Thanks
Thanks for the bees so good,
Thanks for you and me,
Thanks for the golden corn,
Thank you God for everything!
Amen
Another little poem by my first grader.
Another Poetic Interlude
Reply
Why Should I Consider Time-In Instead?
Okay, I have to be very honest with you all and admit I really cannot stand time-out for children under the age of 7. The rationale that many parents use for time-out is that “my children need to think about what they have done.” This, to me, contradicts the view of a small child under the age of 7 from a Waldorf educator’s point of view. From a Waldorf perspective, we do not expect small children to be able to reflect on what they have done in a HEAD manner – we would, however, expect them to help the situation by using their BODIES and their HANDS. That is a big difference.
The other rationale that parents use for time-out is for when children behaving badly and out of control. The Waldorf perspective would point to the fact that small children under the age of 7 need their parents’ physical presence, gentle words and gentle hands to help them come back to their bodies. Sometimes the best place for that is to provide something rhythmical to do, or to provide our bodies in a rocking chair for the rhythmical activity.
From an attachment parenting standpoint, there are attached families who do consider the use of time-out consistent with their philosophy. However, I ask you to respectfully consider the following:
“Sometimes parents are advised to use a time-out instead of spanking their kids – as though these were the only two options available. The reality, as we’ve seen, is that both of these tactics are punitive. They differ only with respect to whether children will be made to suffer by physical or emotional means. If we were forced to choose one over the other, then, sure time-outs are preferable to spankings. For that matter, spanking kids is preferable to shooting them, but that’s not much of an argument for spanking.” -Alfie Kohn, Unconditional Parenting, page 65-66.
Alfie Kohn discusses the history of time-out: “Time-out is actually an abbreviation for time out from positive reinforcement. The practice was developed almost half a century ago as a way of training laboratory animals….When you send a child away, what’s really being switched off or withdrawn is your presence, your attention, your love. You may not have thought of it that way.” -Alfie Kohn, Unconditional Parenting, page 26-27.
So how about some tools to try instead:
Humor!
Environmental Control – child-proof your house so you do not have to keep saying “no” to everything and policing everything
Going outside and having
Having a stronger rhythm to your day of interesting things to do
Listening to your child
Empathy – now with WORDS for the under 7 crowd, but with smiles, hugs, and warmth
Time-In with you, holding
If you cannot hold your child, have the child near you while you are doing something rhythmical and start to tell a small story. Many times this is enough to shift the mood in the space. Then you can later go back to the situation and try to make it better.
If YOU need to gain control and take a small break outside that is different than sending a small under 7 child away!
Also, there is nothing wrong with giving the child an option to go to her room or another place when she is upset – as long as it is an option and the child controls the leaving, where to go in the house, what to do, when to come back).
You may agree or disagree with me, but these are just a few of my thoughts from my little corner of the world.
The Pumpkin Pie Song
Just in time to help your children learn this song for Thanksgiving, here is my dear friend Jodie playing guitar, along with her 7 year old playing the pennywhistle, and singing all the words for your listening pleasure:
http://homemusicmaking.blogspot.com/
You can find the words and music to this song on page 89 of the book, “Festivals, Family and Food: Guide to Seasonal Celebration” by Diana Carey and Judy Large.
Have fun with it!!
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
Peaceful Bedtime Dreams
The post on late afternoon melt-downs (see the post entitled “Smearing Peas” on this blog) got me thinking (thanks Erin!) about how to structure your rhythm and life toward having a peaceful dinnertime hour and bedtime routine. Here are just a few ideas that have worked for us in the past, and some of them may work for you.
1. Do not schedule lots of things outside of the home. No matter how much your child loves to go, go, go, most young children under the age of 7 are calmest when they spend large portions of time at home and are less apt to melt down from an over-stimulating day if they don’t have that day to begin with. Young children thrive on repetition and rhythm. If you feel your child needs something “more” to do, look at your own rhythm and work first and what you are doing with them second.
2. Do make sure they are getting plenty of outside time, no matter what the weather. If you do need to go out and run errands with your child, see if you can go out in the early morning and plan to be home in the afternoon. Your whole day should be geared toward working toward that early peaceful bedtime, and releasing the physical energy that young children have because they live in their bodies is key.
3. If your children sleep until 9 or 10 in the morning, they will not go to bed at night. You cannot have it both ways. I personally would rather have a night and have time with my spouse, so in our family our children go to bed around 7 or 7:15. If you want your children to go to bed, start moving the time you get up back, and move the naptimes back as well. If your child naps until 4 or 5 in the afternoon, they probably won’t be ready to go to bed at 7.
