I talk a lot on this blog about the need for parents to hold the space for their children, and many families wonder what that would look like or how that would happen.

When I talk about this notion of  holding the space I mean it in a kind way, in a loving way, in an authentic way, but in a way where you are the wall a child can bounce off of.  If you were the Queen, you would not be running around like a chicken with your head cut off (my great-grandmother’s saying!), trying to accommodate three or four children’s wishes and desires of any given moment.   Instead, you would be calm and collected.  You would have a kind way but a Queenly Way.  You would probably think before you decreed something, and you probably would not explain the heck out of yourself.

How can you be the Queen of your home?

If you have children under the age of 9, you are going to know that children under the age of 9 are prone to “emotional excess”, one of my favorite expressions that Donna Simmons of Christopherus Homeschool points out. Children of this stage are beings of will and movement, and you would expect things such as hunger, sleep,  and over-stimulation to play a role in behavior.  And being Queen, you would come up with ways to make life flow smoothly.

Perhaps you would lay out clothes the night before and expect that many children want to be dressed by their mommies even when they are 5.  And you would decide, ahead of time, if this was okay by you or something that would Shove Her Highness Off Into The Moat.  This way you could be proactive about such issues within your home, and not reactive.  You might consider having a rotating menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner so there is no treating The Queen as a short- order cook.  There are many other areas where the thought of thinking and planning ahead could come together for the benefit of your family. 

You would not be swept away by the torrents of wee ones’ tantrums and emotion because you would know your number one job would be to hold the balance when your child cannot hold it for themselves.  This does not mean to be an unemotional  rock, but it does mean you can understand how words can be just words, feelings can change on a dime and if you can just hold on, your child will eventually calm down.  You will understand that you are being a rock for your child to hold onto so the torrent of emotion doesn’t escalate for the child.

Again, this does not mean being unfeeling!  You can hold your child, pat your child, move your child, but you may  not fall apart with your child as they fall apart.  You may not unleash your own torrent of emotion on a small child and expect them to not crumple in front of you.  Behavior that is not fabulous in an under-9 child generally needs to be treated in the same ho-hum tone you would use to ask a child to pick up a book off the floor.  Then you can move into having the child FIX his poor action, because the child is a WILLING and DOING being at this point.  He needs to DO to fix it!  But he cannot fix it if he is falling apart and you are falling apart with him!  He is learning; help him!

For children over the age of 9, as Queen you would realize feelings are predominant.  Feelings were also important before, but feelings were more in an undifferentiated kind of state. Now feelings are so specific!  Being Queen, you would be able to hear feelings expressed immaturely ( meaning not always in a way pleasing to the Queen’s ears!) and still be able to be a calm rock with a ho-hum attitude to help the child learn to fix this challenge!   Feelings can be acknowledged without judgment because most of all,  The Queen is a problem-solver, and if she can model being calm, solving the problem, being respectful, then the child will as well! 

For children over the age of 14, they are interested in your thoughts, in the nature of constructing an argument, in your thoughts and why you think that and how you got there in your thinking.  It is hard!  Don’t you remember being a teenager?

Barbara Coloroso, in her book, “Kids Are Worth It!  Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline” :  “If you are raising adolescents, you are in a high-risk category for a coronary.  You’re up against someone dealing with a major hormone attack:  feet are too big, hands are too big, bodies are too big or too small, voices are up, voices are down, zits are coming out all over their faces.  They come to the front door, all smiles; two minutes later they are in the bathroom crying.  You ask what happened.  “She used my comb.”  “He wore my shirt.”  “She didn’t call like she said she would.”  Are we going to make it through this?  Yes, but we can’t keep hooking in to our kids’ adrenaline.”

A Queen is the Ultimate Helper, problem-solver, balancer, peacemaker.

Can you be that Queen for a day?

Carrie

Hi to all of you wonderful mothers out there!  Today I have some very special thoughts for you!

