking and being and seeing how those animals move), swimming, singing and jumping rope would all be very healing.

4.  Can you show them how to play by setting up stations for playing in your home?  Most eight year old girls still like to play with dolls.  Maybe your child has forgotten how to play!  Copious outside time will help.  Can you set up a woodworking bench, a knitting area, a sewing area, an area for art?  Can you work on some handwork yourself for an hour in the afternoons and set up that model, that expectation for your son or daughter?

5.  Think about warmth – less words, stop explaining, can you show your delight in your child WITHOUT words at all?  Smiles, hugs, fun!  Can you as a family go and have fun?  Hiking, ice skating, roller skating, picnics, – is this child’s seriousness coming from you?  This child is small and needs to be joyous!

6.  Think about early bedtimes, consistent meal and snack times with warm food.  Lots of fresh air and fresh unprocessed foods.

7.  Bring in stories to heal your child’s soul – fairy tales, legends, nature stories, stories from your childhood and from when your child was very, very small.  Lots of storytelling.  Remember, the academics in Waldorf can be adjusted to where your child is, but the stories for each grade is designed for the child’s soul development.  And while we would want to focus on what a child needs for that age, and not go backward, I see nothing wrong with lighting a candle and telling a fairy tale at night to a third grader!  Adults love fairy tales too!

8.  Can you bring in music?  The joy of having music as a family?  This is so important.

9. Can you make a big deal about preparing for festivals where school does not go on as usual?  Festival preparation is an integral part of life for the Early Grades child.

Your Waldorf consultant will have other suggestions based upon your child’s needs.  Waldorf is a healing method of education, but it takes commitment and a matter of fact peaceful kind of energy.

Peace and may goodness go with you,

Carrie

Does Your Child Know What Is Best?

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Okay, nationally syndicated family psychologist John Rosemond and I do not agree most of the time when I read his column and approach.  (Sorry, Mr. Rosemond, I am not sure if this is because of a gender gap or a generational gap or what).  But, as I read his column in my local newspaper  this past Saturday, I had to agree with him.

Here is something he wrote that I think is excellent food for thought for today’s parents:

“A child, lacking farsightnedness, does not know what is in his best interest.  He is apt to prefer that which is bad for him and reject that which is good for him.  His parents and teacher must provide the restraint and direction he cannot provide himself.

Proper restraint and direction are essential to turning the anti-social toddler into a disciple who will trust and look up to his parents, follow their lead and subscribe to their values.  And “proper” means with lots of love.  (My bolded added), (and yes, I wince I bit with the whole “proper restraint “ phrasing but do read on and here is the punchline……).

…..In this regard, all too many of today’s parents are trying to pull the horse with the cart.  They think discipline is all about shaping proper behavior by manipulating reward and punishment.  That’s not discipline; that’s behavior modification.  Discipline is the process by which a child is taught to think properly.  A child who thinks properly will behave properly, but the converse is not true.  A child who only learns what behaviors are appropriate to what situation may become nothing more than a clever manipulator.”

He goes on to say, that in effect, until the child’s values are formed, the child has to be guided and directed.

Okay, so I don’t always agree with Mr. Rosemond’s wording, but I agree in some sense with the spirit of what he wrote.

There are several  challenges  that I see with parents and their attempts at guiding their children  today. One is that parents frequently over-explain themselves and in essence try to guide their three, four, and five year old by speaking to them in  they way they should be speaking to a ten year old.  It is a real problem that I see.  The explanation is essentially, many times, not just a reason for doing or not doing something, in a short sentence,   but in essence a long debate trying to garner the child’s agreement with what the parent needs instead of just being kind, being gentle, but sticking to what the parent said in the first sentence.  The children  really don’t need the essay!  It does not mean you are not loving, kind and gentle – but you can do this without so many words!  Be warm, use humor, SMILE!    I know you can!

The other challenge that I see is that parents have no grasp on developmental stages.  “Why won’t they listen?”  “When do they understand no?”   comes up all the time on the gentle discipline boards I am on for children under the age of 7!    Waldorf understands this so well, and has so many gentle techniques to assist in non-wordy guidance for your small  child.

You must have the gentle, physical presence and follow through with a small child, and even for the very ephemeral, short-memory, easily distracted seven year old.  Steiner’s stages of development were right on, and if we think of seven and eight year olds at at the beginning of a new stage and  not so much as the “old school aged” children we will do much better.

The last challenge I see is the reluctance of parents to set any boundaries at all.  There has to be boundaries, as this is the only way we can all function in a household together, and boundaries help a child learn how to function in the society we live in where it will not be all about them.    And guess what, because you are the parent, because you have the most experience in life, because you bear more responsibility for the things that happen in your household, you get to set the boundaries.  Step up to the plate and set the boundaries in a loving way!

