This is an excellent article regarding one of Steiner’s 12 senses that is important developmentally for young children: warmth.
Please check out this link to read a great article on Warmth, Strength and Freedom: http://tidewaterschool.blogspot.com/2008/12/warmth-strength-and-freedom-by-m.html
Happy, happy reading!!
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
I have gotten some private emails and such, apparently this post has hit a lot of raw nerves. First of all, I would like to give all of you struggling with these issues empathy. Some of you have grown children and you are worried that perhaps people judge your parenting skills by the state your adult children are now living in. Some of you worry for your child’s safety. Some of you have taken over care and responsibility for your grandchildren. I too, was raised by grandparents with involvement from my father and uncle. I probably understand more than you think about this.
Please give yourself a break and be easy with yourself. There are no guarantees for how children “turn out”. It is a fallacy in our society, especially that for mothers, that if we provide our child undivided material goods, unlimited opportunities, that if we are the “perfect” mother our children will turn out just fine. This is a fallacy, but it should also not be an excuse to bow out of parenting in the best way we know how.
I believe the skyrocketing rates of childhood ADHD, depression, alcohol and drug abuse are definitely related to not only parenting but also the position we assign children in our society. Many people have told me out right there is no way there would have more than one or two children with the often unspoken message that children are a liability in this society- a cause of worry, a cause of stress and doubting yourself as a human being and who would want that? Motherhood is the invisible job that no one seems to value anymore, yet it is the most important one to be able to provide peace and stability in your home to the best of your ability. The work of motherhood should be well supported and encouraged for the future of our children and our country.
Children are a joy and a blessing. I strongly feel the work and education of attachment parenting and Waldorf for the early years is at least the best hope we have at this time to stem the tide of all the problems we are seeing now in teenagers and young adults.
Thanks for all your comments and thoughts, keep ‘em coming.
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
According to an article detailed on msn.com this morning, 1 in 5 young people (college-aged) in the United States have a personality disorder, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, phobias and bipolar disorder. This was the findings of a study where 5,000 people aged 19-25 were interviewed face to face and asked about a variety of personality disorders. Researchers also found the rates of substance of abuse by young people was higher than the rates of personality disorders.
Obviously, personality disorders have always been around. Hopefully this study will highlight the prevalence of these diseases and encourage those affected to seek help. Hopefully this study will encourage discussion amongst families as to family history. Hopefully this study will encourage more research to be done into the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to personality disorders.
Some children seem to you with their own biology, circumstances and destiny. The best parenting techniques may not be able to change the reality some children, step children or foster or adoptive children, enter into your home with. This post is not intended to be directed toward those children per se, unless you think there is something here that will help your circumstance.
Here is just a thought for what may compose the best stability and the most security for our children so they can grow up into healthy, stable adults.
1. Marriage before having children is an excellent place to start.
2. If you work outside the home and are happy with this and your family is thriving, please skip this paragraph and go on! If you are not perfectly happy, read this. I feel having a parent that stays home with the children when they are young, and is home daily throughout the child’s years, even the teen-aged years, is essential. I personally have had a variety of work situations including working 12 hours a week with on=site daycare when my oldest was little and now working one weekend day a month when my husband can be home with my children. I have stressed and agonized and felt torn like so many of you. So please know I am not saying these things lightly or without feeling or compassion. However, if you have thought about staying home and have the possibility of doing so, I am here to encourage you.
I have two thoughts on the subject of working, and I am sure you all can add more perspectives and comments. My first thought is actually for the mother. If you are caught up in work, chances are you are not present at home, even if you are physically there. I have seen mothers tearing themselves into little pieces in order to be the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect worker, the perfect everything, only to be stressed out, worried, disappointed and feeling like they are not doing the best job at either place. If this is you, change it. Your children need your warm, loving and caring presence.
My second thought on this subject is for the children. Some children seem to do “well” (whatever that means) in daycare of any kind – group daycare, in-home daycare, nanny etc. – but some children just do not do well, even if it is care provided in their own home. I do wish there were more studies regarding the number of hours a child is in daycare and future health ramifications for the school-aged child and the adult – studies that look at mental health and physical health outcomes. The difficult thing about this is sometimes you just cannot tell until your children have grown and matured who seemed to survive in an alternative care situation and who really did not.
