Category Archives: Discipline

Effective Use of the Temperaments in Education and Discipline

Posted on by
11

So far we have looked at the four-fold human being and had an introduction to the temperaments.  Today we are going to peek at HOW to use the temperaments as an ally in education and discipline.  As I have said in the first two parts to this post, this information was presented to our homeschooling group at a wonderful workshop on the temperaments given by our Waldorf Handwork teacher, Ms. Judy Forster.  She is so knowledgeable and wonderful. We are so lucky to have her as part of our group! 

So to start, a quick common question is something like this:  “Yes, I read all the descriptions of the temperaments and I still don’t know what temperament my child is.”

Yes, sometimes it is hard to tell.  It is easy to confuse the predominant temperament of a developmental stage for an individual temperament.  I have heard Waldorf teachers say typically two temperament predominate.

So, Ms. Forster gave us a tip that one place to garner an idea regarding your child’s temperament is in looking at how they approach handwork,   A choleric child will want to be done first with their handwork, and will make mistakes along the way because they are going so fast because they HAVE to be done first.  A sanguine child may have lots of holes in their loose knitting because they got distracted or were too busy talking, and are content to know that maybe the fairies will come and fix it later.  A melancholic child will take their handwork very seriously, they will be extremely detail-oriented  and will rip a piece of knitting apart for the one stitch that was off that that the handwork teacher  told them was okay to leave alone (but they can’t, so then they have to rip it all out when the teacher is not looking).  Their knitting is usually tight.  The phlegmatic child is hard to get going on anything, but once they get going, it is either hard for them to stop – they may end up knitting a rug-sized piece of something when the project was supposed to be small because they just couldn’t stop – or they may just be steady and be done first (much to the chagrin of the choleric child).   Those examples came  from Judy Forster, our wonderful and knowledgeable Handwork teacher.  Please see her Etsy shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/mamajudes

Here is an example from me.  I think the temperaments show in how your child deals with  social challenges.  For example, the choleric will be telling everyone what to do, what is fair and not fair, and may end up flying into a rage that they feel immensely sorry about later.  A sanguine child will know who said what and who gets along with who and will be flitting around like a butterfly and taking in everything that every person does.  A melancholic child will figure no one will like them, no one will pick them, and they think that  if they do get picked they will end up with a challenge (ie, disaster) that  no one else in the world has faced.  A phlegmatic child will spend most of the time eating and warming up and getting ready to participate, and by the time they are ready to join in, it will be time to go home.

Hope that gives you all some ideas!  Anyway, on to how to work with these temperaments most effectively!  People act as if our goal should be to eradicate the temperament that the child displays, but that is not the case.  All the temperaments have good things about them; perhaps the case is more how to balance and harmonize (which for most people will not completely happen until they are in their 30s), and also how to use the temperaments as an ally in parenting and education.

CHOLERIC:  Choleric children are actually  really fair and they have big hearts, so appealing to the choleric in that way helps. I once was friends with a very choleric little guy who would break everything.  When he came to my house, I always said something like, “You know, I love how strong you are and you are so fast!  I have this pile of ten oranges and I was wondering if you could squeeze them all by hand so we could have juice for snack.”  Worked beautifully.

When a choleric rages and breaks something, if the child is between 7 and 9, I would wait until the next day to talk to them about it.  Usually by that time they are so regretful they have punished themselves more than you ever possibly could.  The worst thing to do would be to get wrapped up in their anger personally.  You must be the wall for them to bounce off of. 

SANGUINE:  Interrupt their work and give them little tasks to do before they take off and interrupt their own work.  You are in charge of the interruption during homeschool, for example.  You need something delivered to a neighbor, you need the tomato plants watered, the dog needs something, whatever.  If you keep interrupting them, they will finally settle down to work!  Work on building up their endurance in this way – the first week interrupt their work so many times a hour and then the second week drop the number of interruptions and then keep lengthening the time that they are focused on a task.

Also, sanguine children love beauty, so be beautiful!  Put flowers in your schoolroom, wear something beautiful.  They will notice.  It will captivate them.  This is also a good way to work on this temperament if you are not naturally drawn to beauty in your daily life..say if you are predominately melancholic and pre-occupied with worry.  🙂

MELANCHOLIC:  Melancholic children have great sympathy, so appealing to what you really need and what obstacles you have yourself your day and if the child could just do “X” how helpful that would be.  I think the other place to work with melancholics is through story telling regarding perfectionism.  Donna Simmons has a good example of a story for a melancholic in her First Grade Syllabus, and there are many more examples out there.