None of this means we don’t listen to our child, that our child doesn’t have input, that our child is not loved and cherished.  But it does mean that we understand the process by which a child develops, that we understand the process by which a child develops values and develops morality is not all at once, and we cannot speed up this developmental process by talking a child’s ear off anymore or providing punishments and rewards any more than we can speed up when they are mature and capable enough to drive a car.

A few thoughts,

Carrie

Creating A Day of Rest In Your Week

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Many spiritual and religious traditions include having a day of rest.  Even for those of you  without a specific spiritual or religious path, wouldn’t a day of rest a week sound wonderful?  Perhaps you would like to have a day of rest once a week to go have a picnic by a lake with your family, or a day up in the mountains. 

Of course, the question is how to make this happen!

This is something I am working toward and can only share my progress and plans.  To me, there needed to be several things in place before I could have a day of rest.  These things included 1-all the housework and laundry done beforehand, the refrigerator full, errands done 2- a plan for meals and advance meal  preparation for our day of rest to also include a special dinner the night before our day of rest  3- a plan for that day for my family, including  perhaps a special box of things that only come out on that day for the children to play with in the morning  and also notions on  how we would spend our day.

My plans so far include doing things each day of the week to get ready for the day of rest, and using the two days before the day of rest as more serious preparation days.  This past weekend we experimented with easy meals/meals made in advance and found that satisfactory.  Having a plan to get housework, laundry, errands, grocery shopping all done and in place has also been a huge help.

Just something to think about and see if this appeals to you,

Carrie

Making Yourself A Priority in the Parenting Equation

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Have you grown to feel resentful of your child and the lack of boundaries, the lack of  time for your own dreaming, the lack of time for planning?

It is time for a CHANGE!

First of all, have you ever just congratulated yourself in the excellent job you have done being a mother?  It is difficult in those early years to learn how to surrender your time, your body, your breasts, your bed and your bath to a little baby with such intense needs.  Those days where  baby or even small toddler  and you are together, a beautiful open oneness.

Until the day comes that perhaps you realize your child is changing and you realize that your child is not just a reflection of you, a part of you, an extension of you.  They are their own wonderful, unique separate human being!  A marvelous being who is completely different from YOU.  You are not the same as your child.

So how do we regain some balance in our homes and in our lives?

First of , we do accept that if we have a baby, our baby’s needs deserve to be met and we are CHOOSING to meet them in the way we are responding to our baby.  We also accept the fact that  our parenting must change as our child grows and goes through different stages.  If you need help knowing what is appropriate when, please do look through past posts on this blog regarding the developmental stages of the three, four, five, six and seven-year-old. 

Secondly, we accept those moments in parenting that are a challenge.  In the book “Everyday Blessings” Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn write that,  “Each difficult moment has the potential to open my eyes and open my heart. Each time I come to understand something about one of my children, I also learn something about myself and the child that I once was, and that knowledge acts as a guide for me. When I am able to empathize and feel compassion for a child’s pain, when I am accepting of the contrary, irritating, exasperating behaviors that my children can manifest, try on, experiment with – the healing power of unconditional love heals me as it nourishes them. As they grow, I grow. My transformations are inside.”

We start to look for ways of balancing not only the needs of our child (once our child is old enough), and the needs of ourself and our family.  Here are some suggestions:

1. Practice Mindful Parenting /Being in The Present–

Ask yourself, “Is this establishing connection and trust with my child?” “Is this a respectful way to treat my child?” Ask yourself, “Is this a short-term solution that has really bad long-term consequences?” Ask yourself “Is this about my inner balance? My own stuff?”

2.  Practice Acceptance –

In Everyday Blessings, Myra and Jon Kabat-Zinn write that acceptance is an inner orientation which acknowledges that things are as they are, whether they are the way we want them to be or not.

“How I respond to this episode is determined by how I see or don’t see my child in that moment.”

“There are so many different ways to view what we often call “difficult” or “negative behaviors” in our children. What might be completely unacceptable to someone else might be normal behavior to me, and vice versa.”

They suggest practicing in these ways:

-Try to imagine the world from you child’s point of view, purposefully letting go of your own. Do this every day for at least a few moments to remind you of who this child is and what he or she faces in the world

-Imagine how you appear and sound from your child’s point of view, i.e., having you as a parent today, in this moment. How might this modify how you carry yourself in your body and in space, how you speak, what you say? How do you want to relate to your child in this moment?

–There are very important times when we need to practice being clear and strong and unequivocal with our children. Let this come as much as possible out of awareness and generosity and discernment, rather than out of fear, self-righteousness, or the desire to control. Mindful parenting does not mean being overindulgent, neglectful, or weak; nor does it mean being rigid, domineering and controlling.