4. Start dinner in the morning. Use a crock-pot, make things ahead throughout the day, whatever you need to do to make sure you can have dinner ready to go. Many times mothers say they delay dinner so their husband can get home and eat with the children as well. I understand that, but how about going ahead and feeding your children dinner, and then providing a snack when dad comes in? It puts you closer to bedtime, and the children still get to share a small meal with dad.
5. Offer a snack while you are cooking dinner, and have ways your child can participate with dinner, whether that is washing dishes in the sink as you go, setting the table, chopping up a vegetable. If that fails to get their attention, is there anything rhythmical they can do while you cook? Homemade play dough comes to mind, sifting flour through a little manual sifter, having an indoor sand tray with toys, brushing the dog if they are able to do that. Kids that are just on the edge of melting down that time of day often need something physical and rhythmical to do.
6. If taking a bath is traumatic and just gears everything up, consider doing the bath in the morning or even after lunch. Sometimes small children go through phases where they do not want to get in the bathtub. Perhaps they would like a shower with a hand held sprayer or just being washed with a washcloth, or they need the bath at a different time.
7. Make sure your whole dinnertime and bedtime routine is not taking too long. Sometimes we have these elaborate bedtime routines and the kids just need to get into bed. If they are really melting through the normal routine of bath and brushing teeth and such, you may even be starting it too late.
8. Consider oral storytelling as opposed to reading picture books at night for small children under the age of 7. Picture books have pictures for the eye and brain to process, and oral storytelling keeps the child creating their own pictures in their own heads, much more calming and restful.
9. Consider the use of music – your own singing – as a way to help induce sleep or strumming on a kinderlyre. Some children respond very well to this warmth that touches them down into their soul.
10. Consider and rule out allergies to foods and fibers. If your child is completely itchy from what they are wearing, if the tag is bothering them, if their feet are cold, if they ended up with something for dinner that they are sensitive to, then bedtime and sleeping will be much more difficult.
Peaceful afternoons and nights are possible with small children, it just takes some planning.
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
Give Us Our Daily Juice
Okay, I have to admit I LOVE my juicer. I have a simple Jack LaLanne juicer, like the one here: http://www.powerjuicer.com/index-pro.html. I get up and make fresh juice every morning, and I rely on juicing to feel great!
Our favorite juices include making just fresh orange juice, but we also like orange-grapefruit juice, pineapple-grapefruit juice. and pineapple-orange juice. Just writing this makes me want a big glass of juice right now!
Dr. William Sears in his book The Family Nutrition Book, has this to say about the benefits of fresh-squeezed juice over processed juice: fresh juice preserves the live enzymes in the juice, safer water content in fresh-squeezed juice (since we don’t know where the water in commercial juices comes from), and the ease of drinking a 8 ounce glass of fresh juice as opposed to eating all the vegetables or fruit it took to make that juice.
Commercial juices are made in this way, according to Dr. Sears: “The fruit is juiced at a processing plant, and the water is removed to make a concentrate, which is shipped to another manufacturer, who may put water back into the juice (water that may be more or less safe than the water Mother Nature originally put in the fruit). The juice is pressure-pasteurized to kill any bacteria in it, and then it travels to the store, where it sits on the shelf in one of several kinds of container with varying degrees of air-tightness. Throughout all these steps, vital nutrients, such as vitamins and enzymes, deteriorate. Also, much of the nutritious part of the fruit is right under the skin, the skin itself, or in the pulp. These parts of the fruit, as well as much of the fiber, are lost in commercial juicing.” (page 156).
Some favorite juices to think about include orange, which is higher in many nutrients than apple juice; and the vegetable juices, which often are lower in calories but higher in nutrients than fruit juices. Juices have more protein and trace minerals than you are probably aware, so give juicing a try for your morning drink and see how great you and your family feels! We drink a lot of water throughout the day, but look forward to our morning juice every day.
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
Using Your First Year of Parenting to Fall Deeper In Love With Your Spouse
Transitioning to being new parents in addition to remaining lovers and friends can be challenging. It is difficult to anticipate all the changes a new baby will bring to your lives as a couple and as a family. Many new parents have admitted to me that they felt more than a little bewildered by the amount of time caring for an infant requires, how being a new parent affected the sexuality of their relationship, and how they often felt they and their spouse misunderstood one another, and how distant at times they felt from their spouse. Some parents confessed to me at some of the three in the morning sleep-deprived feedings, they just wanted to be as far away as possible from the other parent because they were driving each other crazy!