The other key to a melancholic child is to just listen and to feel truly compassionate.  The child truly feels these things do not happen to anyone else on earth,  ever in the history of mankind…So listening, and then perhaps sharing something similar from your own childhood.  The melancholic child will be most interested in stories where the hero overcomes enormous hardship.  🙂

PHLEGMATIC:  To me, this group is the hardest.  They will sit like small little lumps for quite some time.  Our handwork teacher recommends ignoring that they are even there for a time being (which is hard without a classroom of children  to carry, I find).  Some of them will be motivated to do something if it has to be done before snack time comes.   I think rhythm is  a great help to the phlegmatic because transitions can often be hard.   When they say they are “bored”, give them full permission to be with their boredom. Encourage it.  🙂 

The other thing I learned at the temperament workshop is that Fourth  Grade, when children are ten and obviously after the nine-year-change, is when one starts to see “Extraverted” and “Introverted” categories of these temperaments….So, for example, an “introverted melancholic” may be a child to watch closely in the school years for obvious reasons. 

The other little note I thought of is that if you feel you are predominately one way or the other way, what could you do to enliven the other temperaments within you?

Many blessings,

Carrie

Patience, Parenting and Verbal Spillage

Posted on by
12

Part of having a loving attitude toward our children is being PATIENT.  I have written about patience here:https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/03/29/five-things-every-parent-needs/      and here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/10/15/the-power-of-patience-day-number-18-of-20-days-toward-being-a-more-mindful-parent/

Having patience is an important part of loving our families.  I think there are  two very concrete ways you can put patience into action in your marriage and in your parenting:

1.  Practice listening without interrupting, judging or being defensive.  How many times do we cut off our children, or our spouse when they are upset, to promote our own point of view, or our own judgment?

2.  Many women tend to “verbally spill” a cascade of words when they are upset.  It is very difficult to have self-control of one’s words, but well-worth the attempt. Can we just be silent  but warm and loving during times when the children are falling apart?  Can we just be there without verbally (please excuse the term) “throwing up” on family members with our own anger and frustration?    

I think especially in this age where people seem to say whatever they are thinking (uh, in multiple forums such as in person, in email, on Facebook, Twitter), and many times with language that is less than appropriate, it is important to show children that we can stop, we can think, we can deliberate, we can decide and then we can speak. 

Here are some other ways I am thinking about patience today:

Patience does not mean being a doormat and doing nothing, that is being the jellyfish of Barbara Coloroso’s “Kids Are Worth It!” book, right? However, patience does mean being calm enough to do the right thing!  This post talks a bit about that:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/11/14/how-not-to-be-the-angry-parent/

Patience is knowing that children take time to develop, and whilst you guide the behavior during development, split-second guidance in a rough way in the heat of the moment is not modeling patience or how to deal with life’s upsets.  De-escalate the situation,  guide, go about what you need to do, but show that deliberation.

As the Internet expands, I find we take things more and more at face value in terms of “experts.”  Anyone can put a website up and say they are a parenting expert or a Waldorf expert or whatever.  Perhaps part of patience involves not jumping into believing what someone says right off the bat, about thinking about what is right for one’s own family and then being able to distill what information works best for one’s situation and beliefs.

I was thinking about patience as a part of having a relationship with friends who may not exactly share our same beliefs  but are still people we enjoy and want to spend time with.  Why should we all be the same?  Many Waldorf homeschoolers complain that they have no friends who homeschool like them, but my question is can we look beyond Waldorf to the fact that we are all homeschooling?  Can we look beyond homeschooling to see that many parents are thoughtful and caring and trying to do their best even if they choose not to homeschool? 

In the area of faith and spirituality, I know many people of one faith who have no friends of any other faith.  A faithful and spiritual life can become very insulated without that.  Do you have the patience to develop long-term friendships with people outside of your spiritual beliefs?

Do you have patience with yourself?  Do you forgive yourself for not being perfect and for not being able to do it all?  This is not an excuse for doing nothing, you know my mantra about planning, planning, planning and doing, but mothers tend to be so very hard on themselves.  I have a friend I always say to, “Isn’t it amazing when a child is going through challenging behavioral stages, we always look to ourselves and what we are doing wrong but when a child is having a smooth stage and behaving the way we would expect, we don’t look back to ourselves at all?”