All that being said, if you are going to work, please be happy about it and confident about it and carry that to your children in your energy. Please do not use your worry about working as an excuse to jellyfish parent or to shower your child with material things to make up for what you believe is lacking. Have a rhythm for when you get home from work, and work hard to be with your child outside of work. Seek out support from other caring, working parents through your local La Leche League and Attachment Parenting support groups.
If you wish your work situation was something else, and many of us do in this economy, know from the bottom of your heart you are a caring parent for even worrying about it, and that you are doing everything you can do, the best you can do, right now. My heart goes out to yours. Support is vital in this situation, please do find a community to hook into about this important subject.
Onward and upwards.
3. Get your own stability in check – do what you need to do, but get therapy, help, advice, do your own inner work through prayer, meditation, tai chi, yoga, energy work. Align yourselves with mothers whose parenting you admire. Look deeply into what you feel the role of a homemaker should be, could be, is now for you. Think about how you set the tone for your home, the peace in your home, the tone and model for your spouse and your children. Think about your relationship with the other adults in your extended family, and what you are modeling for your children. Do not assign your adult baggage a role in your child’s life.
Also, mothers please take care of your bodies. It is the only one you have for your life here on Earth, and how you feel in your body affects your mind and your attitude and your ability to create peace in your home. Please show your children how to care for their own bodies by limiting your own screen time, by being active, by eating healthy and by receiving whatever preventative health care you need to keep yourself in balance.
4. Start things right by breastfeeding and practicing other measures of attachment parenting. If you need more advice or thoughts regarding this, please see www.attachmentparenting.org and www.lalecheleague.org.
5. Learn about protecting your child’s senses (all 12 of them! Yes, there are 12 senses according to Rudolf Steiner). Warmth is a very important sense, and start working on this early to provide your children not just with physical warmth by keeping their heads covered, but also work on being emotionally warm with your children. They need this to thrive!
6. Establish a rhythm in your home that benefits your whole family. This includes gently guiding yourself and your child toward better, healthier sleeping patterns, and adequate time in movement and outside time. Repetition is a healthy cornerstone for the early years. Work toward providing healthy boundaries that protect everyone in the family’s dignity and respect.
7. Understand normal childhood development and the best ways to guide behavior in a loving way during different stages of development. For the early years, this includes respecting that young children live in their bodies, distraction, having a strong rhythm, limited choices, using fantasy and movement as our friends to encourage the behavior we do want to see, keeping ourselves calm and grounded, and yes, even use of the word “no”. You can still set limits and be a loving parent. You can still be a warm, loving parent and not explain away the mysteries of life and chatter away to your child. Practice your singing and humming instead for some really beautiful energy in your home that words and explanations cannot touch.
8. Enjoy, protect and nurture childhood. I feel so sad when parents say to me, “Yes, my little one is six and in school and all grown up.” I feel sad when I see the little girl third graders at the bus stop experimenting with make-up. I feel sad when all the wonder of childhood is gone before it even starts in our rush to sign our little ones up for organized sports, teach them reading and writing, and force their independence too early. What is our hurriedness doing to our children?
Let them have the wonder of childhood. Protect them from media for awhile. They will not be behind if they do not use a computer when they are five, and they will not be behind if they haven’t seen all the Hannah Montana TV shows by the time they are nine. Childhood should be a time of imagination, fantasy and wonder.
The world our children will inherit will be even more fast-paced than it is now. We are going to need good, solid leaders who can make difficult decisions, innovative out of the box creative thinkers, inventors, and people who can help other people. Protecting their childhood and letting your child have a childhood will contribute to this in a most important way.
9. Look into Waldorf education for your child. It is the most healing educational system I can find, the only one that seems to correlate the educational process with the possible health of the future adult, the one where the entire curriculum is set up to feed a child’s soul based on the child’s developmental level. Please see our own personal reasons for choosing Waldorf for home education on my blog post entitled, “Wonderful Waldorf”.
10. Create opportunity and moments of wonder and reverence in your home for your child through nature observation and being outside, the wonder of stories, the wonder of beautiful art and music, the wonder of the mysteries of life. Wonder, joy, reverence is really what it is all about.