Most parents go into their first pregnancy and having children because they have a deep love for one another and wanted to add to their family. So, given all the challenges mentioned above, is it still possible to maintain your deep connection to and love for your spouse in the first year of parenting? I think it is possible, but it does take some time and consideration.
Beth Muscov wrote an article for La Leche League’s NEW BEGINNINGS magazine entitled, “Surviving the First Year of Parenthood While Growing Deeper in Love.” This wonderful article was published in March-April 2000 and can be viewed through this link: http://www.llli.org/NB/NBMarApr00p36.html . In the article, the author writes about how many family therapists use Systems Theory in their practice and how part of Systems Theory includes the idea of an equilibrium point in relationships. She points out how the first thing many couples do when that equilibrium is disturbed is to try to go back to the way things were before the change and how this may not always produce the desired result or it may create additional stress for one or both parents. And besides, once, you have an infant in the house there is no going back!
The article points out that one simple tool new parents can use to help is the use of normalizing statements. Normalizing statements, to me, are almost “rationalizing” statements (uh, statements you would make if you were not so sleep deprived and could make sense and be rational?) The article points out a few of these, such as “ Emotional ups and downs during the first year of parenting are completely normal”. You can view more of these normalizing statements at the link above.
I think normalizing statements in some ways are a good start, but in some ways, this is a coping mechanism that perhaps hides what is underneath the feelings of isolation, separation from one’s spouse, frustration or being overwhelmed that can happen during that first year of parenting.
I offer this to you: a series of questions for you to ponder; because as usual it all starts with you and your inner work. You are now the mother of the home, the keeper of the home and the person who will bring peace into your home. So here are some questions and some thoughts:
How do you feel about being a mother? How do you feel about being a wife on top of being a mother? If you have taken some time during pregnancy to ponder this (see the three part series on this blog entitled, “Pregnancy is Preparation for the Soul”), and believe in this idea of being called into motherhood, as motherhood being a very important thing that you were made to do and called to do, then this can help carry you through some of the rockier moments in parenting a newborn.
The more difficult part for many women is to make that transition from being a mommy to being focused on their spouse, to being able to be absorbed in the intimacy of the spousal relationship emotionally or physically once again. How do you feel about having an intimate relationship with your husband and your baby? What would this look like? Have you discussed this with your spouse?
Dr. William Sears in The Baby Book, mentions this: “Your husband can sense when you are physically connected to him but mentally connected to your baby. He does not expect you to be thinking primarily of him during breastfeeding; should you be thinking about your baby during lovemaking?” He goes on to point out these are normal feelings for a new mother. I would gently add that a baby is small only once, and that getting to be able to balance motherhood and being part of a couple takes time to adjust to, and practice.
How much do you understand about newborn babies and how newborn babies are? How much help is Dad with the newborn baby and how will Dad and the baby connect? All of you out there will smile when I tell you I remember thinking when I was pregnant with my first that having a newborn baby wouldn’t be easy, but really, how hard could it be? The baby would sleep a lot and there would be some kind of rhythm to it, right? I would have time to keep the house clean, cook meals and probably work out as well!
Um, yeah. In reality, my first baby was a baby who nursed about every hour or so, who needed to be held much of the time, who was not very content out of arms. The reality of parenthood did not meet my expectations. There were many things I had read in books, but none of it really sunk in until I had spent time with my own newborn and we learned about one another. Every baby is different, and no matter how many babies you have, you still have to learn each other. Newborns require much time and care in order to achieve that connection and the feeling of one-ness that a newborn baby and a mother can have. In our society, too many mothers are missing the opportunity to fall deeply in love with their baby and also the opportunity of deepening their relationship with their spouse through the love they have for their whole new family. Too often in our society we are willing to put the needs of being a couple above the needs of a young baby.
Many mothers who are planning to solely breastfeed ask about when they can feed the baby a bottle so the dad has “be connected to the baby.” This may be what happens in your family and what you choose as a family, but something else to consider is that if the dad can take care of and support the mother while she takes care of the baby, if he can cook and clean while the mother is consumed taking care of the baby, this is being connected to the baby through the baby’s natural habitat – the mother. More about this in the paragraph below.
How do we balance our needs as a couple with the needs of a breastfeeding baby? Babies have intense needs connected to the mother. The mother is the baby’s natural habitat, an idea originated and developed further in the book, “Breastfeeding Made Simple :Seven Natural Laws for Nursing Mothers” by Nancy Mohrbacher and Kathleen Kendall-Tackett. A baby and a mother, if given a chance, often feel and function as one unit in the early years. This is normal. Fathers can do lots of things in the postpartum period and in the early months of the baby’s life, but they cannot breastfeed. However, as mentioned above, fathers can get involved with their baby in plenty of other ways from diapering to bringing the baby to the mother to nurse to supporting the mother with meals or in housework or care of older children. Mothers and fathers can use this time to connect more deeply if they plan it out right.
