Does anyone out there make these or know someone who makes them? Do you have a favorite place to get a christening gown or christening outfit for your little boy?
Our son is going to be baptized in June in St. Croix… very hot and humid. Grandpa is excited to be performing the ceremony (he is an Episcopalian priest) at the 250- year old- church where great-grandpa and other family members were baptized…
Any suggestions for this very special occasion?
Blessings,
Carrie
In this time of renewal between Easter and Ascension, in this time of planning for Fall for many homeschooling mothers, and in this time of evaluation for many parents as we all gear up for Summer (or Winter, if you are one of my dear Down Under readers!), I invite you to breathe and ask yourself this question: How often am I going out of my home?
I understand if you are suffering from depression and really need that social connection and support of other mothers. I really do understand if you are extremely outgoing like me and just get filled up by being with other mothers and other people…I really do understand! I wrote a post about Social Isolation for Stay-At-Home mothers here: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2010/02/24/social-isolation-for-stay-at-home-mothers/
But there has to be a balance, and if you are going out every day and if your under-seven child is involved in a plethora of activities, I just gently am nudging you to explore this. Boundaries are important, and showing and modeling for your child how to set boundaries and maintain them is REALLY important as they grow up into a world that will most likely have even more blurred lines between personal and professional lives due to increased technology.
I invite you to try to discern what really are the most essential things in your life, and how the time you spend reflects what is most meaningful to you. I am working on this right now, and it really is challenging me!
Particularly for the parents of very small under-aged five children, it is easy to get caught up in lessons, classes, and other things. The ages under five (and under seven and yes, even under age nine!), to me, is an excellent place to experience an unhurried concept of time. They will never have these days again! There will be so many other years for classes, for lessons and for other activities and for rushing about on a schedule (which is different than the flowing rhythm of being at home).
Many mothers I speak with somehow feel their children will be “behind” if they don’t enroll in a number of things, and they point to things like elite Olympic athletes who start training at the age of four or something. Actually, I like to point out that for a number of athletes, they started later or switched later from one sport to the sport that later became their Olympic sport. I also like to point out that if a four-year-old starts piano lessons, a seven or eight year old can typically catch up to where the four-year-old is in a matter of months because they are more mature and more coordinated. There is something to be said for developmental maturity and neural pathways being mature and ready…. I am sure many with disagree on this point, but I guess what I am trying to say is that all is not lost if you take a summer and have nowhere to be or take your children’s under-seven years and be HOME. That will probably provide a more lasting foundation than any one-hour class that you are rushing your child and younger children and babies out the door for!
For homeschooling mothers, especially for mothers new to homeschooling, it is easy to think that one’s child should be involved in this and in that for “socialization” and for those things that just seem harder to do at home. Many times we tend to forget that home has its own advantages.
So, today, I am just giving you that gentle nudge to look into your heart as you plan for Fall. Think about how many days out of the home are necessary. If your children are small, it may not be what you think. If your children are older, please do plan enough time to actually home school at home instead of trying to home school from your car. Unhurried “digestion” of academic material is so important.
Many blessings,
Carrie
This is the time of renewal, this sacred and new time between Easter and Ascension. This is a great time to take stock and start planning; plan for your personal development; plan for homeschooling (Waldorf mothers who are homeschooling the grades – have you ordered your materials yet? Have you started laying out a flow to your blocks for the fall?); plan for what you would like to see happen between now and fall.
You are the architect, you are the designer, you are the artist of your life and the lives of your children. If things are overwhelming right now,it is okay to say no to things. It is okay to set boundaries. It is okay to be real and authentic and honest about what you can and cannot handle!
One thing that always helps me is to go back to our Family Mission Statement. Here is a back post about writing a family mission statement, you can see that here: https://theparentingpassageway.com/2009/05/08/creating-a-family-mission-statement/ Once you have this piece of paper, please do make sure to review it, use it, keep it in your mind as you make decisions. It should be like a guiding compass for your family and the things you choose to do as a family.