I am sure you have all heard the saying, “When mama ain’t happy, no one is happy.”  YOU set the tone for YOUR home.  Your home, your words, your gesture, your mood are all the reality that your children know.  They have no idea until they are older all the myriad of choices and reflection of values that go into your style of parenting!

So this flows from you! You are special and wonderful and chosen to be this child’s mother!

And the only way to set the tone in your home is to be able to take care of yourself.  If you are physically not well, emotionally not well, spiritually not well, then how can you run your home well?

So, as part of your inner work for Advent and into the Holy Nights (the 12 Days of Christmas extending from Boxing Day until Epiphany) is to think about these areas and plan:

PHYSICAL HEALTH/OUTER APPEARANCE:  Okay, mamas, when was the last time you had a comprehensive physical check-up?  Dental work?  Do you use any alternative care such as chiropractic, homeopathic, body work?

Are you suffering from depression or chronic pain?  Have you spoken with a health care provider about this at all?

Finally, and I know this can be a sensitive subject, but how are you eating these days?  Do you exercise?  Do you drink water?

One thing my husband said to me the other day was how happy he was that I take care of myself because he had known so many women who let themselves go after marriage and children.  I will be honest with you all, I want to look attractive for myself because I feel better when I feel healthy and beautiful, but I also want to be attractive for him. I think part of being married is that we want to be attractive for each other.

Do you get up and get dressed and feel beautiful every day?  Have you bought any clothes for yourself this entire year? Shoes?  Do you wear skirts at all?  Sometimes just little things make a big difference in how you feel!

It seems as if being a mother often means we take care of everyone else often to our own neglect.  I am asking you to think about these areas and devise a way to put yourself first here and there.  Talk to your spouse or partner about how they can help you make this happen.  This is especially important in homeschooling families where we are always with our children; you need to carve out a little slice for those appointments and exercise.  Get out your 2010 day planner and see if you can make it happen this coming year!

EMOTIONAL  HEALTH:  How are feeling these days?  Do you need a mental health tune-up these days?  Can you do this yourself by getting more sleep, carving out some time for yourself, exercising – or do you need an annual mental health check-up just the same way we need an annual physical check-up?

I am a big believer in support for the journey – support through family, through friends, and yes, through mental health professionals if need be.

One interesting project for you to consider for the New Year is the notion of biography.  The book “Tapestries” by Betty Staley is a really interesting perspective on Steiner’s seven-year cycles for adulthood and I wrote notes to all the chapters of that book on this blog.  This book is well-worth your time; find out where you are, think about where you have been.  Then think about where you will go!

Another thing to consider for your own development is the artistic piece.  Just setting aside one hour twice a week to wet-on-wet watercolor paint yourself can be such a meditative and healing experience!  Think about what artistic work you would like to try and schedule a time!

SPIRITUAL HEALTH:  How do you bring joy into your parenting and your homemaking?  This journey should be one of joy!

For inner work, I recommend exploring any spiritual or religious path you feel drawn to.  I think it is actually important to have something higher to believe in and draw upon, to connect to, as you do this most important work.

We do devotions in the morning and at night, and I also do a Bible study during my Quiet Time  each day.  I also pencil in nights to read Steiner and to study these works.  Every family’s plan will look different, but what is most important is that you have a plan! 

When will your daily time to pray or meditate be?  Children perceive our thoughts and our soul in the very gesture of what we do.  Inner work and striving is such an important piece of all of this!

Make some time for you,

Carrie

A mom wrote in and asked what to do with a household that i s very calm and soothing, a household that is very conducive to rest but really needs a kick of energy!  What to do?

I think one thing to think about is this issue of balance. There  is an anthroposophic meditative exercise called The Preview where you essentially run through your day in your head before you really get up.  So, I would encourage you to make this part of your meditative practice.  When you run through your day in your head, where are the points of energy?  Where is the music, the singing, the movement. the running around outside, the scrubbing of the floor, the work? 