Take what resonates with you from here. I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
Just a few of my thoughts from my little corner of the world.
This post is more for the parents of children ages 7 and older. In my own inner work at this time, I am working with the notion of “letting go” and some of the ideas that come to mind as I work with this phrase, in no particular order (and I am using the word “she” to refer to a child for simplicity’s sake) :
Letting go means I cannot police my child’s every thought on a subject; she has her own thoughts and ideas.
Letting go means I cannot control her destiny; my child has her own destiny.
Letting go means I cannot set so many rules and regulations that my parenting is completely dry, humor-less and alienating, my child has a need for space, a warm presence but also benign neglect.
Letting go means that I can stop trying to “fix” what I see as my child’s “imperfections”; my child is herself and needs no “fixing”.
Letting go also means I can stop using so many words and chattering at my child and over –explaining things; instead I can find support in the warm silence that I give her.
Letting go means I cannot hover over every detail of her life; she needs the space to make mistakes when the cost is small as practice for her own life ahead.
Letting go means doing the right thing at the right time and not trying to go back when she is a teenager and treat her like an infant.
Letting go means letting go of my own adult baggage, my own adult dreams and wants for my child; she has her own dreams and wants.
Letting go means I can be authentic and fully present with my child.
Letting go means I can support and guide, but not dictate or demand.
Letting go feels good.
What are you going to work on this year in your parenting?
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
How do you work within the context of parenting with the concept of forgiving yourself? Some mothers have very carefree, sunny personalities and don’t dwell on things so much, but I know many mothers who are trying to be “the perfect mother”; feeling overwhelmed and then are mad at themselves when they don’t live up to their own self-imposed standards. When they are being authentic and real, they admit to me they find it hard to forgive themselves and their behavior. I especially see this as mothers try to change some parenting skill that was inherited from they way they were parented and they “slip-up”. I also see this quite a bit in homeschooling mothers; mothers who want to do more “of a Waldorf-inpsired homeschool” and are currently more unschooling than doing Waldorf or using some kind of a homeschooling “curriculum package” instead of creating their own lesson plans, or in mothers where life has derailed their current homeschooling plans. The opportunities to feel bad about oneself abounds!
For the past two years, I have made my inner work and parenting focus this simple phrase: “I will be easy with myself.” The Thanksgiving holidays heading into Advent into the 12 days of Christmas are always a meditative, contemplative drawing-in time for me, and this year I am also starting to work with the idea of “letting go” (more about that in a separate post), in addition to being easy with myself.
If you are feeling guilty about the way you have parented in the past, a situation that involved you not handling things they way you wanted to, if you are feeling guilty about the state of your homeschooling adventure at this point because other things in life are taking center stage at this moment; please take a deep breath.
Feeling guilty is not always undesirable – it can point out ways to change for the better at times. However, what I see in so many mothers is just feeling too guilty, all the time, over everything and anything. Please stop modeling this for your children, especially your daughters! Trust yourself, your intuition and trust in your authenticity. No, we cannot use this as an excuse for not doing what is right in our lives,our families and our homeschool, but we can decide that instead of dwelling on the negative things, instead of dwelling on the things in reality that did not meet our expectations or ideas, we can move forward and come up with positive solutions that will help everyone involved. We can look at enlisting help and changing what is going on within the family. We can look at using our own inner work to work with these feelings instead of unleashing them on our children and spouses. We can look and find the support of other mothers. We can also look at acceptance. My husband sometimes will say, “It just is what it is.” And sometimes that is just enough.
Take the time to examine your own beliefs – do you believe you should never say “no” to anyone, do you think a mother should be able to give of herself continuously and endlessly without any help from anyone else, do you feel everything must be done “perfectly” or it is not worth doing, do you feel your best is never good enough? Do you think you should be working within your home seven days a week without a break? Do you feel you are so busy with your family you have no time or place to connect to your own children, your own spouse and encouraging friends?
You live in your home with your family; you do not live FOR your home and your family. Think about what you need and how to get there! And be easy with yourself while you do it! Is your home a place of peace, and joy? (At least most of the time??!!) Or is it a place of stress and upset?
