“I Got My Son Back!”

Posted on by
Reply

The decision to pull a teenager out of high school and to homeschool instead can be a difficult one.  I have a friend who did just that, and it has worked out splendidly.  Her son was depressed, sullen, angry and failing when he attended school.  Now he is now a boy who not only gets all his work done but works ahead.  He reports to his friends how much he likes being homeschooled, and how ”it’s like college, because it is all on me to get it done.”  His friends now would like to be homeschooled!

His mother reports he is now pretty cheerful, happy and is once again loving toward his family.  She wonders if he had been bullied at school, but he won’t talk about that yet.  She wonders if he fell in with the wrong crowd, or just trying to be part of the culture where being a “smart boy” was not cool.  It was much more cool to not care and to fail.  All she knows is she is happy that she did not listen to her fears about homeschooling and went ahead.  She says it is the best thing she ever has done and wishes they had done it long ago.

What is holding you back today?  What fears are you holding onto?  What do you need to let go of in order to be the best parent and homeschooling teacher you can be?

Food for thought,

Carrie

Housecleaning and Homeschooling

Posted on by
28

Lovey over at Lovey-land (http://lovey-land.blogspot.com/) lent me a few fabulous books regarding decluttering and housecleaning.  I am no stranger to these areas, because having clean spaces is very important to me, and living simply without too much stuff is also important to me.  However, these books were very helpful to me because one book laid out decluttering projects with estimated amounts of time, and the other book really clarified what should be cleaned daily, weekly, monthly and yearly.

I do think that having a clean and orderly house is part of homeschooling.  First of all, it can be hard for some if not all children to function in a cluttered environment because they are just being constantly distracted.  Secondly, having a clean house is important from a health perspective.  Thirdly, I find most women who are feeling completely overwhelmed with their house also are feeling overwhelmed with homeschooling, with life in general, and are sometimes dealing with depression or other things going on. So I think your home is sometimes a barometer of where you are and how you are feeling.

Most importantly, housecleaning, laundry, getting meals on the table and such all still have to happen even with homeschooling!  You are still the leader for your home! So the question becomes how to figure out how to make this happen.

If you are in the beginning steps of decluttering and getting your house in order, bravo! You may want to check out www.flylady.net if you are not already acquainted with that website.  It is very helpful to those of us who have to work at being organized. 

Here is my own personal list for daily, weekly cleaning:

Daily-

Clean the bathrooms

Air out the beds after we get up and open windows to air everything out, make beds after 30 minutes or so

Keep kitchen clean, put out clean towels every day in kitchen (countertops I do every day, outside of cabinets once a week)

Vacuum/dust mop  daily (did I mention we have a large hairy dog?)

Empty trash cans if full

Weekly

Change bed linens, including putting pillows in dryer for 15 minutes to kill dust mites

Change bath towels 2-3 times a week

Dust

Wipe down doorknobs, light switches, etc ( I admit I may do this more than once a week)

Wipe down baseboards (again due to big hairy dog) and doors and door hinges

Clean oven and refrigerator (including taking shelves out every 1-2 weeks and washing the shelves off).

Wash and sanitize garbage cans

Vacuum upholstered furniture every 1-2 weeks.

Sweep outside patios and walks a couple times a week.

Clean out pantry if needed

Yearly

Painting as needed

At least two times a year pressure wash house, outside windows

Condition wood furniture

 

Every family has their own way of doing things based upon the climate in which they live, the size of their house, etc.  I am just sharing some of the things I do. 

Peace,

Carrie

Happy Mother’s Day

Posted on by
2

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you out there; I appreciate the time all of you take in reading this blog.  This blog is currently getting somewhere between 300-500 hits a day!  Thank you for all you do for children, for all the thought and care you give to your family life.  You all are such an inspiration to me!

Happy Mother’s Day,

Carrie

Flow of the Day in A Waldorf Home

Posted on by
5

Keep in mind this would be an ideal day in our house with a Kindergartner and an Early Grades kiddo, but maybe it will help give someone an idea of how to put it all together. Modify, change, take what resonates with you and your family and where you live.  There is no one right way to do this!!  We are at home and not at a Waldorf school!