Happy meditating on patience today!

Many blessings,

Carrie

Yelling in Parenting

Posted on by
11

Judging by statistics I read, spanking is still a problem.  Yet, this doesn’t seem to be something the mothers I know  personally do– none of them spank. (Yes, I live in a bubble, I guess!)

Time-out and the isolation of a child due to  challenging behavior, whilst a problem in the US (and confirmed by my international readers that this really doesn’t come up in other countries), is again,  not something the mothers I personally know seem to do.  (Yes, again, I live in a bubble).

But yelling seems to be almost a commonality.  And most of all, this seems to be something that occurs with even more frequency with children who are over the age of 7 rather  than small children.

It is almost as if the lie of anger wins – you know, the lie in one’s head that says, “My goodness!  They are seven years old!  They KNOW better than that!  They are just doing this to make me angry!  They are trying to push my buttons!”

Anger looks at ONLY the negative, anger makes us feel as if we must “fix” this problem right away or our child will grow up to be this horrible human being, anger makes us feel as if the normal things that children do being children need to be squashed and stomped on instead of being calmly guided.

And underneath that anger, is our own needs.  Our own very real fear.  Our own very real fatigue and loneliness.  Our own distraction with other things that really have nothing to do with our child. 

From an attachment standpoint, yelling makes very little sense because we want to treat our children with dignity and  we know children need our guidance.  But trying to guide a child with yelling is a little like trying to drive a car by solely using the horn.  Your guidance, your message will be lost in the delivery.

From a Waldorf perspective, yelling is not a tool to use for discipline.  A small child lives in the will, the doing, and in the lower senses – and guess what?  Hearing is not one of the lower four senses that make up the willing senses of the small child! 

What can you do instead of yelling?

1. PLAN your day – children need time to let off steam, and children also need time to calm down.  Limit how many places you are trying to get your children off to, because if Mommy is less stressed then everyone is happier!  Children truly need less activities, more time at home, less lessons and classes and more time with family.

2.  CALL IT QUITS – If it is close to bedtime and everyone is falling apart, sometimes all you can do is get through it and get everyone off to bed.  Recognize the times when the lesson will be lost due to hunger, needing sleep, etc.  Raising a child is not a “one-shot” deal – your child can still grow up to be a wonderful adult even if you don’t “hammer the point” over and over.

3.  For the older children, be careful too not equate the 7-9 year old with a teenager in terms of reasoning skills!  Here are some of my thoughts regarding talking to the seven and eight year old:https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/02/26/how-to-talk-to-your-seven-and-eight-year-old/ 

Make sure what you expect is actually developmentally appropriate.

4.  WALK IT OFF – If you feel so angry that you are going to explode, go outside and calm down and then come back and guide.  If you get angry again, go back outside.  You can only effectively guide your child when you are calm. 

5.  STICK TO THE BOUNDARY – None of this is to say the boundary should not be kept.  The boundary needs to be kept!  The behavior must be guided, but CALMLY.

6. TRY LESS WORDS – If you talk, explain, re-hash, lecture, write the book down and leave it on their pillow, you are using too many words and the child is tuning you out!  Less words!  Control your verbal spillage!

7.  MORE WORK– Yes, you will have to do chores with them when they are under the age of seven.  Yes, when they ages seven through nine they will get distracted and will need verbal reminders.  Yes, the effort is worth it, and knowing that  training a child to do chores requires effort will hopefully help you not to yell so much about it!

8.  BOUNDARIES ON FRIENDS – There should be no guilt in having “family-only” time during the week and week-ends.  Simplifying makes life less stressful and less stressful means less yelling!

9. FILL YOUR OWN TANK – It is hard when you have babies and toddlers to get time to yourself, but involve Dad and family.  Also catch those small moments.  Catch a few minutes to read after your child goes to sleep.  Sing while you do the dishes.  Keep filling up your tank, so you can be calm and centered,

10.  JUST BECAUSE YOUR CHILD IS HAVING A BAD DAY DOESN’T MEAN YOU HAVE TO!  Your child will not remember ten years from now why you yelled at them; they will only remember how things felt generally and how you made them feel.  If you can model being calm and controlled, think of what a powerful life lesson that could be for your child to see and learn from!