There is a wonderful book called, “The Hidden Feelings of Motherhood : Coping with Stress, Depression and Burn-out,” by Kathleen Kendall-Tackett. In the epilogue of this book, she points out several things you can do to make things better for yourself and your family. The number one thing on her list is to focus on the things that are actually going well, and that if you can identify even just one strength, one thing that is going right, you can use that and build on that. She also talks about the need for self-care, the importance of eating well, getting to exercise and yes, even getting to relax. Are you doing this for yourself at all? She also talks about the need for mothers to laugh, and I so agree with this! So many of the mothers I meet just seem unhappy, sad, overwhelmed, depressed, and joy-less. Make a promise to yourself to start trying to bring humor and joy back into your life. Kendall-Tackett has lots of other things to suggest, such as ways to re-vitalize your sense of humor, and her important recommendation of finding support through a mothering mentor.
From a Waldorf perspective, I think working within your own inner work on your feelings, needs and expectation is vital. It is the most important part of your homeschooling experience with your children. If your homeschooling experience is joyless and not alive, your children will have difficulty not only in absorbing the material and learning, but also in seeing the joy within your homeschool! Barbara Dewey wrote a great article about this in her most recent newsletter, entitled, “Are Your Child’s Eyes Shining? Are Yours?” You can find it here: http://www.waldorfwithoutwalls.com/newsletter/44/
Vimala McClure writes in the neat little book, “The Tao of Motherhood,” the following: “A wise parent recognizes her failings and accepts what is. There is room in life for remorse, and for forgiveness. There is room in our heart for ourselves, and for one another.” Lovely words.
Mothers have been mothering since time began. What we do is the most important thing on earth, but more important than even doing everything right and trying to meet the impossible standard of providing “the perfect childhood” where there can be no such thing is to provide your children the model of what to do when the pieces don’t fit together or fall apart. Show them how one can focus on the strengths and be optimistic. Show them how one can say, “So glad that is over now!” Show them how to move on, make things right. Show them that parents can take care of themselves and be partners together and still have enough love and energy for everyone in the household because that is how families work.
Meditation, meditative rhythmical activity such as Tai Chi or yoga or even walking, prayer, taking a day of rest each week can all go a long way toward helping us to forgive ourselves for just being human. Be the best mother you can be, but accept and love yourself where you are in your journey and in your path.
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
Our children are in grave danger of losing connection with nature and the four elements. The emphasis in American schools is on computer skills and literacy. Some programs say they bring children outside for a good while, but when pressed the reality is the children are going outside for perhaps 20 to 30 minutes a day and only if the weather is good.
In fact, a whole best selling book has been written about this topic. It is called “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder” by Richard Louv. I highly encourage you to read this book for the sake of your children.
.Our European friends are attempting to do something about this. In Scandinavia and Germany, there has been a recent explosion of Kindergarten programs that take place in the woods all day – not just that the children go outside for part of the day, but that the children literally have their program outside. I have a friend who experimented with this at home and you can read about her experience on her blog at this link: http://naturesrhythm.blogspot.com/2008/11/wood-kindergarten.html
Mothering Magazine (www.mothering.com) recently covered the topic of forest kindergarten programs in the article, “Forest For A Classroom” by Andrea Mills in the November-December 2009 issue. In this article, Ms. Mills writes: “American parents and educators can learn a lot from the Waldkindergarten. The media ensure that American families are plagued by fears of strangers, bug, sharp items, and other threats, both real and imagined. Technology makes it more likely that our children will be spending their free time plugged into TV’s, computers, or other media.”
The only forest preschool program I am aware of in the United States is the one Marsha Johnson runs in Portland, Oregon. If anyone knows of any others, please leave it in the comment section for me.
We recently spent several hours outside at a Nature Center. Typically attendance slows down in the winter months because not every family feels the way we do – that there is no bad weather, only bad clothes. Despite the chill in the air, we got outside every day for 2 to 4 hours. It is that important to the life of a small child (and to the grown-ups as well!).
Here are a few excellent reasons to get your children out more:
“The four elements, earth, water, air and fire, are the basic elements which children are nourished by and from which they grow. No shaped toys-be they wood or plastic-can compete with these materials. The seriousness with which the children play, the deep concentration speaks for itself, and shows how important this “playing” is. Nobody needs to fight about anything –there is plenty of mud for everybody.” —You Are Your Child’s First Teacher, page 184
“Young children are close to the realm of nature because they are natural beings. Because their consciousness is not yet parted from the environment, because they still live in the consciousness of oneness, of unity, they still belong to the natural world…..The process of separating from the parents and from the environment buds only around age seven..” –Heaven On Earth: A Handbook for Parents of Young Children, Sharifa Oppenheimer, page 99.