Here is a day in the life:

  • Up, air out beds while taking shower, cleaning up bathroom and getting dressed
  • Make all beds with children’s help
  • Breakfast with blessing, religious devotional;  clean-up after breakfast including wiping table and sweeping under table
  • Help children with dressing, hair brushing and teeth brushing
  • Throw in laundry
  • Go for walk with children and dog or gardening tasks
  • Snack
  • Call to school with Song of Month on pennywhistle and any festival songs we are learning, light candle, say morning verses  (we may school outside or inside)
  • Circle time or seasonal finger plays for Kindergartner
  • Story for Kindergartner/Activity after story – every week we include modeling of some type and kind.  We also use drama, puppets, drawing, and other things to bring the story alive over a period of two weeks to a month for each Kindy story.
  • Active Math practice for older child if not in a Math Block or pennywhistle and more singing practice
  • Main Lesson for Grades Child – three day rhythm here……  An hour is a long time here for a First Grader!
  • Foreign language two days a week (German on Mondays with arts and crafts for the younger child, cooking on Tuesdays, Wednesdays Spanish with free play inside for the youngest child) (And yes, amazingly, this time period may involve more eating and snacking :))
  • Outside play while I do some more cleaning, lunch preparation
  • Blessing, lunch; clean-up
  • Quiet time
  • Handwork alternated with arts and crafts or wet on wet painting is ideal

The afternoons we spend outside playing or just creating.  I like to garden or read while the children play.  Time to “just  be”  is important to us.  We do grocery shop on Thursday afternoons in general.  Some weeks we have allergist or chiropractic appointments to work in as well.  I try very hard to keep us home a lot, which means saying NO to a lot of   things.  🙂

Fridays look a bit different in that our typical school day is usually either a fast finish up of the only the academic piece of the Main Lesson (without the Kindy stuff or math practice).  We usually then do  a short  Peace Circle (this idea was inspired by  the Winter Seasons of Joy booklet by Annette  – you can see her website here about ordering: http://natural-childhood.blogspot.com/ for Annette’s example)   I have made my own Peace Circles (and taught hymns or other spiritual songs and verses) and a religious study.   This year we have been discussing one Fruit of the Spirit a month through a bible story, coloring, games or whatever else I can think of (there are nine Fruit of the Spirit  so this happened to work out well for us).  And then generally we clean and play and get the house ready for the weekend!

Every Waldorf homeschool will look different; it will also look different at different stages as your children grow and mature.

I hear so many mothers who have three children or more under the age of 5 and they are so hard on themselves that they don’t have this wonderful rhythm with all these activities going on; please do be easy with yourselves out there!  Sometimes it is just getting through the day and small things at that point with building up to the bigger things as the children grow and mature!  Take it easy if you have multiple children under the age of 5; remember Steiner thought is was beneficial for a child to be able to see even 15 minutes of real work done by your warm hands.  Go through the back posts on this blog about rhythm and start small – awake times, bedtimes, mealtimes.

Be easy with yourself and others as we travel this homeschooling road together,

Carrie

Creating A Day of Rest In Your Week

Posted on by
6

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

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

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

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

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

Carrie

Creating A Family Mission Statement

Posted on by
31

My husband and I are in the process of writing a mission statement, has anyone out there ever done that?  It is a truly interesting process, and for those of you who are interested, I thought I would outline some steps regarding creating a family mission statement of your own.

First of all, sit down with your spouse or significant other and talk to them about this.  Discuss with each other the fundamentals of life, such as:  What are the attitudes in our family regarding money?  What do we feel the place or importance of education is in our family?  How does our family regard religion or spirituality, and how does this play into our everyday lives?  What is the role of activities outside of our family?  Is the environment extremely important to us and how do we reflect that?  Is helping other people or participating in our neighborhood, church or synagogue, or community essential?  For those of you who are parents, do you have a view of childhood development or loving guidance that really plays center stage in your daily life?

It is an eye-opening experience to have these conversations with your significant other!  It can also take a long time, and this is not a step to be rushed.  Really talk about these things, and think about them and ponder them. What is most important to you both as you shape your family? 

Then talk to the other adults in your house if you have extended family living with you.  Some sources say to then sit down with your children  with the value statements you and your partner came up with and see what they have to say.  Some mothers I have spoken with talk about how you can ask your children for adjectives that they would use to describe the family, what the children think  is most important to mother and father, what they think about their family. 

I think this step could be quite head-oriented and somewhat difficult to grasp for the under –nine crowd.  Perhaps something better for you and your partner may be  to set your mission statement as you together create your family environment (and then change the mission statement to include your children’s ideas as they grow and mature, of course!)  So I guess the inclusion of children, for me personally , would really  have to depend on the ages and maturity  of the children involved.  Some older children may have valuable input, or at least a specific idea or example of something where you could tie this to a bigger value for your mission statement, whereas a three or four year old probably will just parrot whatever  their big brother or sister has to say!  I know this is not a popular view nowadays, in the age of democratic and consensual family living, but I thought I would throw it out there that you really are in charge of setting the tone for your own home first and foremost!  As always, take what resonates from my writings and ideas and adapt it to your own family.