3. Acceptance is Easier If We Know and Understand Normal Breastfeeding Behavior and Normal Developmental Stages….

4. Stop describing yourself as busy  because this is viewing a situation as negative and it is not helpful to you! ( from the book The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood, page 15)   Try re-framing your thoughts!

5. Guard Your Mind (pg. 15 from The Hidden Feelings Of Motherhood) “Pay attention to what you watch, listen to, and read…Try to be selective and look for material that builds you up and nourishes your spirit.”

6.  Take Care of Your Body (pg. 15 from The Hidden Feelings of Motherhoood) “You need to consider it a priority to eat well, exercise, sleep and get regular physicals.”   Those of you out there struggling with low milk supply and nursing, do know that anemia, hypothryoidism and other physical factors can impact milk supply!  Get checked out!

7.  Be Unavailable at Least Some Time Every Day.

8.  Plan Restorative Vacations at home – time to do the things that would make you feel better!

9. Practice Being Grateful for What You Have

10. Laugh more – do not take everything in mothering so seriously!  There are many things that three, four, five and six year olds say that do not need to be given such all-serious weight!

11. Seek out a mothering mentor –someone who is POSITIVE

12. Cultivate a spiritual life and seek out the beautiful in life!

13.  None of this is helping –Consult with a professional right away!

  1. Baby Blues – Usually occurs days three to 7 post-partum
  2. Post – Partum Depression – Depressed mood continuing past the “baby-blues” time frame of three to seven days postpartum, suffered by at least one out of every 8 mothers. Often accompanied by severe anxiety/panic, spontaneous crying, agitation, insomnia, obsessional thoughts, disinterest in baby, suicidal thinking.
  3. Depression = social isolation is a contributor to this! Feelings of extreme sadness or despair lasting two weeks or longer, accompanied by feelings of hopelessness, fatigue, disturbed sleep or appetite, poor concentration, difficulty making decisions, feelings of worthlessness, withdrawal from friends or family, suicidal thinking.

From page 26 onward “The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood” talks about being committed to getting well, ruling out physical causes, knowing your treatment options, getting good nutrition, nutritional supplementation, exercise, use of cognitive behavioral therapy (which is the only talk therapy that is as effective as medication for treatment of depression and anxiety), use of herbs and antidepressants.  This is a great book, please do check it out!

  1. Burn Out – feeling negative (sad or angry every day), interpersonal problems, health problems, loss of enthusiasm and feeling meaningless, substance abuse. Kathleen Kendall Tackett advises us to stop denying, get reconnected (people have a tendency to withdraw when they are under stress), set boundaries, get some help with your work, get treatment for depression.
  2. “Depleted Mother Syndrome” from the  book  “Mother Nurture” has a checklist on page 28 regarding possible areas where demands are placed on you, and has short-term and long-term stress relievers.
  3. What about ANGER??   There are posts on this blog regarding anger, please do go to the tags box and look them up!

The book “Mother Nurture”  suggests stopping things from building up- defuse BEFORE you blow up. Do not over give, blow off steam as you go along, take a break before you get to the breaking point.

Mothers who feel “manipulated” by their children often feel angry – check out normal development again!  See the fast little “quiz” below – can you guess what developmental behavior comes when?   Children below the age of 7 do not have the logical and cognitive abilities to be “deceptive”. Are you prickly to “challenges to your authority”? Is your own childhood getting mixed into your family? Are you taking it all just way too personally? Understand the way you are perceiving things is the true source of anger…..What is beneath the anger?

Check out NonViolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg or Love and Anger by Nancy Samalin for further   help!

Everyday Blessings talks about when your children are babies and toddlers, the struggle for balance takes the form of continually tapping our own resources to provide intense care-giving.

 

 

Quick Quiz!