Rudolf Steiner wanted the children to be able to connect to and feel at home on the land, to feel at one with the cycles of the year and the cycles of night and day, to really care for the land and he wanted the children to be able to work together socially and value the work that was done before them so that the children understood we all depend on the work of others (Adapted from -Gardening With Children Audio CD, informedfamilylife.org).
So, if you are trying to think about creating your own playspace, perhaps in your backyard or somewhere wild you have access to , here are some thoughts of things to include:
-flat grassy areas
-a hill of some sort
-natural screens (bushes, hedges, places to hide)
-building materials
-play structures – tipis, igloos, houses. Sharifa Oppenheimer talks about letting your child add things to the igloo or tipi structure – give hints for adding things to the structure – “When I was a small girl, we used to put pine needles on the floor as a carpet.” Or “I wonder what it would be like to put a few seashells around the outside, as decoration.” – page 102, Heaven On Earth
.-classic structures such as swings, slides, seesaws, hammocks
-sand play
-water play
-mud play – digging is important
-sensory play area inside or outside…….Some children need these sensory areas and inputs more than others. Waldorf kindergartens rarely have a “sensory table” available, but this may be something to work with at home, and it could be a way to bring the outside in if you have no yard. I have a dear friend who taught in a traditional three year old classroom for over ten years before having children of her own, and she volunteerd some of her wonderful sensory table ideas as follows –For example, a sensory table could be filled with:
sand-add water, shells, sticks, (sand will mold if it left very wet and covered), animals
beans-start with one kind and over time add different varieties-
water-add color, bubbles, funnels, waterwheel, clear plastic containers of all sizes, animals
soil-add rocks, sticks, acorns, etc. It is fun to add in lima beans or corn kernels as they will start to sprout in the moist soil when left for a few days
For autumn-Indian corn, acorns, seed pods, colorful leaves, pine cones, cranberries
Winter-build dens from bark, there are directions for making snow in the Earthways book, wooden snowflakes, ice cubes (freeze a dish of water for pond)
Spring-soil, seeds, small gardening tools, new leaves, flowers from trees, buds to explore
Summer-water, sand, green plants, wild flowers,
Thank you to my dear friend!
Think about equipment:
-small shovels, rakes, wagon, basket of tools (including hammers, wrenches, paintbrushes, pliers, nails), nails half driven into a log or stump for the children to hammer. There are also more ideas in that little book Toymaking With Children.
how about using your GARDEN as a playspace?
-“Care of plant life is a fundamental lesson in outdoor play.” –from Heaven On Earth
-Make a child-sized scarecrow in the fall or even early spring as you are planting
-Choose seeds that have a short time until maturity – lettuce, radishes, berries, snow peas
-try potatoes, pumpkins, corn
-make a bean tipi
-think about gardening with bees and butterflies in mind, with night blooming flowers for the moths
-encourage backyard wildlife – bird feeders, bird baths, bird houses, squirrel feeders, bat house, hummingbird feeders, owl houses, toad hotels
-Think of exploring the garden with all 12 senses!
Steiner discussed the importance of agriculture within the Waldorf curriculum, and “Being a teacher, we should avoid botanizing, taking the botany drum into class and showing the plants to the students. We should rather take the children outside to really emphasize the understanding of the context between the plant kingdom, the earth and the radiant sun.” – Steiner, Dornach, 1921-22. (Gardening usually occurs between the 6th and 10th grades as a yearly subject, but more and more Waldorf teachers are bringing beekeeping, composting, gardening etc into their classrooms as early as Kindergarten and First Grade).
Bring the Outdoors Inside!
-Try raising tadpoles, butterflies, praying mantis, ant farms, ladybug houses
-Try bringing play equipment inside – swings and small trampolines
-Try container gardening inside
-Try sprouting sunflower seeds and other seeds and beans
Other Major Ways to Connect Your Child to Nature:
Spend time outside every day, no matter what the weather – there is no bad weather, only bad clothes!