However you decide to do this process, you would then write down the value statements or ideas that family members come up with in sentences, as many sentences as you need.  You could then see if any similarities exist among the value statements where you could group them under one heading so to speak.  For example, “health” to you may include physical health, spirituality practices, alternative health care, eating styles and communication styles, breastfeeding and attachment parenting.  

For older children some families provide follow-up sentences to each value sentence that explains how this value would be implemented – for example, if living simply is a strong value, perhaps examples of follow-up statements would include buying used whenever possible, considering the reduction of packaging in purchasing decisions, treating the earth kindly, involvement in environmental justice kinds of activities, etc.

Once you have your family’s mission statement you can put it somewhere and frame it for easy reference – do not just tuck it away in a drawer!  This should be the touchstone of discerning what is essential for you and your family.  It should help you determine what you will participate in and what you won’t, and how you will live. 

Mission statements are living documents that need to updated as your family members grow and mature; set regular dates to review, revise, re-frame your thoughts.

Perhaps all or part of this process may appeal to you and your family; please leave a comment in the comment section below !

Peaceful family living to you and yours,

Carrie

Making Yourself A Priority in the Parenting Equation

Posted on by
7

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

It is time for a CHANGE!

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Practice Mindful Parenting /Being in The Present–

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

2.  Practice Acceptance –

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

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

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

They suggest practicing in these ways:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7.  Be Unavailable at Least Some Time Every Day.

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

9. Practice Being Grateful for What You Have

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Quick Quiz!

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

 

 

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

Lovingly yours,

Carrie

Wonderful Words From Marsha Johnson!

Posted on by
4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marsha Johnson, Spring 2009”

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

Carrie

Homeschooling Multiple Children with Waldorf

Posted on by
8

If we readily agree that homeschooling is first and foremost about family, then there is no question that we home school with that in mind, and do not think,”Oh, I am going to have to send my two, three or four year old away” in order to home school my grades child.

I think Donna Simmons of Christopherus Homeschooling Resources puts it very succinctly in her “First Grade Syllabus”:  “Similarly, if homeschooling is about family, we won’t get into a state about how to teach our First Grader when the baby and pre-schooler are around.  We live together, we relax into our shared life – and we make it happen.”

However, there are several practicalities to be considered:

Little ones do need something to do while you are homeschooling the older children!  They are not just going to “hang out” while you completely focus your attention on your older child. 

If the practicalities involves children who are  walking through age 3:

  • Perhaps activities especially for them could center on a few songs or finger plays for them to start the morning and then setting them up with completely repetitive sensory tasks such as playing with water or sand in a sensory table, pushing a small cart, digging, pouring.
  • Little ones may need protection from eating of block crayons and your older children may need  protection of the destruction of main lesson books.   The way you organize your schoolroom and what supplies you bring down when will be paramount.
  • Needless to say, it will be difficult and dangerous to have your small child zipping through your house or outside without you there, so thinking about the physical set-up of your space is very important.
  • You may schedule snack time if your little one is eating solids and  if eating keeps them occupied.  More intense work with the older one may be a great time to nurse the little one.
  • Do not underestimate the power of homeschooling outside if that is a possibility!
  • How about scheduling some of the more intense things during nap time or at night if your older child gets to stay up later than a younger child?  You are home, you can be flexible.  Your home school does not have to function within the hours of a typical Waldorf school.
  • How about enlisting help of another adult – what role does Dad have in your home school?  Is there a teenager or preteen that could be a Mother’s Helper for a few hours each week who could watch the baby or toddler while you are also at home doing something more intense with your older child?
  • There are also many websites with ideas of things for toddlers to do during “Class Times” – these include making “I Spy” kinds of sealed bottles with sand and small objects inside to rotate around and look for;  sticking a lot of tiny  stickers to fill up a small space.  (Okay, these are not especially Waldorf-y, but many mainstream websites have ideas such as these :).   Other ideas for very small children may include playing with fluffs of wool, baskets of sticks and pinecones and silks.  If you have not seen “Toymaking with Children”, this is a great book to check out regarding how to make toys your children will play with from birth up!

If the practicalities are stemming around a three or four year old and up:

  • They may be ready to start on a rhythm themselves of circle time, a story with puppetry or modeling, and some practical work.  Perhaps you could do this in the morning first thing so they feel as if they have done something special for the day.
  • Many families start their mornings with a walk or being outside in nature to really get that energy out first.
  • A special box of toys and things that only comes down when  you do school (where the things in it rotate on a day-by-day basis) is often appreciated.
  • Again, homeschooling outside and being flexible with the times you teach some of the more intense material is helpful.