My baby… My baby is “X” weeks/months/years old
Is breastfeeding 8 to 12 times in a 24 hour period Newborn to ????
Nurses once every 24 minutes for about three minutes Newborn to ??? in countries where baby is carried while mom works
Has six or more wet diapers a day, and at least three bowel movements a day. After mature milk comes in
Breathes with regularity, has a steady heart rate, no longer has an erratic temperature (4 weeks)
Has preferred positions to lie in, and loves to sit supported and look at the world (16 weeks)
Coos, laughs, chuckles out loud (16 weeks)
Prefers to sit and can maintain it, and loves to have something in his hands. ( 5 to 7 months)
Cries at the sight of strangers (32 weeks and 44 weeks)
Darts and dashes and flings things (15 months)
Gets into everything (15 months or once walking)
Will climb stairs endlessly (18 months)
Says “No” to everything (18 months)
Is loving and affectionate and warm to other people (2 years)
Is rigid, inflexible, wants everything exactly how she wants it, domineering, demanding, wants the exact same routine every day (2 and a half years)
Loves to be a “we” with Mommy (3 years)
Has poor coordination, stutters, has hand tremors, blinks her eyes, bites her nails, frequently cries, whines, questions Mommy, is bossy. (3 and a half years)
Out of bounds – hitting, kicking, throwing, loudly laughs, fits of rage (4 years old)
Loves to know about the details of things, better can deal with his frustrations, (4 and a half)
Thinks Mommy is  the center of her world (5 years old)
Loves Mommy one minute and hates her  the next, is demanding and rigid and inflexible, is very negative, has to be praised, has to win. Fights with his words and his fists. (5 and a half, 6 years)
Is moody, morose, mopes and is fatigued a lot. Says no one likes him. (7 years old)
Is expansive, speedy, starting a million different projects. He is interested in what Mommy thinks! Literally haunts Mommy and wants to be around a lot. (8 years old)
Is much more interested in friends than family. Wants to have his independence, maturity and separateness respected. (9 years)
Really wants to be good and do what is right. (10 years)
   
Was a really poor eater, but we have seen a big rise in appetite (4 and a half to 5 years)
Can’t sit still at the table (6 years)
Is now an excellent eater! (8 years old)
Goes to bed willingly but has night terrors (5 years old)
Wanders around the house in the middle of the night (3 years old)
Could nurse 7 or 9 times a day, but we can also negotiate about when to nurse, nursing length may last about a minute (4 years old)  – from Mothering Your Nursing Toddler and studies of nursing habits of 4 year olds in Bangladesh.
Nurses like a newborn again! ( 13 months to 18 months)
Nurses a lot, but my friend has a baby the same age who only nurses a few times a day and for naptimes and bedtimes (2 years old, 2 and a half)
Naturally weaned, nursing just tapered off and I don’t know when the last nursing was (4 or so and up, some sources say at least two and a half and up)
Can live with some limits on nursing (3 years old)  This is from “Mothering Your Nursing Toddler” published by LLLI

 

 

You are the grown-up, but you need energy infusions from family, friends, to keep going. When we are balanced, we can be child-centered, but not child-obsessed. We can be excited about our children, appreciative of our children, relate to our children, but not be over-involved and over-invested. We can set some boundaries and say them without being hostile or rejecting our children.

Lovingly yours,

Carrie

Wonderful Words From Marsha Johnson!

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This post is NOT by me, but by Master Waldorf Teacher Marsha Johnson, who lives in the Portland area.  She wrote this wonderful post this morning, I so encourage you to read it carefully, consider it, weigh it in your heart.  Please do go and join her Yahoo!group waldorfhomeeducators.  This is an excellent post, just excellent.  Please read Marsha Johnson’s wise words and enjoy!

“One recurring thread that emerges again and again in the various home schooling groups is the embracing of Info-Mation as Edu-Cation. This is an approach that relies on the passing along of facts and figures to the children, rather like filling up a blank sheet of paper with a long list of data. This kind of education is one that many parents themselves were exposed to as children in lower schools and is yet embraced by many institutions of higher learning.
I have jokingly referred to it as Information Vomitus. Particularly in graduate school, one absorbs mounds of information and must regurgitate it accurately within a time period, and those who can do this are considered ‘smart’.
As a species, some of us just love this habit. We have game shows where we love to quiz people on obscure and odd facts and see who can answer the most questions correctly. There are board games that focus on this aimless ‘art’, like Trivial Pursuit. That name does make me laugh at least the use of the word trivial. Small and meaningless.

As parents, we tend to veer unconsciously towards teaching our children in the way we ‘were taught’. This tendency is really one of the most dangerous and damaging stage in the life of the homeschooling family.

Why do I say this? Because the children of today, the millennial children, the Shining Ones, are very different than the previous generation of children, those born from the 1950s to the 1990s, when the Information Age really began to dominate. The idea was strewn about that one could improve a child’s IQ with exposure to this Factoid Education and that children were really blank slates whose minds could be sharpened and very soon after this time period began we started seeing massive testing of children as large population groups and lo and behold, a lot of stereotyping also began to show up in the statistics. All sorts of rather wicked and demeaning conclusions have been drawn from this kind of erroneous practice.

When we begin to ‘school’ children, and some are so anxious they start right away as soon as Baby can focus her eyes, we reach back into our own educational experiences and most often pull forward this kind of teaching that involves a lot of child sitting-parent speaking.