If you take a daily walk, focus on exploration, not distance, and have a basket to collect small treasures
Assign parts in fairy tales to dramatize which include the natural elements of the story – ie, children can be the trees, streams, etc. in different tales.
Celebrate FESTIVALS (see blog post regarding Changing Your Rhythm with the Seasons).
Celebrate the moon and phases of the moon – some Waldorf teachers have made hats with the moon phases on it for different fairy tales where a moon phase is mentioned
Have a color of the month that connects it to nature – ie, March is the color green and grow wheat grass on your nature table
Which of course, leads to the inevitable :Have a nature table!
Celebrate the elemental beings – gnomes who take care of the earth, fairies, etc. in circle time or fairy tales
Think about joining a CSA or going to farmer’s markets so children can meet farmers, beekeepers and other folks who work with nature and love it!
Crafts should involve natural items, playthings as well!
Experiences with Nature connect us with the Mysteries of Life and help the young child learn wonder, awe, reverence and respect!
For More Ideas See the Following Books, CD’s and DVD’s:
-Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots – Sharon Lovejoy
-Sunflower Houses – Sharon Lovejoy
-Gardening Classes At The Waldorf Schools – Krause
-Gardening With Children: The Waldorf Curriculum – Carolyn Brown, Audio CD from the Children, Nature and Us Conference -Available from www.informedfamilylife.org
-“Creating a “Kindergarden” for Young Children by Betty Peck, DVD from the Children, Nature and Us Conference – Available from www.informedfamilylife.org
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
For those of you with children under the age of 7, have you ever thought how many times a day you are giving a directive to your child? Even if it is a positively phrased directive, it is still a directive that causes a child to go up into his head and awakens the child into self-awareness. Parents and teachers who understand child development from a Waldorf perspective believe that every time we bring a child into self-awareness and into the consciousness of before the seventh year, we are taking away energy that the child should be using for formation of the physical organs. The belief is that this may not show up as harmful in the child’s life until they are adults. Even if you do not believe this, I think we can all agree that in this fast-paced world, the stress and strain and viewing the small child as a miniature adult with just less experience is leading to incredible challenges of increased suicide rates and pyschological disorders in the teenaged years and beyond. Think about how we parent and why we parent is really important!
Parenting is all about looking at the doing the right thing at the right time within child development. If you are providing lots of verbal directives to your small child, you are putting the cart before the horse by using a tool that is not really needed until later developmental stages.
“But what do I use then?” you cry. “Children need direct instruction!”
Rudolf Steiner did not think so. He wrote in his lecture, “Children Before the Seventh Year,” found in the book Soul Economy, the following passage about the first two and a half years:
“During the first two and a half years, children have a similar rapport with the mother or with others they are closely connected with as long as their attitude and conduct make this possible. Then children become perfect mimics and imitators. This imposes a moral duty on adults to be worthy of such imitation, which is far less comfortable then exerting one’s will on children.”
He then goes on to describe the period of the ages from two and a half through age five as one that “can be recognized externally by the emergence of an exceptionally vivid memory and wonderful imagination. However, you must take great care when children develop these two faculties, since they are instrumental in building the soul. Children continue to live by imitation, and therefore we should not attempt to make them remember things we choose.”
He ends with a few thoughts about the period from age five to age seven:
“Previously, unable to understand what they should or should not do, they could only imitate, but now, little by little, they begin to listen to and believe what adults say. Only toward the fifth year is it possible to awaken a sense of right and wrong in children. We can educate children correctly only by realizing that, during this first seven year period until the change of teeth, children live by imitation, and only gradually do they develop imagination and memory and a first belief in what adults say.”
So, if any of that resonates with you, come along with me and take my three day challenge. For three days, try to bring a consciousness to the words you choose with your children. How much chit chat do you do all day with your children? Can you replace that with peaceful humming or singing?
How many directives do you give that could be either carried by your rhythm, done with no words at all (for example, instead of saying, “Now let’s brush our teeth!” could you just hand Little Johnny his toothbrush?) or could your words be phrased in a way that involves fantasy or movement? For example, if you need your child to sit down at the table to eat, you could ask your baby bird to fly over to the table and sit in its nest. “Mama Bird has food for you!” Could you redirect your child into some sort of movement that involves their imagination that would satisfy the need for peace in your home?