The other thing that can keep you centered is to have your own Personal Mission Statement or what some people call a Personal Vision Statement. The more you can develop yourself, learn about yourself, and calm and center yourself (which means actually figuring out what makes you feel calm and centered to begin with :)), your family will absolutely benefit. Children want a mother that is calmly in control of things and can be a resource, a guide, a boundary, a wall to bounce off if need be – but a gentle, calm and nurturing presence. What children don’t want is out- of- control, screaming and yelling parents where the whole atmosphere of the house feels stressed and falling apart. You can get to the first thing, but you have to stop and think.
Just a few thoughts for today.
Many blessings to you,
Carrie
Thank you to my top 5 referrers for the past 7 days:
Thank you also to my top referrers for the past 30 days:
And thank you to those of you who are my top referrers of ALL TIME, since this blog started in October of 2008:
In addition to checking out the above blogs, I also would LOVE to take this chance to point out a few blogs I also love to follow, and hope you will like them as well!!
Thank you to all of you who link to me, or who think something I write is thought-provoking enough to write a comment on, or pass on to your friends. It is humbling, and always makes me want to strive to write more.
Many thanks, much gratitude, and many blessings to you all!
Love,
Carrie
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
My post on this subject is over at The Magic Onions, so head on over and take a look:
http://themagiconions.blogspot.com/2010/04/discovering-waldorf-earth-day-in.html
Thank you and many blessings on this beautiful day,
Carrie
Did you ever feel that homeschooling or even just parenting little ones should be FREEING, in a sense, but that it is not? I mean, after all, every day COULD be a blank slate of whatever you would like it to be! How disappointing, then, sometimes, when you realize that you are busier than when you worked outside the home. When you realize that your schedule is way too full. How disappointing when you can’t say no to things. How disappointing when your house is always a disorganized mess. And that knowing that burn-out is always there in the background (and sometimes in the foreground?) – we won’t even mention that!
If you have ever felt like that, then this post is for you.
First of all, please be easy with yourself. The mothers I see that are hardest on themselves are the ones with babies ( “I should be doing just what I did before I had a baby!”) or the ones with multiple children under the age of 7. Be easy! Your most important job is to take care of them, and also yourself! But part of doing this is developing your own will….read on!
If your children are under the age of 7, in order to take care of yourself, you are going to need to ask for help and to plan ahead. That is hard for people, but that is the only way it is going to happen. Ask your spouse for help! Ask a grandparent! Ask a friend! “Honey, could you please take the children to the park for an hour and a half so I can do some homeschool planning for fall?” “Honey, I know you worked all day and you are tired, but this pile of clean laundry is driving me crazy! Could you please help me put it away?” “ I really need to get some stress out. Could you watch the children so I could go walk for half an hour? I would feel so much better!”
However, in order to ask, you have to know what you need! And I find many mothers are down so low, they don’t know where to start or what even to ask for help with! Meditate, make a list – what are three things that would make your life better right now? Start there.
I have one for you that probably would make your life better (outside of exercise for yourself!): how about getting rid of STUFF? It is hard to be restful with too much stuff. If every room has too much furniture for the size of the space, if every flat surface is covered, if every closet and drawer is bulging, then it is time to start there. It is hard to pay attention to your children, to plan for homeschool, to do homeschool, if there is stuff everywhere. And your children cannot rest in rooms that are overflowing!
But in order to get your own house in order, you have to be HOME. What would happen if you took a two week vacation and just said “no” to outside things, and made a huge dent in getting your house in order? Really go through things and get RID of things.
What would happen if over the summer you just planned to be home? What would happen in the fall if you plan to be out one day during the weekdays (this is not including the weekends) and otherwise you were at home? What would life look like then? Babies, toddlers, preschoolers, really do need to be home – a walk around the block, playing in the neighborhood, being outside; yes- but really at home!