11. CONNECTION – keep connecting with this child; love this child.  That is the most important key to discipline.

12.  SOLVE THE PROBLEM – If your older child is always being noisy during a younger child’s naptime, and you yell, what could you do to solve the problem instead?  Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting something different to happen!

Don’t let the big lie of anger get you!  You don’t have to yell.  Model this calmness during the “breaking points” and your whole family will benefit! During this period of renewal between Easter and Ascension, commit to not yelling.

Many blessings,

Carrie

Children Who Slap Faces And Other Fun Behaviors

Posted on by
8

(This is the tabloid edition of The Parenting Passageway today, you know, kind of like, Men Who Do Terrible Things And The Women Who Love Them or something like that…)

Let’s see…the fun behavior of the toddler…I am sure you all can help me out here with the behaviors and challenges!   Some of these  behaviors keep coming up over and over here when I asked for feedback regarding discipline challenges and also in My Real Life from mothers in my local area, so I thought I would address them here with a few suggestions and you can take what resonates with you.  Pick and choose, add your own creative ideas!  There is No One Answer, the Right Answer is the One That Works For Your Family!  Seriously!  As long as it is gentle and keeps to the boundary, then there you go!  Check out the toddler discipline posts under the Baby/Toddler header, several of those posts literally have every discipline situation that could come up with a toddler.

Here is a re-cap of some of the ones mothers have been asking about recently (but please do go look at the back posts!):

Face-slapping:

  • Set child down if you are holding them.
  • Turn it into a “high-five”
  • Tell the child that hurts and show them how you would like to be touched instead.
  • Watch out for signs child is getting frustrated in order to prevent  and use your tools of movement and channeling into work and help to move on
  • Know this phase is limited usually once the toddler  has more speech
  • Know this may take 500 times!
  • What would work best for your family?  Your ideas here:

Running away at the park or other public places:

  • Limit outings for right now. Sorry about that!
  • Bring a second adult who can help you corral your children
  • Many parents have a natural consequence in place, such as if you run away, we immediately leave the park.  However, a child younger than four and a half or five  may really not understand that very well.
  • Do errands at night or another time without the toddler.
  • Practice holding hands and looking for cars at all times.  Have a verse or rhyme that goes with the holding hands/looking.
  • What would work best for your family??  Your ideas here:

Child is stuck on a  “bad word”:

Sitting Still:

  • Figure about three to five minutes for every year of the child’s age, and really look  at your child.  Are they a “mature” acting three or four year old, or rather immature?  That will give you a clue as to what might be a realistic expectation.
  • Bring something with you to do for the small child.  Make up a special little “Sunday bag” for church, let them bring a stuffed animal or doll with them.
  • Practice times of sitting quietly at home for a story, thirty seconds before you light the candle for dinner, thirty second in silence after you say the blessing over the meal..
  • What would work best for your family?  Your ideas here:

Hitting, Kicking:

Ah, no one’s favorite.

  • You cannot let the child hurt you (or anyone else!).  If it is toward you, step away or hold the child if you can do it and be calm!  If the child is hitting someone else, they must come and be with you in a time-in.
  • Connect with this child during other times in a warm way.  Are they feeling poorly physically or emotionally?  This does not excuse the behavior, but provides a clue as to what they need!
  • If this is occurring during play dates and such, please think strongly about whether or not your small child needs this social experience at this point.  You can see my take on social experiences for the four year old in back posts, so you can guess what I think about toddlers from that….
  • Go back to your basics – rhythm, outside time, warm and nourishing meals.
  • If you need help dealing with hitting and kicking as part of a temper tantrum, please see here:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/01/12/more-about-time-in-for-tinies/
  • Here is a back post on boys and hitting:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/03/28/boys-under-age-7-and-hitting/
  • What would work best for your family?  Your ideas here:

Biting

Also no one’s favorite.