Music through singing and the poetry of verses are wonderful ways to provide transitions throughout the day along with the strength of your rhythm. Many of the old Mother Goose rhymes are fabulous for all parts of the daily routine. Songs provide a peaceful energy and a needed source of warmth for the young child’s soul.
A mother asked, “What do I do if my child is doing something harmful to me or to another child? Don’t I need to use direct words then?”
I believe this depends on the age and temperament of the child. As mentioned in other posts, many times the most effective method is to be able to physically move the child away from the situation or to physically follow through in a calm way. You would never expect your words to be enough in a highly charged emotional situation for a child under 7. A Complete and Unabridged Lecture on the Harms of Hurting Others is often not what is needed in the moment.
Perhaps in this case, helping the child to make amends after the emotions of the situation have decreased would be a most powerful means to redemption. When we make a mistake, even an accidental mistake, we strive to make it right. An excellent lesson for us all, no matter what our age. We do not let this behavior slide, but we do work toward setting it all right again.
“What about giving my child a warning that an activity will change? Don’t I need words then?”
If you are at home, your rhythm should carry many of the words you would otherwise use. There may be older children of five or six that appreciate a warning, again dependent upon their temperament, and there may be some children that think they need to know everything that happens in advance but in reality it only makes them anxious and they talk of nothing else.
These are all important questions, and perhaps this three day challenge will assist you in sorting out the answers for you and your family as you strive toward a more peaceful home.
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
This was a fairly hilarious exchange between my first grader and I yesterday (see if you don’t get a chuckle out of it at least!)
Daughter: “When I grow up, I want to draw, paint, write books and be an illustrator and paint big pictures on walls – what’s that called, Mommy?”
Me: “Painting murals.”
Daughter: “Yes, that’s it. I had an idea for this picture I could paint over our fireplace and it would perfectly coordinate and everything.”
Me: “That would be nice.”
Daughter: “Yes, and when I grow up I am not going to college. I am going to Italy!”
Me (searching my mind wildly, I swear I have not heard this one before): “Italy? Why Italy?”
Daughter: “Italy is where Leonardo DaVinci painted. I read about that. I am going to go there and paint. What language do they speak in Italy, momma?”
Me: “Italian, boo-boo.”
Daughter: “Okay, I need a tutor so I can start learning Italian!”
Okay, kiddo, guess that will be your next language to learn….The ideas they have, and the plans! Gotta love it!
“I could go out in the yard and entertain myself for hours when I was a child! With one stick! With half a stick!” you exclaim. “Yet, my child can’t entertain themselves for five minutes!”
Many parents feel this way and wonder what they are doing wrong, or what they can do to foster more imaginative, independent play. There are several things to think about regarding the child under 7 and play. To me, the child under age 7 is an imitative creature: therefore, it makes perfect sense that a child under 7 is not developmentally ready to go off and initiate play for hours on end.
However, there are several things you can do to help the process.
The first step is to consider that a child needs a play environment as discussed in the previous post, “Fostering Creative Play.” Most of all, think about seriously streamlining the amount of toys available to your child at one time, make sure there are places and spaces for the toys to be placed neatly, and do make sure there are small places where like items can be grouped together for play.
The second step is to provide your child with something worthy to imitate. Your child under the age of 5 is probably not going to follow you around the house peacefully while you “get your work done”, at least at first. Being child-inclusive but not child-centered does not mean that you never play with your child, nor does it mean you never help your child get started with play.
With small children, you may only get fifteen minutes of work done at a time. You may, without any words, then be able to take down something for your child to play with and start the play off and then wander back to your work. I say without any words because the moment you say, “Let’s play with the wooden kitchen now..” they will screech, “Nooooo! I don’t want to play that!” However, if you get engrossed in playing or setting something up without words, they will watch you and start to do what you do. Imitation at its finest.