Many children need help in being quiet, but I also have run across quite a few who are only quiet and are very content to sit and look at book after book or draw for hours and hours on end and would prefer to be inside rather than outside expending energy.  Sometimes this is necessary, for example, if you live in an area where the weather is truly frigid and you cannot get outside, but I would also encourage you to look at balance.  Can you promote movement inside with very active circle times or singing games?  Can you set up an obstacle course inside?  Most of all, if your children are under 9, can you structure the environment so they have active things to do and put up the books and crayons and such that they come down only at certain times?  Balance, balance, balance.

Getting everyone together several times a day to sing and play singing games is an excellent way to promote some energy!  If you have forgotten all the singing games from your childhood, “Lavender’s Blue Dilly Dilly” by Mary Thienes Schunemann has 28 singing games in it: http://www.naturallyyoucansing.com/books/lavender.htm

Other mothers I know in this situation have had success in looking at themselves.  Think about your own energy and where you are.  Are you stuck?  We want things to be calm at home, but I also think when we model to a child that during “down time” we are always sitting down knitting or reading as opposed to singing a song while we scrub something or grabbing a shovel and heading out to the garden, we send a message as to what kinds of activities are important.  Our children are the great imitators!  What kind of energy are you showing your children?

If your own personal energy is lower than you think it should be, please try this post to assist you:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/06/making-yourself-a-priority-in-the-parenting-equation/

I think energy is also seasonal though as well. In the Northern Hemisphere, this just seems to be the time to hunker down and enjoy the warmth of inside right now, with increased energy and vitality to come as the days warm.  Bringing in the light with the Winter Festivals is an important shift of energy for our yearly rhythm.  

Look toward the balance of your day and your activities,

Carrie

Donna Simmons stayed at my house a bit back, and one of the things she commented on was how quiet our house is after seven at night.  The house is dim, you can hear the wind or rain outside and the house is quiet with small snoring sounds coming from the dog 🙂 and/or children.

This comment led me to think of the tone of our home, the energy of our home.  What is the energy like in your home?  Does the energy in your home change over the course of the day? What changes the energy in your home?  Is your home quiet during the day t any point?  Are your children ever quiet or just going, going, going? 

I think there are three main stumbling blocks to achieving quiet in the home.  The first one is visual clutter, and I think with the holidays right around the corner this is an important one to consider.

I wrote this post last year at this time (click here for the full post: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2008/11/23/holiday-gifts-for-children-how-much-is-too-much/ ).  Here is part of that post, referring to gift-giving surrounding the holidays:

“Unfortunately, in our society, the person(s) many families are most likely to spend the most money on are their children.  Whew.  I invite you to make yourself a cup of tea, and have your husband take your kids to the park for a few hours.  Now go into their rooms and the playroom and look at the amount of stuff that is there.  Seriously.  Count the number of puzzles they have, the number of pairs of shoes, how many bags and boxes of craft supplies there are. How many board games do they have?  How many dress up clothes?

The first step is always the hardest.  I invite you to think about purging at least a third or more of your toys this holiday season.  If you cannot purge them all, or you do purge all the junky made in China plastic toys and have some nice open ended toys to keep, here is a thought for you.  Some families pack up toys and  put them away somewhere.  Then they rotate the toys so only a few things are down at a time.  The toys can be changed out either monthly or seasonally.”

Where are you going to put the new holiday things? Think about that a bit this week! I would like to challenge you to use some of this time to de-clutter your physical space.  It seems every good Waldorf Early Years teacher worth their salt  knows that when a child is starting to get wound up, just straightening the space around the child helps shift the energy and is calming.  Think about your child’s room, and how you could make that a calming space to relax.