  • If it is biting at the breast, pull the baby close to you – this will block their nose and make them loosen the biting.  However, GIVE them something they CAN bite on.  A wet washcloth that you threw in the freezer works fine.  Biting is a normal behavior, it is just the object that the child is biting that makes it good or not good, so you don’t want to tell them never to bite!  If they are biting at the breast and it is usually toward the end of a feeding, try to catch them before the end and gently  remove  them from  the breast.
  • If the biting is generally part of just being aggressive, try this outside resource regarding the types of biters and such:   http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/linda_passmark.html
  • Never bite a child for biting!  That does not help.
  • Remain as calm as possible.  It is no fun when your toddler or preschooler bites another child over a toy, and it is not fun when your child is the one who was bit, but these things do happen and one must be calm.
  • If your child is in a biting phase, think carefully about your child’s level of frustration with social outings.  🙂  If you frequently read this blog, you know where I stand on that!  The whole “playdate” thing really should not apply to children under the age of four and a half, but that is just my opinion.  🙂 Take what works for you and your family.

Hope these ideas help your family think of what would work best for you in these situations.

Many blessings,

Carrie

How Do I Instill Inner Discipline In My Child?

Posted on by
15

Many parents see the ultimate goal of guiding and  parenting a child to be that the child will have an ability to “discipline” him or herself, an ability to have initiative but also be able to  think before acting, and that the child/ young adult will ultimately  take responsibility for his or her own actions.

The question is how to do get to this, of course.  Parenting sites all over the Internet talk  about the “obedience” of the small under-7 child, “defiance” and every other thing out there that makes it seems as if children are not part of a family, not part of following the mother and father, but this Oppositional Force To Be Reckoned With.

We have to think of discipline in the light of two things: CONNECTION, and DEVELOPMENTAL STAGES.  I have written about these two things over and over, and I guess I will keep saying it until more parents hear.

Connection is your number one key to discipline and guiding of a child.  Didn’t you ever do or not do something as a grades school child  because you were so connected to your family, to the expectations of your family’s culture?  Not through shame or coercion, but because of love.  That is what I am talking about.  Looking up to a loving authority because it is so.

Small children are not really at this point yet.  Their impulses often far outweigh their thoughts.  It is not that small children do not ever think, please do not misunderstand, but  their physical impulses and lack of impulse control is really, really strong.  They need a lot of physical help from you, a lot of repetition, to really do the right thing.  They are more likely to do what you do rather than to do what you say.  You cannot drive the car of the small child by  using your horn (yelling)- you also have to use the steering wheel (involve their bodies!)    They are SMALL.  A child under the age of 7 is SMALL. 

So, to instill self-discipline or inner discipline in a child is a much longer process than people in American society would like.  They would like the child to be self-disciplined, “obedient”, yet able to problem-solve and think for themselves and be mature, pretty much from the womb.  Be independent, yet fold right into the family culture without so much as a peep.  From birth.

Let me assist you for a moment with my vision of working with a child toward inner discipline, based upon attachment parenting and Waldorf parenting.  Pick what resonates with you and your family’s culture.  You are the expert on your own family.

Birth – Age 7: These are the years to establish TRUST with this child.  This will make a PROFOUND difference in the years of 14-21 if you will just do this one step.  Do not be afraid to breastfeed, sleep with, bathe with, hold this child.    Show this child GOODNESS.  We do this by giving them something worthy to IMITATE.  They are not ready to run around and be independent yet, but they are ready to learn things with you, by your side.  The child is in a period of remarkable PHYSICAL development, and that is the realm in which we must work with the child. Being outside is important from this physical perspective.   This is also your time as a parent to really discern the ESSENTIAL things in your family life, and to find that it is okay to not do everything all at once.   Rhythm is your helper and friend.  Less choices, more relaxed presenting of clothing, food, but also knowing when it is okay that your child wants this over that.  Also, this notion of PROTECTING the child and the child’s senses.  It is okay to do this!  That is the fine art of parenting, and it takes practice!

Age 7-14:  These are the years to present to the child a LOVING AUTHORITY.  Show this child BEAUTY in the world through artistic work, creative work and by being outside, seeing that beauty in nature; children at this point FEEL things so strongly.    This is also the time for community, for other trusted and like-minded adults.  This is also a time for a spiritual practice, a child coming up on nine has many questions about the world, about their Creator, about religion – it really is important that you become clear about how you feel about all this.  This is the time to think hard about doing things at the right time: is it the right time for my child to go to see a movie? Have a cell phone?  Walk to the store alone?  Most of all, these are the years to really cultivate WARMTH toward your child and where they are.  Some mothers wrote in under the post asking for discipline challenges about their negative 10 and 11 year olds – can we have warmth for these children?  It is vital in this stage.  After the ninth year, the child has a MUCH better sense of natural consequences, a stronger sense of self, and now is the time to give weight to his ideas, thoughts, perhaps relax that rhythm a bit, but also to give MORE RESPONSIBILITY.  Negotiation and compromise become more important, but BOUNDARIES are still there.  Finding that Middle Way between the polarities of life.   