One thing to consider is that in the decades before families had two cars, most mothers were home all day with their children – they had no car to go anywhere else! There were tasks to be completed around the home and the children were there to see this. Some families carry this tradition on today, and work hard at staying home and providing their children with real work. For example, you could wash on Mondays and let your child help wash toys in the playroom or the linens from his room. He could help fold napkins or washcloths from the laundry or hang things out on a small line to dry. On Tuesdays, if you bake bread , your small child could help you put the ingredients in the bowl, assist with the mixing and the kneading and later with the shaping of the bread (and the eating, of course). Cleaning up the kitchen could also be a part of this day while the bread is rising. If you do handwork on Wednesdays, your child could also have a small basket with scraps of felt or yarn. An older kindergartner could learn to finger knit. Some families garden every day or at least once a week; small children can help plant or pick produce or pull weeds in between their investigations for bugs. Fridays in many families is housekeeping day. On this day, your small child could help polish wooden toys or help you clean. Every family has a rhythm to the week that is unique to them and to their children; the above are just random examples for you to think about. These everyday, mundane kinds of tasks come out in their play. Baking day can turn into the play of cutting out homemade dough shapes to “cook” on a red play silk, for example.
The third step is to carefully and mindfully consider the amount of screen time your small child is viewing. Many parents find that the problem with TV is that there are things that their children are not doing by watching TV. In the book “Alternatives to TV Handbook” by Marie McClendon, she states, “Children now play about 2 hours less a day on average than they did 10 years ago. Yet those who play more have richer vocabularies, better problem-solving skills, more curiosity, higher intelligence, longer attention spans and better abilities to see the perspectives of others.” Regardless of what the content of the TV show is, the images are re-drawn or scanned about 60 times a second. TV-induced alpha brain waves are considered by researchers as a non-learning mode of brain behavior. If your child is showing such behaviors as poor school performance, poor attention span, lack of imaginative play and spontaneous play, aggressively talking back to adults, hitting or pushing other children or frequent nightmares, please consider the amount of media your child is watching.
The fourth step is to consider the amount of time you spend outside every day; this is vitally important in your child’s creative play. If you are outside, nature will provide the backdrop for the child’s indoor play. Whether this is in the simple worms and pillbugs your child delights in, providing food for the birds, picking flowers or produce out of the garden, it will all show up in your child’s play and the songs they make up to sing. I know families with three and four year olds who spend the vast majority of their day outside.
The fifth point to consider the overall rhythm to your day – it should not be just “play all day” for your child. We have discussed involving your child in your work. However, the rhythm to all of this is quite important as there should be times for in-breath and out-breath, times of expansive physical movement and play grounded with time for quietly listening to a story that mother is telling or for rest. An example rhythm for small children under the age of 7 may be a period of playing outside, snack, work focus for the day, lunch, quiet time/down time, storytelling , perhaps something involving art either inspired by the story or some sort of seasonally– based art, snack again, free play or outside play again, dinner preparation and dinner and then a bedtime routine. Every family’s daily rhythm looks different, but if you take the time to meditate on it and think and yes, even plan, you may come up with a wonderful, peaceful day that enhances the quality of life for every member of the family.
Many blessings,
Carrie
This last step is one of the most important things to think about, especially in our society where children seem almost instantly “grown-up”:
Look at how your views regarding children and talk about them with your partner. I believe the child comes into life on earth slowly and there are things appropriate for one stage of child development that are not appropriate for a different stage. What are your thoughts and feelings about how children differ when they are just born, six months of age, a year old, two years old, nine years old? We seem to be living in a very fact-based world where small children are met with facts and information from an early age on. What would you tell a two year old, a five year old, a twelve year old about a particular subject? These are hard things to ponder when your child is not even born yet, but interesting and important questions nonetheless. Go to the park and watch children of different ages if you have not been around a lot of children. Attend mother’s groups. Get to know the children in your neighborhood and their ages and how they act. This can be very eye-opening indeed and prepare you for some of the developmental stages that lie ahead. Many mothers and families who have small children often feel that when their child is seven or eight or whatever the next age is, that the child will be very grown up and much more mature than they are now. Your child is growing, but there are still developmental changes happening all the way through the cycle of life – even to us!
Many women and their spouses focus, and rightly so, on the physical preparation required for pregnancy and birth. However, the soul and the spirit of transitioning into this new role of parenting is one that deserves focus as well. Birth is but the beginning of parenting, much the way there is an entire life of marriage after the wedding.
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
The Parenting Passageway 