The second challenge to achieving quiet is VERBAL clutter.  Stop sharing so many details of your adult life with your child!  Even a seven, eight or nine-year old does not need to know many of the things we” overshare”.  It is only in this day and age we have the expression “TMI”!     Can you share your adult conversations with adults, and your children conversations  with your children?  Keep asking yourself, does my child really need the ten minute adult thinking process of how many outside activities they can do and why, about the child down the street and why their family does X and we don’t, about this and that.  Really?

Think about how much space and quiet you are cultivating between your words.  Model for your child your thinking in silence, drawing a conclusion after thought, and then saying your thoughtfully worded conclusion (not the thought process).  This a wonderful skill for a child to see!

The other place to reduce your verbal clutter is to stop asking them how they feel.  Children under the age of 9 change emotions on a dime, and to put too much weight on how they feel at any given moment is an awful lot of pressure.  Kim John Payne talks about this in his book “Simplicity Parenting”

On page 199, Kim John Payne writes this wonderful food for thought:  “Children under nine certainly have feelings, but much of the time those feelings are unconscious, undifferentiated.  In any kind of conflict or upset, if asked how they feel, most kids will say, very honestly, “Bad.”  They feel bad.  To dissect and parse that, to push and push, imagining that they are hiding a much more subtle and nuanced feeling or reply, is invasive.  It is also usually unproductive, expect in perhaps making a child nervous.  While young children have feelings, they only slowly become aware of them.  Until the age of ten or so, their emotional consciousness and vocabulary are too premature to stand up to what we ask of them in our emotional monitoring and hovering.”

There is much more in this section about emotional intelligence and how this develops, is fascinating.  “(Emotional intelligence) can’t be bought or rushed.  It develops with the slow emergence of identity, and the gradual accumulation of life experiences.  When we push a young child toward an awareness they don’t yet have, we transpose our own emotions, and our own voice, on theirs.  We overwhelm them  For the first nine or ten years children learn mainly through imitation.  Your emotions and they way that you manage them, is the model they “imprint”, more than what you say or instruct about emotions.”

Here is a worksheet to review your level of “information simplicity” with your child from Kim John Payne’s website:  http://www.thechildtoday.com/files/SimplicityReviewForm

His book is just excellent, please see the link for it on Amazon here:  http://www.amazon.com/Simplicity-Parenting-Extraordinary-Calmer-Happier/dp/0345507975/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260846766&sr=8-1

So many of the things we talk about on this blog are here in this book;  I am sure you will enjoy Kim John Payne’s writing.  His stories of working with parents and helping parents with their challenges are amazing!  Read this book and enjoy!

If you need more help, please see this post:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/04/14/stop-talking/

and this:  https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/08/19/using-our-words-like-pearls/

Remember Carrie’s Golden Rule:  The less you say, the more weight your words will hold.  Smile and be warm, give hugs, but try less speaking and more listening!

The third challenge to achieving quiet is too much PHYSICAL ENERGY.  Mot children under the age of 9 need hours outside running off steam.  Without getting that physical energy out, you are setting yourself up for children who are bouncing off the walls and who cannot be involved in something focused; it also sets one up to listen to a lot of chatter!

Calm, quiet times,

Carrie

I have to confess, I am not a morning person.  In college, I was pretty rhythmical and got up at 6 AM almost every day in order to go workout, but I also didn’t have to talk!  I am working hard to go to bed and get up and be pleasant, LOL.  (Again, I don’t mind being up, it is more the being up and talking :))  Are you a morning person?  Are you up before your children?

In order to have any sort of a chance to be a morning person, you have to actually go to bed at a decent time.  And to go to bed at a decent time, you have to get off your computer, stop your reading or knitting, and go to bed!  Many mothers I know seem to have no problems setting limits on the TV, but have difficulty turning off the computer or putting down their crafting.  What are your own limits for your computer time??

One thing that helps many mothers is to have a nighttime routine.  This may include making sure the kitchen is cleaned up, having  things ready for homeschool the next day, having clothes laid out for family members, taking a bath or shower if need be.  The morning sure goes so much easier when you prepare the night before!