There is no doubt that a baby is a baby only for a short while, and many parents accept that this is a season in their marriage that involves putting the baby first. Dr. William Sears, in his book The Baby Book, writes; “For three or four months after childbirth (and sometimes not really until weaning) most wives do no have the energy for a high level of intimacy both as a mother and a mate.” He adds, “Dads, appreciate that a new mother is biologically programmed to nurture her baby. You are not being displaced by the baby, but some of your wife’s energies previously directed toward you are temporarily redirected toward your baby. This is a time primarily to parent and secondarily to mate, and ideally a time to find opportunity and energy for both.” He talks about how wives need to be treated in the postpartum stage in a progression similar to courtship, but he also points out that men experience no hormonal shift in parenting a new baby such as women experience and therefore men still need to hear they are needed and wanted as well.
How do we balance our needs as a couple with the needs of an older baby, toddler or preschooler? As the baby grows and settles into a more rhythmic pattern, perhaps then there will be time for sitting together , and even finishing sentences! With an older child, it does become okay to say that mommy and daddy need some time together and the child can play. Many parents work hard to have at least one night a week where they focus on each other after the children are asleep. Even if your child only stays asleep for an hour or so after they initially go to bed, this is still usable time for your needs as a couple.
How do we combine the roles of parenting with the roles of being friends and lovers to one another? Like everything else in life, both of you have to put effort forth. It does take commitment and planning to be friends and lovers throughout the parenting years. Do not let yourselves drift apart, but build each other up. Assure your husband what he means to you, and tell him what you need. You may be surprised what happens!
What does emotional intimacy mean to you? It has been said that men use physical intimacy to feel close to their spouse, but women have to have the emotional intimacy in order to get to the physical intimacy part. What is true for you? Can emotional intimacy include just saying “I really love you and miss spending time with you”? Have you talked about this with your spouse?
What about physical intimacy? How do you think parenting affects this? Does co-sleeping affect this? Many couples still find times and places to be intimate, even with co-sleeping and multiple children! There can be romance even while parenting!
And most importantly, how do you communicate with one another? Respect for one another’s feelings and needs are so important during times of change and finding a place in new roles within the family. Finding time to communicate is important – sometimes with attachment parenting one feels that the baby or children are always there and it is difficult to find the time to talk about things…Yet this is imperative!
And HOW we say things makes such a difference!In the book “How to Listen So Kids Will Talk and Talk So Kids Will Listen”, Faber and Mazlish discuss an office situation and the responses to this situation by seven different friends. From this scenario, they detail ways we can respond to one another, including: Denial of the other person’s feelings, being philosophical about the other person’s situation, giving advice, asking questions, defending the situation/accusing the person to whom you are speaking, pitying the other person, giving out amateur psychoanalysis, blaming and accusing, name calling, giving threats, commanding, lecturing and moralizing, giving warnings, responding with martydom statements, providing comparisons, or sarcasm. (This is from pages 51-56, Faber and Mazlish’s How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk). See this book for other examples and details!
Whew! Imagine if we lived in a world and had relationships where we could have authentic communication. So, if all of the above is ineffective communication that just puts up blocks in our efforts to be authentic with one another, what IS effective communication? Effective communication is compassionate communication, and here are some tools to get you started! Faber and Mazlish suggest the following ways of communicating in their book: describing a problem in neutral terms, giving information in neutral terms, talking about your own feelings and needs and I would add asking what your spouse’s (the other person’s) feelings and needs are.
NonViolent Communication (see www,cnvc.org for more information) includes the following steps to compassionately communicating:
- Observation – the CONCRETE actions we are observing that are affecting our well-being
- Feelings – How we FEEL in relation to what we are observing
- Needs – The needs, values, desires that are creating our feelings
- Request – The concrete actions we REQUEST in order to enrich our lives, understanding that a request is different than a demand.
Hopefully by communicating in an authentic style, we can grow deeper in love during the early years of parenting and have a marriage that lasts and stands the test of time.
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
Changing Your Rhythm With The Seasons
I had a friend recently ask me how our rhythm has changed with the change of the seasons, now that the shorter days and longer nights are settling in. My rhythm actually changes quite a bit according to the rhythm of the year, so let’s delve into that for a moment.