Age 14-21:  These are the years to present to the child TRUTH.  They are THINKERS; the teenager can make decisions and take responsibility for his or her decisions.  Boundaries are there to push against, parents are there to help and to guide.  Keep connecting with this child through the gift of time and listening.    I highly recommend Barbara Coloroso’s “Kids Are Worth It!  Giving Your Child The Gift of Inner Discipline”  as a framework of gentle discipline for these years, really from twelve up.

Many blessings as you discern what is right for your family.

Carrie

What If Gentle Discipline Doesn’t Work?

Posted on by
21

Sometimes parents will tell me they are trying hard to set boundaries in a gentle and positive way, but it seems like it’s just not working or that they are afraid they are “babying” their toddler too much……

Sometimes it just seems as if gentle discipline doesn’t work.

I really don’t think there is an alternative to gentle discipline though.  Or, I guess if the alternative is to be cross and yelling and screaming and hitting a child, I don’t want to live in a house like that.  I don’t want to do that to a child.  I don’t want myself to be the adult doing that.

Raising children is physically exhausting at times.  Children are messy, loud, and  immature.  Their development is SLOW.  Part of YOUR job is to have PATIENCE with the developmental process.   Part of your task is to re-frame how you look at parenting – raising a child should not be an inconvenience or a task of raising a child to “obedience”  but the thought of raising a healthy adult who is going to contribute to society. 

Does this mean no boundaries?  Does this mean that it is not frustrating?

Of course not.  You must have boundaries, you must guide, but you must also be prepared that it may take 500 times for something to “stick”.  You must be prepared that it will take more than just words.  You must be prepared that the first seven years have the most pronounced physical behaviors, which do seem to trigger parental anger.  Face slapping, running away, kicking, hitting, biting, melt-downs, – all there.

Go back to realistic expectations for each age. Remind yourself that children generally do not work well with only  verbal directions well until they are about seven, and even after seven they completely get distracted and need your help to keep on track.  Children really do need pretty constant supervision until around age 10 or so to avoid destruction of property.

Go back to your rhythm and how much outside time your children are getting.

Look carefully at the alternatives to gentle discipline and imagine what those will get you in the long run.  It may provide short-term obedience through fear, but will it foster your goals for a healthy childhood, for a healthy adult future?  You shape, you guide, but you also project confidence that this is a phase (that will be replaced by something else!)

Connect with your children, stay with your children during the times of their melt-downs.  I am very against time-outs, I have not seen any other country where sending a child off to their room to melt down in a torrent of emotion is seen as acceptable parenting.  I know this is not common in Europe.  Maybe some more of my readers in foreign countries can help me out here?  Is this common?

Part of parenting is CONTROLLING YOURSELF.  Calm down, and GUIDE.  That is your part in this.  Guide, guide, guide.  “Let me help you.”  “You may not do that, but you may do this.”  “I cannot hear you when you speak to me like that, please try asking again.”  Movement, fantasy, re-direction!

I find over and over that while parents have concerns regarding age 2 and 3, the bulk of “am-I-doing-this-right” really comes in at ages 4, 6 and 9 –which are ages of enthusiasm, exuberance, over-the-top behavior coinciding with developmental disequilibrium and the six/seven and nine year old change.  Please do go back to the posts on those ages, and the ones filed under the Gentle Discipline header if you need extra help.

Hang in there, and get support!  If you need brainstorming as to handle something from a gentle discipline perspective, you can write me!  I will try to help!  Hook up with your local La Leche League or Attachment parenting group!  Join an on-line gentle discipline forum – the Mothering Magazine forum has a good subforum on this!

Be confident that gentle discipline is not only the right path, but really the ONLY path.  Be confident that there is strength in setting a boundary, and that you can be gentle while you are doing it.

Much love,

Carrie

Looking For Your Discipline Challenges

Posted on by
33

What discipline challenges are you currently facing?  I am especially interested in those of you who have babies/toddlers and also those of you who have children who are over the age of eight.  What help do you need with gentle discipline?