With a sense of humor here, often the children quickly teach the parent that this kind of education isn’t going to persist for too long. As children are naturally good and sweet and want to make us big people happy, they often accommodate us with love and grace, and put up with quite a bit of this kind of dreary boring presentation.

But some don’t. They rise up and run about and wiggle away, dancing, singing, going outside, done-with-that!, let’s have snack happy attitude that is probably the most logically kind response possible.

The type of education that really fits the developmental stage of the child most closely, from my own point of view, is Waldorf education. Within the very ‘bones’ of Rudolf Steiner’s philosophies we find the most wonderful comprehension of how children are, what children need, and why we must approach the education of the child with an imaginative, artistic technique. A warm and inclusive attitude. A whole-child, integrated program that moves smoothly from moment to moment to create a kind of living-dream, wherein the child floats, soars, rests, and grows.

And this is probably the very opposite of the Info-Mation protocol, which calls mostly on the forces of the nerve-sense pole, the head, the hearing and memory and goes down dry as a desert rock in late summer.

Will you provide an education that inspires your child and yourself? Can you take a subject and find the Alice-In-Wonderland Rabbit Hole that will allow you to enter in a playful and unexpected fashion? How much of the school time is spent sitting and listening, or writing or copying? How much is spent moving, doing, trying, inventing, creating, cooperating, considering, digesting?

I am struck again and again by how passionate and devoted parents can be to a style of learning that would, well, invoke passion and interest in someone 35 years old or older? (smiles here) But a six year old is in his first decade, not the fourth, and taking the dry factual program to this tender age should really be some kind of crime.

Destroying a child’s imagination and tramping through their fairy land of fantasy with the bulldozers of ‘real life’ is actually a crime against childhood. We are surrounded by immense pressure from commercial marketers, manufacturers, media moguls, and those who want to benefit from premature aging. It is unbelievable, a very sophisticated and invisible force to destroy childhood and create an endless period of ‘tween’ and ‘teen’. Did you know the average age of video game players is actually 29 years old? This means there many older and younger right around 30 years of age who devote most of their free time to staring at screens.

One of the easiest ways to judge how a lesson is being received is to keep a close eye on the recipient. Rather than lose your adult self into the lovely land of facts and transmitting these facts, say a few words and watch the child. Allow for pauses and wait a bit. Does the child keep her attention focused on you, do the cheeks pink up, do the eyes sparkle, doe he sit forwards towards you, hanging on your words? Or does she fidget, grow pale, look down or elsewhere, try to rise and leave? Observe the child closely during the day, during play, during rest, during active vigorous exercise. Learn the color patterns of the child’s skin, the facial and body gestures. Configure your lessons in such a way that the child’s response is one of delight, close attention, desire to participate, and shows a healthy age appropriate expression.

Young children naturally move and use their bodies to learn. Incorporate this into each lesson and every day in your home teaching. Sitting is only one of many types of positions that the young child assumes in the natural exploration of the physical world. Adults tend to sit for the vast majority of each day in both work and play. There is much to be gained from moving often and finding physical ways to enhance the learning experiences.

The old saying `give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime’, is a perfect mantra for teaching the young human born in the early 2000s. Consider subject matter from the child’s point of view, figure out what you can do in your lessons that allow the child to use the three elements of self: head, heart, and hands. One of the greatest errors in current educational practice is the sole focus on the head learning, forcing young children to sit at tables for long days, wearying their spirits and graying their outlook. Early academic fatigue syndrome is rampant in our country and fortunately, almost 100 years ago, Rudolf Steiner illuminated a brilliant pathway of education that is more relevant today than ever before. Living artistic age-appropriate lessons, every day, naturally engaging and guaranteed to engender a life long love of learning.

Marsha Johnson, Spring 2009”

Thank you Marsha, for these words that I am holding in my heart,  thank you for being here and sharing with us,

Carrie

CDC’s Recommendations Regarding Swine Influenza A and Pregnancy and Breastfeeding

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You can get a look at the latest information we have here:

http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/clinician_pregnant.htm

Thanks,

Carrie

Peaceful Living with Your Super Seven-Year-Old

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The seven-year-old is entering a new phase in life in many ways, and there are some specific ways that they need support from you as the parent:

  • A seven-year-old still needs PROTECTION of their senses and of how much they are doing in any one day.  A seven-year-old wants to do everything and anything, but as the Gesell Institute points out, a hallmark of the seven-year-old is fatigue.  They need you to establish good bedtimes (7:30 is not too early for a busy seven-year-old!) and they need you to help them limit their activities.
  • The Gesell Institute also mentions that many seven-year-olds with fall birthdays may not be ready for second grade at all.  This is not typically a problem in the Waldorf curriculum due to most second graders should be close to eight in second grade, but do take heed if school is not going well.
  • A seven-year-old needs PROTECTION from dry facts, boring teaching, and adult intellectualization.  A seven-year-old is still not in the realm of logical thought.  Steiner strongly felt this age should be taught through parables, stories, stories about great men and women (pretty forward thinking for that day and age, adding the “great women” in there!), and not providing dry conclusions of “this is the way it is”.  His thought was this really stifled the thought process and independent judgment making that a teenager of aged 14 and up would go through at that time.
  • Therefore, it goes without saying, your seven-year-old still does not need too much explanation about things.  Simples explanation, yes, but still needs stories and analogies about things in life.
  • Physical movement is still REALLY important, and I am not talking about organized sports.  I am talking about PLAYING and being outside in nature where they create the games themselves.  Seven-year-olds should still be playing!  The Gesell Institute mentions that adult supervision is still important when they play because sevens become excited and wild which can often end in “destruction of  material or personal altercation.”  Also, be aware many seven-year-olds are not too compassionate of those they deem “different” and while they thrive on group praise per Gesell Institute, most sevens also do not seem to “need” friends the way they did when they were six.
  • Steiner felt the most important things to provide this age outside of stories was showing the child through pictorial imagery that something exists above Man (his idea of showing the child the  “supersensible” ), community and having a circle of people the child can trust is important, beauty, art, music and rhythm, the formation of good habits and the development of memory.  If you would like more information on this, please refer to this post: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/04/17/inspirational-words-from-steiners-the-education-of-the-child-regarding-teaching-of-the-7-14-year-old/
  • Seven-year-olds are more contained, quiet, and tend to cry easily “at any, every, or even no provocation.”  Be careful becoming irritable or critical of the people a seven-year-old says is picking on them or hates them….Sevens rather like being gloomy and complaining.  Try not to take it too seriously, unless you really do think it is a bullying issue at school or something else more serious.  However, not taking it too seriously does not mean you do not treat the complaints that no one likes me, etc, etc as if they are real.  The feelings are real to your child!  So, don’t get dragged too far into it all, but also acknowledge how your child feels.
  • Seven-year-olds think about death, dying, killing, violence.  This is why the archetypal fairy tales found in the Waldorf curriculum are wonderful for this age.  Take all the wild talk calmly!  You can sometimes say something to the effect that children think these things, but add in that, “Of course we wouldn’t do that here in our house.”
  • If your child is rude, please do be calm.  Treat the rudeness in the  matter-of-fact manner as you would any other bad behavior.
  • A seven-year-old is likely to be fearful of many things; again, these feelings are real to the child so you can be sympathetic and compassionate without being completely dragged into it all.  Don’t YOU be frightened of your child’s fears; that provides the child no sense of security at all!
  • Know that a seven-year-old still will most likely touch, manipulate and play with anything that catches their eye.
  • Most sevens are procrastinators, have short memory spans per Gesell (which makes perfect sense to we Waldorf people that memory is forming and being placed into play as something important now); they have a tendency to get very distracted easily.  Sevens also try to be perfect and need reminding that no one is perfect or should be perfect.
  • Help your child take mistakes as calmly as possible, and if possible how to laugh at themselves a bit when they do make a mistake.  Help your child to work toward best effort as an achievement and not the whole win-lose thing.  Stories that involve these notions can be very helpful, also stories where the person has to work hard to get a result, since most sevens would like to do something perfectly right off the bat.
  • Your seven-year-old will argue with you in a sense, asking “Why?”  “Why?” over and over, more almost as a stalling technique for whatever you asked them to do.  Do NOT overtalk to them!  If you need help, see my post entitled, “Stop Talking!  (”https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/04/14/stop-talking/)  But do make sure your child has heard you- sometimes they really don’t hear you!
  • As always, pick your battles as to the things that are MOST important for your family.

 

Here is to peaceful and respectful living with our children,

Carrie

Your Super Seven-Year-Old: Traditional and Anthroposophical Views of Development, Part Two

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We took a peek at the seven-year old through a model of traditional childhood development with our friends at the Gesell Institute in their wonderful book, “Your Seven-Year-Old”.  Today we are going to look at the seven-year-old through an anthroposophical lens of Waldorf parenting and education.  Please take what resonates with you; if you are not familiar with Waldorf education some of these ideas may seem startling.  Some of these ideas may not mesh with your own religious beliefs or your viewpoint, so you must decide if these ideas even work for you.  I tend to view the child from more of a body/soul/spirit Judeo-Christian perspective, but I put this here so you can decide how you feel. 