Once you start building a daily rhythm, hopefully by starting with consistent waking times, naptimes and bedtimes, you will then build in even more rhythm around meals and then your daily activities. Some of these activities will happen every day and some may only happen once a week. For example, once you start trying to do some real work with your 3 to 6 year old at home, you may decide to bake once week, garden once a week, do laundry on Mondays, clean on Fridays – whatever works for you and your family. This may stay pretty consistent throughout the seasons.
However, once you have a daily rhythm in place and a weekly rhythm in place, the next thing to look at is a YEARLY rhythm. This may affect your daily rhythm, depending on the season. Summer to me is the epitome of expansion; being outside, summer activities. Winter to me is contemplative, meditative, contracting, looking inward to prepare for the coming Spring. An practical example of this is that in the summer it is part of our rhythm to swim every afternoon in our neighborhood pool. Of course, I can’t do this in the winter, so the rhythm changes.
My friend gave me the example that part of their rhythm was to take a walk after dinner, and now due to the darkness and cold, they were no longer able to do that. Therefore, their bedtime routine now needs to change. One thing I thought of when she mentioned this was the notion of warmth. Some families work hard to include much of their nightly routine around one of Steiner’s twelve senses at this time of year: warmth, to counteract the darkness and coldness this time of year. So, a nightly routine may include a warm supper, a warm foot bath or bath by candlelight, warm tea or warm milk with honey, and telling a story by candlelight before drifting off to sleep under some heavy blankets.
Some families change their rhythms around the solstices and equinoxes, other families use more of the start of school and the end of the school year to signify change in their rhythms.
The other piece of the YEARLY rhythm is to decide what festivals you will celebrate and how you will do this as a family. I have a friend who has a great method where she figures out the date of the festival she is going to mark, and then works backwards several weeks and plans what she will do with her family each day leading up to the festival.
In our Waldorf-inspired homeschool, we celebrate many festivals, but not all of them are marked with the same intensity. The ones we mark with the greatest intensity are the following: January: January 6th – Epiphany; February: February 2 – Candlemas; Spring: Lent, Ash Wednesday and the Holy Week leading up to Easter; September: Michaelmas; November: Martinmas; December: Advent, Saint Nicholas Day, Christmas and the Twelve Days of Christmas leading up to Epiphany.
The more minor festivals that we mark include January: First Monday after Epiphany – Plough Monday- General Spring Cleaning; February – Saint Valentine’s Day; Spring – Spring Equinox; May– May Day; Ascension Day and Whitsun; June – June 21st- Summer Solstice, June 24th- Saint John’s Tide (Midsummer’s Day), July: July 4th; September: Autumn Equinox; October: Halloween; November – All Saint’s and All Soul’s Day; December – December 13th – Santa Lucia Day and December 21st- Winter Solstice.
Part of festival celebration for young children intertwines family tradition, religious tradition (within the homeschool environment), science (the passing and changing of the seasons). It is a wonderful way to involve young children in the passage of time and the joy of intimate celebration.
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
Smearing Peas
Yes, this is the title of my post.
My friend was describing a wild and tired three year old who was smearing peas all over the kitchen and as fast as my friend was cleaning it up, there was more being smeared. We have all been there, haven’t we? My friend was stating the cause was that the child was transitioning out of naps during the day, leading to the afternoon “melt-down” phase. She was asking what would be a way to handle this situation.
This situation is so familiar! The transition out of naps can lead to the inevitable afternoon “melt-down” of the child that may involve the child getting more and more wild and into some kind of mischief that causes the parent to feel frustrated. Some tired children just wind up and up and up in the late afternoon, don’t they? And sometimes the parent is feeling tired and less patient at this time as well as they also may not be getting that typical afternoon break when a child no longer naps.
So, what to do with smearing peas or other melt-down kind of situations?
Well, this is just my opinion but here goes. There is a fine line between a time to distract and provide humor in order to set a boundary versus a time to just set the boundary. These meltdowns do happen when you are in the nap skipping stage to make nighttime better, and so it is great to talk about this! This is where the physical piece of parenting comes in and I don’t mean physically beating your child :); you will see what I mean in a moment. Donna Simmons actually talks about this quite a bit in her discipline work (see www.christopherushomeschool.org) and this is the piece which many parents are uncomfortable with, but it is so necessary with the three and four year old population (I think so, anyway, from my experience).
My thought would be to not say many words at all, not to really distract with humor or anything else, the answer really is just that this is not okay. If a child is doing something to hurt you, hurt their neighbor or just plain irritate you, and the child is wild, you need the physical piece beyond the words. Does the three- year- old or four- year- old do these kinds of things on purpose? No, of course not. But you can still guide the situation.