Please leave a comment in the comment box if there is a particular concern you would like to see addressed…there really is no question too small because if you have a question about that, I am sure someone else does as well.

I believe as a community of mothers we should all help each other and give back to each other.  Therefore, thank you  for sharing  your “challenging” areas with us, and here’s to future blog posts!

Many blessings,

Carrie

Renewal: Commit Yourself to Gentle Discipline

Posted on by
15

During this forty days of renewal,  re-commit yourself to gentle discipline!

Look  at your child as this small being who has a completely different consciousness than an adult and work with that child to guide that child and leave everyone’s dignity intact.  Small  children really don’t look at things the same way that you do as an adult, because they do not have logical reasoning.  No matter how verbal they are, they still have a different consciousness than you do as an adult if they are small. 

You are the leader, the guide, on this journey because you have more years of living.    Commit yourself to looking at discipline as guiding instead of punishing.  You are trying to raise a capable, responsible, loving, compassionate adult.  Please do not give them a childhood that lands them distanced from you, please do not give them a childhood where they feel badly for being a child and being immature and making mistakes because that is what all children are and that is what all children do.

Think of connection and attachment as your number one key to discipline.  There are going to be rough spots, places of disequilbrium as your child grows.   Your child is not you, your child is not the psychological extension of you, and this can be painful as your child grows.  But please don’t mistake the fact that a child can have their own mind, their own will, as something that is horrible that should be broken.  You are there to guide and work with this child, not to break this child!

Here are your helpers in the guiding of a small child under the age of six: (these are in no special order).

1. Connection and attachment

2.  A good rhythm with lots of outside time – hours of outside time a day!

3.  A healthy diet and rest and sleep.

4.  Low stimulation

5.  Less words on your part,  more action, more imaginative phrasing than just a direct verbal command.  I wrote a post on using your words like a paintbrush to paint a picture just a few days ago:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/04/01/talking-in-pictures-to-small-children/

6.  Having the child make restitution for their mistakes if it is fixable

7.  Having realistic expectations for the child’s age.

8.  Warmth toward this child on your part – the more the child is acting out of sorts, the more you need to connect with this child.

9.  The setting of boundaries that are not movable. You can still be gentle and set a boundary.  They are going to push against the rhythm, against the boundary,  and you can still be gentle.

10.  A parental time-out when you need it.

11. Time-in when they need it.  There are quite a few posts on this blog about time-in. 

12.  You taking care of yourself!  A frazzled mommy cannot effectively and gently guide their small child.  Take a breather and slow down. 

13.  The ability to forgive yourself and start over the next minute if you need to.  It is never too late to start over, to collect your child and connect to your child. 

What would you add to this list?  Leave a comment in the box below!

Many blessings,

Carrie

Renewal: Rhythm

Posted on by
18

So, we will be taking these forty days between Easter and Ascension as our time to discuss all things related to the renewal of your life and your family culture.  For today, I want to circle back around to rhythm.

I think many Waldorf homeschoolers are feeling this sense of renewal regarding rhythm!    Melisa Nielsen had a lovely post here about “Rhythm Or Routine”: http://waldorfjourney.typepad.com/a_journey_through_waldorf/2010/04/rhythm-or-routine.html .   Everything she says is right on!  I especially liked the part where Melisa talks about developing our own will enough to STAY HOME.  When you have children under the age of eight, it is important that you firmly entrench children in the home.  It is important that they learn how to create their own play and fun at home instead of relying on going, going, going, to stimulate themselves and to change their emotions.

In a family, there is a daily rhythm, a weekly rhythm, and a yearly rhythm.  This is there whether you create it or not, so I feel it is worth it to take an intentional look at these areas along with parenting.

The yearly rhythm is celebrated through the festivals of the year and is seen as a yearly process of in-breath and out-breath. How you implement this is up to you, I find it lovely to celebrate with the liturgical year of our church.

For a weekly rhythm, one must decide how many days a week one is going to go outside of your home/yard/neighborhood (because even if we stay home we still go outside for many hours a day!).  This is important for small children, to be home,  and it is also important in homeschooling once you reach the grades..  If you are interested in homeschooling, I would say it is very difficult, if not impossible,  to throw homeschooling on top of a completely chaotic flow of events to the day, and also on top of a chaotic house that is cluttered and dirty.  No, your home does not have to be perfect, we actually live in our houses because we are home!  However, keeping the house up and running is part of the rhythm to it all, and in order to do that, we have to be home.  We need to plan when to get groceries, what to cook,  when to do laundry, when to run errands,  so that not everything is completely last minute.  Therefore, it is never too early, nor too late,  to create a bit of an order or flow that suits your family life.