The seven-year-old is beginning the second seven year cycle of their life.  The child is seen as still incarnating into the physical body, but now the etheric body is forming and developing.  If you have forgotten all about the notion of Steiner’s four-fold human being, here is the quick review of the four components from the book “The Physiology of Childhood” by Schoorel:

  • The physical body – the physical body takes and requires space.  The physical body is born into the inner world  during the first month of pregnancy, and is born into the outer world with the birth of the physical body of the infant.
  • The ether body – maintains all life in the human being, animal, or plant.  It encompasses such diverse things as breathing, biochemical processes.  When the ether body is gone from the physical body, the physical body is dead.  The ether body is not visible to the human eye (this makes sense, doesn’t it, if the ether body is all chemical reactions and such) but some of the ACTIONS of the ether body we CAN see, such as biorhythms, heartbeats, brainwaves, the menstrual cycle of the female.  The ether body is born into the inner world of the child when the child starts to take care of their own life processes outside of the mother – breathing, digestion, warmth, metabolism.  The ether body is seen being born into the outside world around the age of 7, as signaled by the appearance of the permanent teeth.
  • The astral body – the bearer of abilities: behavior, the ability to think, to feel, to will; sympathy, antipathy, the ability to have wishes, desires, passions.    In anthroposophy, the astral body cannot be seen, but some of the ACTIONS  of the astral body can be seen within the inner organs and the nervous system.  Schoorel goes on to write on page 26 that:

“The astral body is, among others, the carrier of desires, emotions, and egoism.  During the first years, the astral body does not work in the body of the child under the child’s direction.  During the first three years, children are not egoistic but innocent, neutral, and objective in their behavior and actions.  The first three years lay the physical foundation of the three main functions of the soul – willing, feeling, and thinking.  This foundation is laid through the fact that children learn to walk in their first year, learn to speak in their second year, and learn to  think in their third year.”

At about the age of three, the astral body is born into the inner world of the child; it is born into the outer world at the age of 14.

  • The I-organization- is a system of intentions, directions, goals.  The I-organization is the bodily foundation of the human I.  The human-I is a spiritual being where one learns how it can do good out of free choices.  Steiner believed that when the physical body died, the I would go toward further incarnation and leave the I-organization behind.  The I-organization activity is internalized around the age of 10 and is then born into the outer world around the age of 21.

So, the child is growing and changing and needing different things to support the etheric body as it forms and also to  consolidate the incarnation into the physical body.  In Kindergarten, the emphasis is on WILLING.  Now the emphasis is on FEELING.  In Kindergarten, the main goal included creating a sense of GRATITUDE.  Now the goals center around the child’s response to AUTHORITY (remember, not mean nasty authority, but a natural love for teacher, people they can trust).  This is the time to foster a sense of community, of LOVE, of beauty.

I have written many posts on the six/seven year transformation, and you can access those in the tags box.  That will provide needed background so you can understand what the seven year needs for peaceful living.

Peace,

Carrie

The Development of Morality Versus the Development of Faith

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(The post today is about morality and faith and big issues.  It is not meant to be inflammatory in any way, and if this topic does not interest you, or is upsetting to you, please do feel free to skip it and come back for a different post next time!  And, as always, please choose to take what resonates with you and your family and your personal faith and your own journey and leave the rest here!)

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I received a copy of Kenneth Taylor’s children’s book “Right Choices.”  I assumed this book would not bother me.

This book really bothered me.

The  book, I felt,  just really hit small children over the head with situations where the children make good and bad choices and then bible quotes.   It was so cut and dry, and so moralistic and so pointed and direct.   It bothered me for those reasons,  but I could not figure out why it bothered me so much more than that for several years now.  And now I just figured it out in the midst of reading another wonderful book called, “Helping Our Children Grow in Faith,” by Robert Keeley.  It is written from a Reformed Christian perspective, so it may not be of interest to everyone, but I found a bunch of things in it that made me go “A-HA!”

Keeley writes about the development of MORALITY and the development of FAITH and how these are not the same things at all. 

He writes about the development of faith as according to James Fowler.  There are six stages, and some of them overlap certain ages:

Stage 1 – Intuitive-Projective Faith (ages 2-6).  Filled with fantasy, powerful images, and imagination.  The child reflects the parents’ faith.

Stage 2 – Mythic-Literal Faith (ages 6-12).  The circle of influence widens to include other people besides the parents.  Faith at this stage is pretty straightforward and includes few “gray areas”

Stage 3- Synthetic-Conventional Faith (ages 12-???)  The importance of belonging to a group typifies this stage for adolescents; for adults in this stage belonging to a community of other people who have the same beliefs is important

Stage 4- Individuative-Reflective Faith (ages 18-???)  In this stage people take personal responsibility for their own faith, often questioning and exploring and figuring out what they truly believe.