The physical piece in this situation may have been to softly cover the child’s hands, gently pry whatever utensil is in the child’s hands out of the hands, catch the child in the eye and say, “I think your hands forgot what they were doing.” Put the peas up! And then physically hold the child, and take the child with you to get two wet cleaning cloths or whatever and hand one to the child to help clean up. If the child cannot control herself enough to do that, then the child could sit on the counter or near you or whatnot while you clean and rhythmically hum.
Or the answer may have been to just take the child who was probably also pea-smeared to the bathroom and get cleaned up and leave the kitchen until a bit later (and if they had a dog, it may have solved the cleaning up part before they got back from the bathroom, right?) But the beginning steps would have been the same – gee, your hands forgot what they are doing, physically removing the child from the situation gently and then making the situation better.
Small children under the age of 7 in general and especially those who are being wild, (whether this is from being tired or not), do not need words. They need a loving, physical presence to help bring them back into themselves. And they need help to see if they can make the situation better. We should not be afraid of physically holding our children when they are wild or upset if this is what they need. We should not be afraid to physically help our children come back into themselves, whether this is through a hug or through helping them clean up a mess they made.
I think parents are afraid of the physical piece needed with small children so many times because they feel angry and they rightly don’t want to touch their child when they are angry. However, when you get good at it, you can still be angry or frustrated inside BUT have gentle hands and a calm voice with your child. You can almost be outside yourself, observing the situation, if that makes any sense at all, but still be present and doing what you have to do. Many parents who cannot do that do find if one can get centered then the physical piece works. If you have to get centered before you can offer that which is needed, then you can go off to the other room or just scoop your child up and both of you go outside till you are both a little more calm. Just stand against the back door so your child cannot go back inside and smear more peas while you are pulling it together :).
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
Waldorf First Grade At Home
Teaching a Waldorf-inspired first grade at home is so much fun! For those of you who are new to Waldorf homeschooling, Waldorf first grade is for children who are close to the age of seven. This works in conjunction with Steiner’s observations of child development according to seven year cycles, so yes, a six year old is still typically in their second year of kindergarten at a Waldorf school. Academic work is not directly taught until the first grade. At home especially, I encourage parents to view first grade as a bridge between the kindergarten years and the other grades to come (more about this in a minute).
The Waldorf grades work in conjunction with “blocks” where subjects are taught daily for a certain length of time – from three weeks to a month, for example. This is called a “main lesson.” The children have main lesson books that they draw summaries of their lessons into and try to showcase their best work. Main lesson work is considered work of the HEAD and typically involves good morning verses (memorized), a seasonal circle time that is very active (also memorized verses and songs and may include playing a recorder or pennywhistle), and then the main lesson on whatever subject the student is learning about. The teacher memorizes the material presented and the students write summaries in their books, so there really are no textbooks or worksheets involved in this active learning method.
The Main Lesson has a three part rhythm to it that involves the child using sleep as an aid to learning. No other method of education uses sleep the way that Waldorf does, as a true help for memorizing and living into subjects. For example, on Monday, a concept is introduced through a story that may involve puppetry or other props. Tuesday may then involve re-visiting the story and something such as art, drama, modeling, going outside to look for something in the story; essentially expounding on some part of the story that has been already been told. Wednesday then involves a re-visiting of the story with the academic piece drawn into the main lesson book. Some families, for first grade, do a three day rhythm for Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and then do wet on wet watercolor painting on Thursdays. Some families fit in two main stories a week with two three-day rhythms.
The HEART portion of school may involve foreign language practice, being outside and playing organized games, eurythmy (something special to Waldorf education which has been called “visible speech”), or music. The HANDS portion of the lesson may come in the afternoon and may include knitting for first graders, wet on wet watercolor painting, drawing, woodworking or other types of handwork.
In our home, I chose to do one block a month for first grade so our outline for main lessons for the year looks like this: September –Form Drawing based off of Nature Stories, October – Language Arts, letters A-J based off of Fairy Tales, November – Qualities of Numbers block, December – Quantities of Numbers where all four math processes are introduced and a once a week form drawing block, January – another one week form drawing block and A Look at the Four Seasons and the Four Elements, February – Language Arts based off of Fairy Tales, letters K- Q, March- Math Block Number Three, April – Language Arts based off of Fairy Tales, letters R-Z with a review of AEIOU – (vowels are often taught separate from the consonants), May – two weeks of a Backyard Nature Block with form drawing and two weeks of writing based off the Fairy Tales, one week of review in June and a show of all main lesson book work for family. Many families also will do form drawing on one day of the week during other blocks of subjects.
