Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Simplicity Parenting
Have you ever walked in to your own home, or the home of a friend, and are literally tripping over toys, puzzles, games, art supplies only to find screaming kids chasing each other in the living room, ignoring the thousands of dollars worth of toys available to them? I certainly have. I have also consciously weeded out plastic, battery operated toys from my home a few at a time, replacing the plastic drum with a set of real bongos, replacing the exercaucer with a clothesline lined with play silks for the baby to crawl through and enjoy the sensation of wind and silk on his face.
By the same token, I have also been the mother that worked 60 hours a week, struggled to keep on top of the routine, was exhausted and out of sync with my own rhythm.
Not unlike Richard Louv's 'Last Child in the Woods', Simplicity Parenting is a great manual for parents of older toddlers and pre-schoolers when things feel like they've gone awry. Based on the principles of Waldorf education, this book is a great read for anyone who is overwhelmed as a parent, has a very willful child, or a child that appears to be reacting to stress, over scheduling, or overwhelmedness at not being able to relax in their own bedrooms as a result of the amount of STUFF residing there (don't laugh, I have seen children's bedrooms so full of toys that the child literally COULD NOT sleep in their bed).
I read this book easily over the Thanksgiving weekend, enjoying it by the fire and being reaffirmed by a lot of my parenting choices, but it also did remind me to be mindful of where toys live in the house, the quality (and QUANTITY) of playthings, and to be mindful of not running such a tight schedule that my children had no time just to play in the backyard and make acorn soup!
For anyone with a challenging child, there is a lot of practical advice on how to set an appropriate physical environment to help with the child's "decompression" and relaxation. As an aside, it amazes me how many parenting books are warning about over stressing our CHILDREN. OVER STRESSING OUR CHILDREN, how can this be? We've really gotten off track with our lives as a whole, it seems.
Once the physical environment is "fixed", the tips move on to routine suggestions, exercises you can do together, and case studies of the author's former clients. It's an intriguing read, and it certainly led to some purging of a few of the plastic toys we had left, and some inspiration on where to go from here.
Recommended for parents of children age 2 and up (although you could easily read it beforehand to "pre-empt" some of these hot spots), and information I found very helpful for my 3 and 5 year old!
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