Stage 5- Conjunctive Faith (ages 30-???) In this stage people find that many of the faith practices that they threw off or discarded during the previous period may be more valuable than they originally thought.  This is the stage where people “own their own faith.”

Stage 6- Universalizing Faith (ages?????)  Faith becomes a commitment, more than a set of beliefs.  Few people ever reach this stage.

Contrast this to Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of moral development:

Stage 1-avoiding punishment (You make moral judgments based on if you will get “punished” or not)

Stage 2-reciprocity (You make moral judgments on the basis of satisfying your own needs and wants)

Stage 3-good boy/nice girls (People make moral judgments on the basis of wanting others to think they are nice people)

Stage 4- law and order (People make judgments based on the basis of external authority).

Stage 5- social contract and individual rights (People make more judgments based upon the principles behind the law, not so much the laws)

Stage 6 – universal ethical principles (People make moral judgments based on self-chosen ethical principles, such as human rights and the dignity of all people.

Until about age 7 or 8, the source of authority in making moral judgments is SELF-INTEREST.  There is so much going on these days with teaching small children about the environment, and homelessness and other social justice topics.  Many of you know I frequently meditate on social justice topics, but guess what?  A child is not going to make moral judgments based upon universal ethical principles at this point – they are going to make judgments of being in the moment, for self interest.  Even according to Piaget, children of this age, up to 7 or 8, really do not have the mental ability to put themselves in someone else’s perspective. 

(And you may say, well Carrie, my child can do this!   And I am here to tell you most likely that is a firstborn oldest girl whom you have probably talked a lot with!  I wrote in one of my other recent posts how we place, often unconsciously, a large amount of pressure on our eldest girls when they are six, seven and eight and really do expect them to be more mature than they are….So if your child can do this skill, that really, according to every expert out there, is not where a seven or eight year old should even be, then I suggest you make sure to give them plenty of opportunities to be a child!  Don’t expect them to be a ten year old in a six year old body, please!)

Anyway, Keeley goes on to write that to help children grow in faith, we cannot do this by  merely giving them a list of do’s and don’ts “masquerading as stories of real people” (ie, bible stories or stories from your faith tradition where we are knocked over the head with someone’s moral interpretation of it.)

He writes,

“It is important we do not reduce the Bible to a set of moral tales, while still helping our children grow up with a clear sense of right and wrong.

When we turn Bible stories into moral tales for small children, we realize, at best, we are hoping to influence their most basic instincts and convince them that it is in their best interest to be “good”.  Influencing moral behavior is not the same as building faith.  A church program that emphasizes moral behavior at the expense of the cognitive and relational aspects of faith is missing the point.

I think we tend to focus a lot of our teaching on moral behavior for a couple of reasons.  First of all, moral behavior is something we can see.  We know we’ve succeeded in teaching children how to be good if they behave themselves.  A [living faith] is a tougher thing to observe, but far more important.  Second despite being less important than [a living faith], moral behavior is important.  We want our children to behave because we want them to have successful lives, we want to enjoy being around them, and it’s the right thing to do.”

So, I think I figured out that that children’ book bothered me 1- because in my view it is not developmentally appropriate for the pre-school audience it was intended for 2 – sometimes just knowing the stories and events of your faith is enough for small children, there are places where the story  is just enough.  Some of the stories from your faith may have a moral, some may be history with meaning and direction for us in the present, some of it shows people’s faith – not all of it was written down to illustrate a clear moral tale in my view at least.  3- the development of faith and morality are not necessarily the same or are even mixed well.  4.  Moralizing a  story reduces it, to me, as Keeley says, “one “right” way of interpreting what happened.”  Whereas a lesson in faith is more a “reflection on the story that helps us think about who God is, who we are, or what our relationship with God is.”  He talks about the importance of WONDERING during these stories with small children – not a quiz to see if they were listening, but a true wondering where there really is no answer. He provides some examples in his book, and the book “Young Children and Worship” also has examples in it.

This book provided me with incredible food for thought on some of these tough issues.  I hope it will lead you to think as well how you are developing and treating issues of moral judgment with your small children and how you are looking toward developing your child’s faith life if that is important to you and your family.  Steiner felt religious development was extremely important in the ages of 7-14, not necessarily picking a religion, but that development of what he called the “supersensible.”  Melisa Nielsen of A Little Garden Flower has said she felt Steiner spent way more time thinking about God, the angels and such than such elemental beings as gnomes, which seems to be what he is associated with to some people.  She has a lot of wonderful things to say about this subject, do go check her website out! (http://www.alittlegardenflower.com/)

All food for thought with peace and joy,

Carrie