Our daily rhythm looks essentially like this – A walk in the morning through our neighborhood with our dog, morning verses and the lighting of a candle, finger plays and a story for my Kindergartner, circle time and bean bag games and rope jumping rhymes for both children but more geared to my older child, main lesson work for my First Grader. The HEART portion of our daily rhythm looks like this – Mondays, German tutor comes to our home; Tuesdays, practice Spanish or go hiking with a local group; Wednesday, Spanish tutor comes to our home, Thursdays, practice German; Fridays, special songs for whatever festival is upcoming. After we have lunch, reading books aloud and quiet time, we have the HANDS portion of our day. This part of our rhythm looks like this – Mondays, wet on wet watercolor painting; Tuesdays, bread baking and modeling while waiting for bread; Wednesdays, handwork/knitting; Thursdays, gardening or drawing and Fridays, housekeeping.
Many parents consider learning the letters and sounds of the alphabet and perhaps starting to read a very important part of first grade, along with an introduction to the four math processes. Master Waldorf Teacher Eugene Schwartz (www.millennialchild.com) contends that the most essential part of first grade is really form drawing and math. For many reasons, I agree with Mr. Schwartz.
(For those of you who are not familiar with form drawing, form drawing is a way of working with lines and curves that Rudolf Steiner outlined in three of his lectures as a way of working with children of different temperaments (in Waldorf education there are four temperaments identified). Form drawing is a precursor to handwriting, geometry and also observation of nature for future scientists).
Important and necessary parts of first grade besides the above really do include knitting and other types of handwork, wet on wet watercolor painting and its polar opposite of modeling, drawing and coloring with block crayons and beginning to learn to play a recorder, pentatonic flute or pennywhistle. I personally would also include foreign languages as a necessary part of the first grade but we are a very foreign-language oriented family. Fairy tales and nature stories are the soul nourishment of this age and it is a beautiful year.
I mentioned at the beginning of this post that first grade can be viewed as a bridge from kindergarten and the other grades. This means that while first grade is indeed important with lots to learn and do, it also important in the home environment for first grade to be fun, to know when to take the day off and head to the park and to be sure to allow lots of time for free play and outside play along with time for preparation for festivals. In mind’s eye, the child in the early grades is forming association with subjects through experiences. Everything in first grade should be active, rhythmical, musical, artistic and inter-related. The Waldorf curriculum keeps building and building and growing more and more in its intensity; there is no reason to make yourself or your child insane with heavy, dull work in the early years!
Having a Waldorf-inspired homeschool means the ability to really create and choose stories that speak to your child’s temperament and experiences, to work indirectly through the curriculum with the things that are challenging to that child, and to be able to provide the child with a lot of time to be outside and dream! Homeschooling is an excellent way for siblings to connect and be together and for families to leave peacefully together. Waldorf within the home is a beautiful sigh of wonder.
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
How Much Is Enough?
I recently heard about a mother who felt resentful about “having” to give up her corporate job in order to stay home full-time with her two small children. She was giving them “150 percent” of her time and energy, and was contemplating returning to the outside work force full-time. She characterized her husband as “loving, but uninvolved.”
Hhhhhmmm.
Homemaking and parenting can be rather daunting tasks for many women. Many mothers transitioning from working outside the home to staying find it difficult because their time, and even their bodies and their personal space, no longer seems to be their own anymore. It all is shared with their small children. This is part of the sacrifice of parenting. Sacrifice is a thing that is not popular among many parents today in general, but necessary.
However, I am certain that devoting “150 percent” of ourselves directly to solely and only our children is not a wise idea. Much like the child who has everything done for him or her, who is always told what to play and how to play it, who continues to be treated like a 2 year old when they are now 7, this is detrimental.
The idea of a mother giving 150 percent of themselves to her children, at least to me, brings up the notion that they must be hovering, micromanaging, and list-making the daily lives of her children. Parenting is different than working outside the home. We cannot approach our lives and the creation of peace at home the way we approach a meeting in a boardroom.
A dear friend once pointed out to me that being home is difficult because of lack of immediate gratification. In other words, a three year old is not going to say to you, “Gee, mom thanks for trying to model how to be a good human being today. I am so glad you showed me how to be calm under stress when I was screaming, I saw how you folded that laundry and will try it soon as well!” This can be wildly different than working outside the home. The results of our work as homemakers often cannot be seen for years until our children are out on their own and raising their own families. Too many times it seems that a parent is looking for that immediate gratification of parenting in seeing immediate results – behavioral or achievement- from their small children. Children, for lack of a better term or analogy, are a long-term project that does not always require direct hovering, but rather occasional stirring and a presence in the kitchen.