For a small child, the weekly rhythm includes what PRACTICAL work takes place when and planning on your part regarding HOW they may be included.  In cleaning, can they scrub the bathtub whilst taking a bath?  Can they manually grind a cup of flour to add to more flour to bake bread?  Can they use water to clean the sidewalk whilst you plant flowers? 

For a daily rhythm, this is where one needs to think about the flow of the day for times of in-breath and times of out-breath.  For example, when will rest and meal times will be, and when bedtimes and awake times will be?  If the baby needs a nap, will they sleep in a sling?  If you put them to sleep in a room, where will your older children be and what will they be doing?  When are the outside times and when is it time to tell a story?

But most importantly, how will you show reverence and the sacred parts of life throughout these rhythms of life?  When will there be singing and joy, when will there be silence, when will there be time to go outside and look at one small bug or bird and listen and feel the wind?  Reverence and gratitude is the thread that winds itself through all of these yearly, weekly, and daily rhythms. 

Many blessings during these forty days of renewal,

Carrie

Talking In Pictures To Small Children

Posted on by
14

A small child under the age of seven needs to hear you paint a picture with your words instead of a direct command.  This can really be a very difficult thing for us to do as adults, and as such we find ourselves barking commands (politely, of course :)) at our small children all day long.  “Come to breakfast!”  “Use the potty!”  “Get your shoes on!” “Now please!”  “Stop doing that!”  Even if we frame things positively and say what we do want, the point is that a million times a day we are asking our child to do something.  And when we only use a command, we are essentially giving the small child a chance to think, a chance to decide their behavior, and then we get angry when they don’t do what we want when we want it.  How funny how that goes.

Small children are often in a fantasy, imaginative world much of the day as they play and create games.  They are not adults, they do not view time as adults do, they do not have the sense of urgency that you do.  And nor should they.

A small child lives in the physical realm and in their bodies.  So, to most effectively parent, we must reach to that for the small child as often as possible instead of playing commander, or worse yet, trying to drive the car with our horn by yelling at the small child. 

Here are some examples:

  • Think of animals that involve what you need.  Can the child hop like a bunny, run as fast as a roadrunner bird, swim like a fish?  Can they open their big  crocodile mouths to have all those teeth brushed?  Can you be a bear that needs a big winter coat ?  (And as you say this, you help put the child’s arm into the coat)….It is the imaginative movement plus the physical piece that gets it all done.
  • Can you involve their dolls or their imaginary friends?   Quietly take their favorite doll and start to get it ready for bed and sing to the doll. “ You and Tim (the imaginary friend) can sit right for dinner “( and lead the child by the hand to the table).
  • Can you employ gnomes, fairies, giants, leprechuans?  Today a four- year- old and I looked for leprechuan shoes by my back door….  Oh, look at these leprechuan shoes sitting here, do these fit YOU?  Oh my, look at the turned up toes on your shoes, I wonder if those shoes will lead you to a pot of gold!  How about gnomes exploring the mouth cave for teeth brushing?  Big giant steps to settle into a big giant bed?

You do not have to do this to the point where it is tiring to you, but do try here and there, because I find most parents employ very little imagination with their children during the day and the children really do respond to it well and do just what needs to happen.

Your part though, is to plan enough time so things are NOT rushed.  Rushing is the death of imagination and the beginning of stress.  Please plan ahead! 

Also, rhythm is your friend.  It is in that space to help you and your child.  If you do something different every night to get ready for a meal, to get ready for bed, what cues does your child have for when things are going to happen?  Again, their sense of time and urgency is not that of an adult.  Also, please seriously evaluate how many places you are dragging a small child.  Are these places for them or errands and would your child just rather be home?   I am just asking you to consider this piece of the puzzle; only you know the answer for you and your family. 

The last piece is the physical end of it, DOING something with a child whilst using the imagination and movement goes much better!  Yes, it is tiring that that is what small children need.  But better to do that than to complain and moan and groan that your small child, who is perfectly  normal, is “not listening”. 🙂

Try it out, I think you will find life to be much easier. 

Many blessings,

Carrie