Perhaps you can meditate on this and find the middle road, the common ground that really works for you. Start small if that is where you are, but conversely, don’t be afraid to jump in and make a big change. Your life, after all, should work for you. If you are feeling resentful, stressed, not happy – change it, you are in control of at least some of it. And your own attitude you are fully in control of!
Many blessings,
Carrie
I just happened to catch this on FOXnews.com; the saga of a department store that pulled a padded bikini top off of its shelves. This product was aimed at girls as young as seven years old. The article stated:
“Popular U.K. discount retailer Primark has pulled a line of sexy padded bikinis from its shelves after complaints from child protection agencies and criticism from a tabloid newspaper.
The bathing suits had enough padding in the halter top to make girls as young as 7-years-old look like they had breasts. They came in both black and white polka dot, and hot pink with gold stars.
The Sun newspaper ran a front page story Wednesday criticizing the suits. Soon after, child protection agencies started making calls to the retailer, saying the swimwear encouraged sexualization of children.
Dr. Keith Ablow, Fox News Medical A-Team member and psychiatrist, said he thinks that sexy clothing like these bathing suits can be dangerous to young girls.
“It can be psychologically damaging to encourage girls at age 7 or close to that age to consider themselves as sexually attractive to boys or men,” Ablow told FoxNews.com.”
I am glad this store pulled these, although how sad that it took complaints to get this accomplished. It shows what those of us who are trying to preserve childhood and innocence for our girls can be up against at every turn. In this day and age, I wish more parents would stand up!
Please stand up with me. Shop from retailers who provide clothing that look like something a young girl should be wearing – feel free to leave your favorite child clothing lines in the comment boxes in order to help other mothers. Have your child be the last one in your neighborhood or his or her classroom to have a cell phone, to see a movie. Recently at my child’s German school, the teacher asked all the children to name their favorite toys. Out of the whole class of seven to nine year-olds only my daughter and one other little girl named something that was not electronic and that did not involve a screen! Help your children flourish in imagination! This age between 7 and 14 is especially crucial for that.
This phenomenon of taking away our children’s childhoods and innocence, but yet then stretching their adolescence longer and longer before they can become independent, is harmful.
Please take a stand with me for the sake of our children.
Blessings,
Carrie
I think many parents look back at the baby and toddler years fondly and say things like, “If only my teenager’s problems could be solved by a nice warm bath” “If only I could distract them with a pail and shovel in the sandbox” but I think these parents have forgotten the sheer physicality that prevails in parenting in these Early Years.
Just plain tiring. Nursing, rocking, holding, co sleeping, co bathing, chasing, playing, feeding and starting all over again and again all night and all day.
So here are my Top Secret Super Survival Tips! (Eh, not so top secret, but doesn’t that sound fun??!)
The last major tip I have is to think of these Early Years in this way: most of us are in at least our fourth or fifth seven year cycle of life (look at those back posts on the Tapestries book, it was very interesting!), and these little ones are only in the beginning of their first. It is very hard for us in general to enter this consciousness of the toddler. Many times we give it way too much adult weight! It takes a lot of practice, and the more you can think humor and play and love, the less stressful the toddler years become!
With joy,
Carrie
Almost every month I write a post on this topic, but it is so important it bears repeating every month! How are you and your spouse doing? Are you strong and unified and having fun or are things tense and battle-like?
Here are some questions/ ideas for this month:
I do not think it is necessary to leave your baby or a toddler who has separation anxiety at home whilst you go out to “have time together.” Your children grow up so quickly, it really is a short time. Have a date at home after you put the children to bed! If your children are older and you have trusted family, how about a morning or afternoon date – many times that is much more successful than going out in the evening until the children are older…
I think the other important thing to consider in the midst of this topic of renewal with your spouse is renewal with yourself! If you are feeling close to burned out, this is important to consider.
Just a few thoughts tonight.
Many blessings,
Carrie
The Parenting Passageway 