A special consideration that arises with families using Waldorf is this notion that the younger one must be so protected that if a 4 year old is torturing us to learn to write a few letters we ignore, if our six year old wants a main lesson book, we ignore, a four or six year old cannot hear the older ones’ stories. Rubbish; a heap of rubbish I say!  This may irritate some people, but here is what I think:

Yes, the stories in the curriculum is going to speak most deeply to the child when the child is at that point – in other words, Saint stories will speak most deeply to the 8 year old second grader, Old Testament stories will speak most deeply to  the 9 year old third grader – but if they hear it before then, it is generally okay (Norse myths are rather intense and may be an exception).

Yes,  if a four year old who wants to learn to read and write you should be directing them into other bodily activities, but you may also decide to teach to her to give her a piece of paper and  a crayon to scribble and pretend to write.  If she is extremely persistent and undeterred, perhaps you teach her to write her initials or her name and she may be perfectly satisfied with that and not wanting more after that.  We must respect the intelligence of Steiner’s seven year cycles, but sometimes a four year old really is happy to learn to write just an initial, and then they are totally  happy and able to move onto other things.  Please DO NOT take this out of context and report I am saying you should teach your four year old how to learn to read and write – you should NOT.  But sometimes I feel it is okay to loosen up a bit so the child can move on if they are extremely persistent.  Direct them into their bodies, come up with projects for them to do, but it probably is also natural that in their imitative phase they will want to imitate an older sibling writing.

A six year old may have a Main Lesson Book that he may write in if he feels like it, and when he goes through the First Grade when he is seven he will enjoy the fairy tales and pictorial approach to the letters whether he can write all his letters before hand or not!  And if he doesn’t want to write in his Main Lesson Book that is okay as well.  The point is that the curriculum speaks to where the child is in their soul development.

We have to be careful to make Waldorf work for us in the home environment, not against us!  We have to understand and respect the seven year cycles, but also respect that Waldorf at home is not Waldorf at school. 

While it would be lovely to have the entire circle time, stories, poems, songs memorized, I have also mentioned several times that mothers write things out and place it between two sheets of watercolor painted paper as their “Special Book.”  Donna Simmons talks about this extensively in her work, please see her website and books for more details. 

You can use an open and go syllabus; it is okay!

Most importantly, relax.  You need to know what is taught when and WHY there, but you can tailor Waldorf to your family and to the stages your children are in.  Your children will not be little forever; again, make Waldorf work for you in your home environment and not against you.

You can do this!

Carrie

The Heart Of Waldorf Homeschooling

Posted on by
5

(CARRIE”S NOTE:  I regret to say that as of 6/2010  this link no longer is working.  Sorry about that!)

Lovey over at Lovey-land wrote a post that should be at the top of all Waldorf homeschooling mama’s reading lists:

http://lovey-land.blogspot.com/2009/05/stumbling-blocks-and-answers.html

This post is essentially the heart of the Waldorf curriculum. Handwork and enjoying being outside in nature does not a Waldorf homeschooler make.  Incorporating stories does not a Waldorf homeschooler make.  Being media-free does not a Waldorf homeschooler make.

The heart of Waldorf  education is understanding and believing and trusting in the seven-year cycles of childhood development and understanding how each and every subject is laid out at the proper time for the holistic development of the child within the curriculum.    It is trusting that even though a child is interested in something, they are interested in lots of things, and that the things laid out in the curriculum of Waldorf education really provides the subject at the best possible time for the child to learn, grow and take this material into themselves. For example, we could look at rock layers as we camp near a canyon and our child is interested, but the curriculum will delve into geology in depth in the sixth grade in a response and deepening to the fact that a sixth grader is becoming more solidified in their position on Earth.   The entire curriculum works as stepping stones, building upon each layer, year after year.    It assists us, a society who can’t seem to find a clue about what a child needs when or how a child develops anymore, to be better educators and parents.

Waldorf education is academically rigorous, and we have so many advantages in homeschooling using Waldorf.  But the key is still to know what comes in the curriculum and WHY it comes there.  We can tailor things to our own family, but we must know and understand the big picture of what comes when in order to do this.

The heart of Waldorf is not natural toys, and the pink bubble of Kindergarten that people think exists and lasts forever.  Kindergarten and delayed academics is a short part of the entire scholarly career.  While practical skills such as handwork, cooking or woodworking  are important,  that is not the heart and soul of it all.   What IS the heart and soul is the way that Waldorf teaches the right thing, at the right time, in the most concise way possible – a method Steiner himself called “soul economy.”

Thanks to Lovely over at Lovey-land.  You read my mind today,

Carrie