Many mothers ask how they can get up early and ahead of their family if they are co-sleeping; in other words, the minute they put their feet on the floor their child wakes up.  That is frustrating and a challenge!  One thing I think about it is what if you used this early time to sit on a chair in your room with a small booklight and use this early time, even if it is only ten minutes, to read something that is uplifting to you?  This season of your children being small and co-sleeping will not last forever!  Your child is a precious gift, and I think when we can just approach this with a “ho-hum” attitude that “Mommy is awake and doing her special work” rather than “I can’t believe this child is up again!  I never get any time to myself!” things go so, so  much better.  Think positively on the fact that your child may sleep or rest and give you ten minutes to start this special work on preparing yourself to be a good Mommy for the day!  I think too, if you can be persistent over time, your child will see you are not up doing anything “fun” and may at least learn to rest through this time.  Too often we give up after only a few days of trying!

Some mothers say they cannot get up early because their children are already up so early.  This too, is a season that will not last forever.  How about trying to get up even 15 minutes ahead of your children?  How about using a special night light that tells children when they can be “up” and that they must rest in their beds until that light is on……Here is an example of one my husband’s friend created: http://www.goodnitelite.com/index.php?page=product   He gave us one to try yesterday and we tried it last night.  Our girls really liked it, because they knew when it was time to get up even though it was dark outside and my oldest, who is an early riser, didn’t seem to feel so preoccupied with checking the time every few minutes to see if it was time to get up.

Some mothers say they don’t want to go to bed because this is their time with their husband.  I understand that; I love my time with my husband as well!  However, one trend I notice is that husbands and wives are on their separate computers at night for several hours and then come together for talking and intimacy.  How about trying to shorten your computer, reading, crafting, or TV time so you can be together or plan to spend time together first?  Isn’t your relationship with your spouse much more important than your reading time?

Some couples also have designated nights to work on things on the computer or in reading material, and designated “nights off” where they just come together!  How wonderful!

Going to bed and being refreshed benefits you and your whole family!

Happy meditating on this important subject,

Carrie

Why is it that FUN is the first thing that often seems to run out the door when trying to “get it all done”?  I alluded to this in my last post about trying to put people before things, think about this time with small children as a season so as to not get so upset that every single thing is not being done from scratch right at this point.  It takes time to build traditions in the family, your children will  be watching you for many years as you build up the time you spend crafting, sewing, knitting, as they grow!  They will not remember that when they were two years old you did not knit all their winter sweaters by hand!  I promise!

So  where is the FUN??

I think FUN should be as much as a priority as crafting, sewing, cooking and cleaning.  And judging from the mothers I speak with, this is an area that is highly challenging for many of them and  they find this  difficult to develop.  “I just am not silly.  I can’t be silly.”  “It is hard for me to relax and spend time with my children without seeing everything else I should be doing.”  “My husband is the one that really can get down on the floor and have fun with them!”

Okay, yes, but  think back to some skill you had to learn – knitting, sewing, parenting in general! etc.  Did you just throw up your hands and say, “I can’t knit!  I just am not a knitter!” My point is that these things take time to develop.

Here is my Advent Adventure for you.  And here is the best part:  you only need ten minutes a day!  Set a timer if you have to, and set aside five minutes a day to just roll around on the floor with your kids climbing all over you.  Maybe the dog will join in!  Call it Monster or whatever you want to call it and just hug each other and wrestle and have fun!  If that doesn’t appeal to you, how about a five minute game of hide and go seek or tag?  Or five minutes of horsie rides?

For your second five minutes, try to cultivate a playful and FUN attitude whilst you are doing some of that work.  Make pancakes as part of a restaurant, do laundry as part of a pretend dry cleaners, use a silly voice, sing a silly song whilst you are doing something.  Too often we show our children that work is not fun; show them that anything can be fun if one has the right attitude!

Be in Joy this holiday season!

Carrie