Simplicity Parenting: Step 4: Discipline

Simplicity Parenting: Step 4: Discipline

This, says Kim John Payne, of "Simplicity Parenting" is the hardest of the four steps. (Yeah, well he clearly does not have the book problem we have in our house). In my own little nutshell (please don't go there, it is early on a Saturday morning), this is what it comes down to: simplifying our message and being mindful of our true intentions.

He begins with an example: interrupting, or how to stop a child from interrupting when an adult is speaking to someone else in three easy steps. Payne explains how to do this, beginning with continuing to speak to the first person for increasing increments of time; 3 seconds, 10 seconds, 45 seconds, 2 minutes...until the child has understood two things: 1) Any request submitted when interrupting has one answer: no, 2) When you turn to them, after they wait patiently, they will have your undivided attention, which is their ultimate goal anyway, from the time they wake up in the morning until they close their big ol' eyes each night. Why do they interrupt in the first place, when they know they may receive an impatient reaction from a parent? Because they will get some attention, even for 3 seconds, and as that will fulfill their need for attention, they will do anything to get it, and take what we give.

It comes down to quality, like fine wine. (No, don't give the wine to the kid, drink it while you are learning the technique). You might think you like wine while drinking Goone's Farm, and you may not like the taste of the good stuff right away, but if you give yourself time and small sips for long enough  there will be no going back. You will grow to appreciate the taste of something better, your life will be enriched. The same goes for chocolate, in case wine is not your cup of tea. For children it is the same, when they realize that they will be given your full, undivided attention, they will be willing to wait for the quality time, with your full attention as the prize.

Next up: the number of requests we make of our children each day. He asks of families that he works with; "how many requests do you make of your child each day?" "Oh, 12 or so." And he answers: "try 237." "No!" "Yes." We make too many requests of our children, so many that they end up not taking us seriously and not responding. (Steiner was a proponent of not talking too much in the presence of children. Keep things simple, keep the wonder alive by not interrupting their space with  too many words.)  Payne's solution; halve the number of requests we make of a child, then halve it again. You must be willing to embody your request, to become it to the point that you mean it and they know you mean it. In Payne's words: "It must be like God saying to Adam; 'PICK UP THAT PENCIL.'" You must be prepared to live with the consequences of your words as well. If you say "no outings for a week", are you ready to stay home for a week? When our demands, like our expectations, are real, mindful and necessary, they will be taken as such by our children. 

My old solution of randomly giving out "no screen time for a week," "no allowance", which, I will admit to sometimes giving in on, has been changed to a more doable one with real intention behind it, and with real benefits for all concerned. For example, for sibling out-of-control fighting, instead of me taking sides, which will always be unfair for someone, the two involved are sentenced to doing chores and/or spending time together for a certain amount of time, we begin with one full day. Funny how, with me as the bad guy, they end up creating a great bond between them. I sometimes add extra chores; chopping wood for the older ones, playing a game with one of their younger siblings for the middle ones.

See? It really is very simple, all of this. The first person to simplify, always comes back to oneself. Quiet your thoughts, think through what it is you hope to accomplish, if not in life, then at least at this very moment. Ask if this is really what you want. Ask if it is really, truly necessary, then proceed to ask it of your child, and do it like you mean it.

Adults Have ADD too, We Call it "Multitasking"

Quote from Kim John Payne's lecture on Simplicity Parenting. That would explain why I have not yet announced the winner of the diaper cover from Motherease (I will do so tomorrow), but that is not the reason I have not posted anything interesting this week. I have, in fact, been concentrating my efforts on two things. The first is the sweater I have finished knitting for Pierre and have been working on all the little finishing touches; (grafting the armpits, stitching and steeking (which means to slice through my beautiful stitches, right down the middle of the sweater in order to form a cardigan, it was the first time and it took me about three weeks to actually pick up the scissors, weaving in a million ends, making the skull patch that will adorn the left shoulder, and putting in the zipper, my least favorite and very last step. Second, but not in priority, of course, (really!) my children and their schooling, we've had a wonderful week of chemistry, time outside, stories from the Grimm Brothers, measuring and planning for a building project and drawing together.

