Tag Archives: mental-health

Summer Serenity: Homemaking Rhythm

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Today is summer solstice! A new season is a new place to reflect and I have been thinking a lot about rhythm in the home as a source of strength and a source of peace. When i visit families in their homes, the most stressed out families are the ones where they have no rhythm. Maybe they have older babies who don’t go to sleep until 2 AM consistently, or they have young babies that are still in that stage of not knowing if they will really take a good nap or not, or maybe they are in the stage where the children are super involved in activities and they are not home alot. Or maybe just everyone is trying to work and make ends meet and still parent!

Rhythm can sound like that elusive and nearly impossible thing.  Sure, other families can have a rhythm and routine to their day, but it seems so unattainable, some parents say.  Yet most parents I know desperately WANT a rhythm and routine in their household.  They want things to run peaceably and they know rhythm is a key to that; it is indeed a key to the functioning of the human body!  Just imagine if our heart decided to beat irregularly or our lungs just decided to not breath for a few minutes. Rhythm is the well spring of life, for the body and the soul and if our family is like an organism that we are creating and nurturing, then this is the place to start.

There are many reasons to think rhythm is too hard or not for you. These are the top five reasons some mothers have told me over the decades I have been discussing homemaking and parenting they just cannot get a rhythm for their family going, even though they want to:

  1. “I hate rigidity” – A rhythm can be flexible; it can have a flow to it without times attached to it. Rhythm actually helps you be MORE flexible because what is essential to getting done will get done and you will have more time for sponaneous helping of neighbors and for having fun!
  2. “I am unorganized” – All the more reason to have a rhythm; rhythm is a great collector of the soul. A rhythm will help you and your family feel safe, secure, and grounded.
  3. “I am so stressed out” – Rhythm helps take away much of your stress because it acts as an aid to rest and sleep, an aid to gentle discipline, an aid to getting the essential things done, and an aid to helping you take care of yourself.
  4. “I can’t get a rhythm until X, Y,Z changes” – Rhythm is for where you are right here and right now!  Things may not be perfect in your life or in your home environment, this may be a super hard season, but having a rhythm come first can be a big help in taking baby steps toward other goals because you can build time toward these goals in your rhythm.
  5. “I am always behind and can’t get ahead”- Rhythm is a great help in order to break things up into small bits and pieces that feel mother-sized, rather than overwhelming.

I find an easy place to start is often with rising times and then going to bed times, and then build rhythm from there.  Some families find it easier to start with meal times.  Whatever the case, you can start small and tailor it to your own family.  Baby steps!

I personally like getting up times, because for most small children, you don’t have a chance to get naps in at a decent time if a child gets up super late, and then if naps are super late, you have no chance of getting a child to bed. I actually am a proponent of early bedtimes for children who are below ages 15/16 because the adults in the house need a break to be together and strengthen their relationship without children underfoot, even if it is to just go sit on the porch together and talk about that day.

Remember, you and the other adults in your home are the SUN. The children orbit around you and will gravitate towards the model and example you set and create.

The other piece of rhythm that is so important is discovering that a well -ordered home that reflects beauty and peace mirrors the general family environment.  For me personally, I am a very visual person, and therefore I find that for me, it is easier on me to keep my home clean and orderly for my own mental health.  When everything is strewn everywhere and dirty, I cannot focus on anything else. One way we love and nourish each other is to have a home that is livable, where food and clean clothes and cleanliness is apparent.

There has been some studies that suggest cluttered homes actually equate with depression and that clutter in and of itself can make us feel more anxious. I have come to the conclusion after many years of homemaking, that the foundation of parenting (and homeschooling) is homemaking.  It may be tiresome to do dishes day after day and know there will be more dishes tomorrow.  It may be tiresome to wash, fold and put away five loads of laundry and know there will be more laundry tomorrow, but yet I think this is the foundation of serenity. This is a huge spiritual practice, and in a digital age where many adults spend five hours or more on their phones a day, our will making forces are being diminished. Keeping a clean and tidy space and keeping our bodies healthy are acts of will and discipline that we can model and teach our children so they can be healthy.

May this summer be a season of rhythm and restoration for you!

Blessings,
Carrie

Read Along With Me: “How The Future Can Save Us” – Growth

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The section of this book entitled “Growth” has three different sections to look at. The first section is entitled “Protection and Leadership” and begins with a poem from “Leaves of Grass” about how a child went forth and became the first object he looked upon….leaving author Stephen Sagarin to write that our children are being pressured to grow up too quickly. They become consumers from an early age and are being asked by advertisers to grow up faster, to buy products, and that without these products they should not be confident.

He writes, “….teens are in that in-between place, that nowhere land in which they have enough freedom, power, maturity, mobility, and intelligence to make choices, but not the developed judgment to always make wise or rational decisions.”

Side Note : I was talking to a high school sophomore and just newly graduated high schooler today and I was telling them that France passed a ban that bans smartphones and tablets for kids between 3 and 15 years of age (I believe just at school). They said they wished that was the case here. “It would have to be a law though,” they both said, “Because if some people have it (phones) and some don’t, that’s when there are problems. But it’s not good for your brain.” Even teenagers know that it isn’t great for them to consume, but they feel pressure to keep up with what other teens are watching. This conversation was interesting timing, considering reading this essay!

The author goes on to point out that America’s image around the world is essentially adolescence and youth, and perhaps this points the way toward our jobs (as teachers, as parents) should be to protect children from growing up too quickly. He points out that Rudolf Steiner spoke about this in “Balance in Teaching,” mentioning protection, enthusiasm, reverence as ways to provide good teaching for children.

But protection doesn’t last forever. At some point it our job to help children go through adolescence and go on to become thoughtful, ethical, creative adults (my paraphrase). Rudolf Steiner wanted education to help develop a “free human being.” Sagarin quotes a passage from “The Spiritual Ground of Education” and talks about how adolescents need freedom of their own intelligence and how without the assistance of adults, they may not only flounder or flail, but not survive. The ages between 12 and 16 are a “vulnerability gap” – named this by famed Master Waldorf teacher and author Betty Staley. This is the time to encourage freedom but ALSO responsibility.

Section 2 of “Growth” is “Growth and Learning in Three Easy Graphs!” “When you are very young, and most of your energy or life force is going into your physical growth, you don’t have as much energy available for intellectual growth. But, as your physical growth slows, you are increasingly capable of turning your mind to whatever you choose.” The last graph neatly shows how these areas intersect. While sometimes Waldorf students are seen as “behind” in the early years or early grades due to beginning academics around age 7, they typically catch up and surpass their peers around fourth grade and accelerate their learning in adolescence, where it should be accelerated. This puts the emphasis, in my opinion, upon the health of the whole child.

What did you think about this section?

Blessings,

Carrie