Simplicity Parenting: Step 1

This is the first of four articles on what I took away from the Waldorf conference on simplicity parenting, featuring Kim John Payne as keynote speaker.

Having known for years that clutter was anti-productive and not the best environment for learning and growing, I thought I had the basic concept pretty much understood and applied. You can walk on all of the floors in our house, the nature table is kept sacred (that means I throw anything on the floor you might dare to set on it) and things are cleaned and dusted.

What Payne had to say about simplifying took it all to a new level, one that I love, having adopted it in the past week. He is the author of a study on children with ADD and ADHD in Waldorf schools. His method: paring down four things, beginning with environment, have turned around the lives of many, many children, without drugs. All children, even those from caring, loving homes with pretty wooden toys, feel overwhelmed by too much stuff, they all share a basic need for stability and strength through order. And as I listened, I felt very drawn toward this down-sized version of my over-filled house. 

In practice, this is what Payne did; he would come into a home for a day-long consultation, bringing with him  his tools of the trade: a bunch of garbage bags. In each instance, including in beautiful Waldorf classrooms, he worked with parents to remove half of the toys and books. He then removed half again of the toys and books. First step completed. An orderly, uncluttered environment, with less toys and books means that children will actually be able and forced to play with what is left. If sticks and acorns are all that is left, that will open up their imagination to create with these. Another Steiner observation that Payne reminded us of: a child, up to the age of 8 or 9, can be told the same story, day after day, for a month. The children will not be bored with it, they will have time to really discover all of the ways in which it can speak to them, but you will develop your own will and patience in reading it to them. (This is where a bit of Elizabeth Zimmerman wisdom comes in. She advised learning to knit with your eyes shut. Her reasoning; so that we are able to read and knit at the same time, especially the same book our kids want to hear over and over... and over.) Back to the reason he mentions this; a bookshelf with a few, well-chosen books on it is worth more than a roomful of them, so overwhelming that a kid will tell you "there's nothing to do/read/etc. in here."

In our house, I began with my own space, so that I was not imposing upon my children what I was not willing to do myself. I cleaned out my closet. I have a walk-in closet that I could no longer walk into. I cleared out seven or eight bags of things I should have given away years ago. Many of them are baby or toddler clothes I had stored on my closet floor, many more are items I have not worn for a long time or should no longer wear, due to size or age.I can now enter an organized, peaceful feeling closet and find both clothes and yarn stash. I think I might move my meditation practice to my closet, just don't tell the kids.

I next approached the school/playroom. I tossed many unused/broken toys and took the rest to the basement storage space. I left the play kitchen, the silks and a box of K'nex the boys had been building with over the weekend. I asked Puck Monday morning whether he wanted to keep the kitchen in the playroom, he said no, he liked the space (he is three), so I put that in the basement too.  How nicely they played all week! A couple of toy cars they found somewhere and the K'nex took up all of their time, along with playing soldiers outside and jumping on the trampoline. I always think that they need options and outlets for creativity, thus having more around will provide them with more opportunities. The outlets are in their heads and hearts, and as for options, well, kids need less of those than we think they do. I did not fare so well with the books, but I was able to take out three bags to be donated to the library. I'll work more on it this week, most likely I will put them in a box somewhere until I can give them away, or I will rotate them. Books are harder for me. Result: we love our playroom uncluttered! It is a peaceful place to be, with room to explore and play and dream.

Next in the environment step is food. The low-down on this step is eating real food, without the added clutter of preservatives and hormones and taste-enhancing ingredients (BHT, BHQ, MSG, etc.) Cultivating in our children a taste for the healthy begins with drinking water and proceeds from there. One ultra-freeing idea that our family has adopted this week is to have a permanent menu. This allows for such greater ease of weekly menu-making and discipline that I can't believe we did not do it before now. What it means: every single Sunday we eat x for lunch and y for dinner, every single Monday: same scenario. What it translates to: if fish is on the menu for Friday night, you know it is coming. If you love fish, you can dream of it all week. If you do not like fish, you know it is coming, rain or shine. Conflict resolution is good for kids, Payne reminds us, and in his words; "they can stress about it for days before and prepare for...hunger." As a colleague of his pointed out; not a lot of kids actually die from hunger in the United States.

The "how to" of our menu: we decided to keep this menu for 2 months, and then switch, as we have plenty of favorite dishes and some of them go with each season.  The next menu will be a summer one of veggies and meat on the grill, gratin portugais, cold soups and big rice, black bean and couscous salads. We will keep it for 3 or 4 months. As many of the dishes that I can make in advance, I am making once a month. This month I was able to make 4 batches of  hamburgers (Monday), Italian sausage soup (Wednesday), and lasagna (Thursday). They are all neat and tidy in my freezer, so on those busy days of the week, there is no excuse for not sticking to the menu.

So tell me if you are inspired to take the simplicity challenge and why, we'll compare results next week. For more inspiration, see Kim John Payne's website:

http://www.simplicityparenting.com/

A Waldorf Conference: Inspiration and a Grand Time

Isn't Grand a great word? When was the last time you heard it? I'll bet the person was either over seventy or using it to describe their car, as in Pontiac Grand Am, in which case they were probably under twenty-five.

But Grand is exactly how this weekend turned out to be. Accompanied by my co-pilot (of the non-driving but highly entertaining sort), Aragorn, 12, we set out for Viroqua, Wisconsin, at 4:30am, Saturday morning. Destination: a conference on Simplicity Parenting. What attracted me to register was that it was a Waldorf conference. I was looking forward to my painting workshop in the afternoon, but the whole simplicity thing  seemed sort of old hat. Oh well, maybe a Waldorf approach to simplicity would hold new treasures. How little I knew!

We stopped for gas and caffeine and Aragorn talked me into sharing one of those energy colas that I now know taste like sweetened recycled pee with bubbles. Luckily, I also had a thermos of tea and some good chocolate on hand. We took one wrong turn and ended up 20 miles from Madison before I knew what hit me, that is an hour out of the way.

Why drive four hours (OK, five and a half) to spend a weekend in lectures and workshops? As a parent and educator of my children, the spirit and intellect need some renewing and fresh air once in awhile. Inner work is the term for this in Steiner language, becoming a better person, thus a better mother and better teacher through a conscious effort to do so is the idea. Besides, I am really bad at painting and always hoping for a miracle break-though each time I try.

The guest speaker was Kim John Payne, author of "Simplicity Parenting." His lovely Australian accent made him a joy to listen to, and he was a good speaker. (Accents make me go weak in the knee anyway.) He  had so much to offer in information, statistics and practical advice. This Waldorf crowd should have had it all figured out, we knew not too surround our kids with too much junk, overschedule them or let them sit in front of the tv. Sitting there, though, I realized that modern life had unfurled its insidious tiny leaves into the clean lines we had set out for our family's life together. Like a noxious, viney weed, the moment your concentration is  focused elsewhere, the moment you begin to listen to the "shoulds" and "musts" of society, it enters your life and fills the spaces you had reserved but forgot to safeguard. More on each topic will follow in further posts, it would fill pages! For simplicity's sake I will offer my insights on his counsel in tidbits rather than the huge post I've been trying to write all week. I am learning...all the time.

Here is a link to an article on his organization's blog: 
http://www.simplicityparenting.com/2011/03/knowing-when-to-slow-down/