Children have the need for your presence. It is not okay to take your interests and exclude your children from your totality of life, or to hurt their rhythm and well-being under the guise of your own interests, but everyone certainly needs something that they can call their own. Many parents work this around their child’s nap or bedtime schedule. It is okay for an older toddler and preschooler to see your interests, and also to see the things you do around the house that does not directly involve them, but that makes your home a wonderful place for all. Many mothers who love to sew or garden report that this comes out in their children’s play and what they want to try in their free time. This is healthy and wonderful.
Another healthy and wonderful thing that children also need to see is a mother-father relationship that is intimate, respectful and loving. Parents who spend time together provide a sense of security and stability so important for the child to see and take into their subconsciousness for their own future relationships.
Many mothers I meet who stay at home do it all. Their husbands never have the children alone, without the mother, at any time on a consistent basis. This is a shame and prevents a child from developing a relationship with the father that does not include the mother’s thumbprint. One mother wailed to me, “Well, he doesn’t do it the way I do it!!” Um, exactly the point. A child needs both a mother and father, and thank goodness we are different.
And this leads to an interesting Other Observation. What other trusting, caring, loving adults does your child consistently spend time with? A small child under the age of 7 needs his mother or a loving, kind father to act as a “filter” for the events of daily life. However, in some cultures it is interesting that it is not just the mother or father acting as a filter but an entire extended family whom the child spends time with daily.
I had an interesting experience not too long ago. I have many, many Hispanic friends whom I love. One of my dear friends was having a birthday party for her little girl who was turning three years old. Her mother was handling much of the party and I observed several times when her little girl wanted or needed something and was always interested to see that nine times out of ten a close family friend or relative would take care of what the little girl needed or wanted before my friend could even get there. And nor did she try to get there all the time. At one point, her little girl fell, and her mother calmly saw that her best friend helped the little girl up, smoothed the little girls’ dress and fixed the little girl’s hair. My friend went over after all this was done and gave her daughter a hug, but she felt safe in knowing all of the wonderful adults in the room would take care of this small child as if she were their own. These family members and friends were people the child saw on a daily or almost daily basis. And they did care for this child as if she were their own, and reacted with an almost group consciousness to situations.
How very different from the American experience were many time a child will only be satisfied in their mother’s lap or arms. I am not saying this is bad at all, my children have been that way, but it is certainly very different than the “village” mentality taking place across much of the world. I am in contact with friends from many different Central and South American countries, Iran, Germany, the Netherlands, China, France and several African nations who can attest to this truth!
“But Carrie,” you say. “I have no one. My family lives far away, my parents are crazy and I don’t really involve them in my child’s daily life. See, no one but me.”
I know this is a Waldorf-related blog so we don’t watch any movies at all :), but have you all seen the Ben Stiller movie “Meet the Parents”? In this movie, there is an entire (very funny) line about “The Circle of Trust”. So let me borrow that for a moment. Who is in your own Circle of Trust? Some mothers honestly don’t trust Dads with their small children. Is that you? Who is in your child’s Circle of Trust? Do you have a friend? A mother whose parenting you admire and could trust? Could you start by cultivating a close relationship that your child could see and perhaps over time you and your child would come to see this other mother as part of your community? It just a thought, it takes an effort to find people whom you trust, who parent similar to you and share your values, but it is worth the effort.
A child over the age of 7 still needs you deeply and needs your help in “filtering” situations, especially things above routine and simple. But your over 7 child, and certainly your child over 9, needs safe situations with people you love and trust to practice this important life skill – being able to be connected to people outside of you, and to experience that good things happen with caring adults. Are there elderly neighbors, a teacher of an outside class your child is taking, other mothers, whom you trust? We want our children to feel safe in the world and to have them know that other people are good and kind besides just their own immediate family.
Consider how you feel about things such as the loving adult relationships your child has with other family members and friends. Think about how you feel responsibilities and privileges should change over time for your child within your family. Think, ponder and meditate on what you “do for” your child every day, and what your child sees you do for the child’s siblings, yourself, your spouse and your home.
Perhaps the mother who is giving “150 percent” to her children would benefit from some inner work focusing not only on the spiritual side of homemaking that maybe remains hidden within her “to-do” list, but also on letting her children soften and relax into being themselves and what role she and other trusted adults are playing. Perhaps then, instead of being a resented chore, parenting would become the wonderful part of life it is meant to be, a means for not only raising moral human beings but a tool for self-growth, self-discovery and contentment.
Just a few thoughts from my little corner of the world.
The Parenting Passageway 