The reason you have not seen any other posts...is a mystery. The photo I posted yesterday or the day before DID show up when I hit "view blog" the first day. Last night I realized that it had disappeared, like the others on Monday. Luckily the kids were in bed, because I had a few choice words that I would otherwise have been forced to keep all bottled up inside..."breathing in, I calm my body..." (Thich Nhat Hahn).

Next up: the last bastion in the four-step process of simplifying parenting: discipline.

Simplicity Parenting: Step 2: Schedules

Pronounced by Mr.Payne as "sheh-dules", of course, like Colin Firth or Hugh Grant...a-hem, back to business. Changing this aspect involves   s l o w i n g      d o w n,   less time that is tied up in scheduled activities. More time to be a child, to eat as a family, to dream and to sleep.

When we first moved to this country with two small children, I was blown away at the schedules of a very sympathetic family I met at the hotel. We met, but we hardly ever had time to talk, because this mother of four was so busy driving her children to all of their activities, even though they were in the midst of moving to another part of the country. The youngest, at 4 years of age, was "supposed to" be at karate four times a week, but he usually only made it three times. What was surprising to discover was that this had become the norm here, everyone sighed and bemoaned their busyness, but it was expected once you had children. True, my own 4 year old was in her second year of school in France before we moved, but I had kept it to half-days (against all that was considered normal there) and we never went out again after we were home for the evening.  No one did. Evenings are times for dinner with your family and bed in many places.

It's funny how time and habit can change one's perceptions. Once my daughter began kindergarten, the notes home about "opportunities" for sports and outings and "fun" events at school came every week. "Come play in the bouncy house on Friday night when you are not in class or doing homework, fun? Hmmm.) School started at 8am, yet school skate parties were scheduled during the week from 6-8, to make it convenient for parents who worked. What about making it healthy for children? Soccer was offered on Saturday mornings, that was our traditional time to go to the market and muck around the house. Lily was not interested in soccer, but she was soon signed up for a ballet class on Saturday because I had always wanted to take ballet and was thrilled I could offer my child this great "opportunity." When did children or adults get to do any mucking around? You know; no agenda, maybe take a walk, work in the garden, go on a picnic? During the week there was school, after school we studied French, made dinner, gave baths and got to bed by 7 so that we could wake up early enough to be at school by 8. I hated it. The following year, though we were homeschooling by then, saw an acceleration in the activity level. Lily began ballet class in the evening. She was accepted into the TAG program, which meant we paid an inordinate amount of money per month, but she could go to class four times a week, some of those nights were from 5-9! As she never went more than twice a week, the worry became more about how much money we were spending and not "taking advantage" of the class time, but I had another baby and toddler at home and was not willing to go out after bedtime any more often than that. I wanted a regular rhythm, a "normal" from my childhood family life, where things happened at the expected time each day.

Balance is what Payne says we are to aim for. He asks families to take a look at their calenders and label each day with an "A" or a "C" for active or calm. His proposal makes sense; when you have one active day, try to sandwich it between two calm days in order to offset the stress of the active one.  This is just not going to be popular with some of my friends or readers, so please understand that I am making no judgments or criticizing choices made by anyone else. I am taking the defense of healthy childhood, and what works for some families may not work for others, but here are Payne's recommendations. He offers the idea, and the results he has seen as proof, that taking three or four days a week when there are no organized outings or activities, no after-care, no classes, no sports, can be wonderfully calming and healing to a child's spirit. Children are being barraged with too much activity, too much busyness going on around them, and to grow and thrive they require a regular rhythm and regular down time. Down time, by the way, is not screen time...but that, my friends, is another post!

When you sign up for the Simplicity Parenting starter kit at their website, you are sent a link to a very good podcast on this subject. "Stemming the deluge of childhood overdrive," is how Payne puts it. Here is the link again to his website: simplicityparenting.com

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/