Hi, happy New Year! It's 2013,
welcome back to a new episode of "Sunday with Sarah." I hope that your holidays
were wonderful, filled with joy and laughter. I know I had a really restful
time the last of couple weeks: a lot of family time,
time for renewal. But I'm really glad it's a new day of the week, a new year
and so happy to be back with you. When I launched this video series,
I invited all of you to leave your comments and leave suggestions for
topics for me to talk about.
I've gone through all those comments and I'm really looking forward to addressing all
of them in time. One common theme that kept coming up, there were questions
about life at home with young children, and they seemed related.
Here's one of them: Tahirih — I'm sorry, I'm probably mispronouncing your
name, correct me if I'm wrong — but she wrote "Hi Sarah, I really enjoyed reading your blog.
I would love to learn more about the mindset which we as mothers can approach our
daily work with our little ones around us. Any comments about weekly rhythm for
preschoolers is always appreciated."
So I thought that was a great topic. The topic of rhythm is one that applies
to many of these questions
so we're going to talk a little bit about rhythm.
First of all, we as human beings are rhythmic creatures.
If you think about it there's the rhythm of our bodies, we have a heartbeat
that starts soon after conception and beats a steady rhythm that stays with us
always
for our entire lives until we die. There's the rhythm of our pulse, and the rhythm
of our breath and as human beings we are deeply affected by the rhythm of nature
all around us.
The moon has a strong rhythm,
a cyclical nature that actually affects women's bodies, reflecting the menstrual
cycle.
It affects the tides. The yearly journey of the earth around the sun is what
creates seasons and we feel
seasonal rhythms. For example, this time of year in the northern hemisphere, when the
days are colder and the nights are longer, we feel a need to go inward
to hibernate. We might feel the need to eat more comfort foods. And then as the days
lengthen and get warmer and the sun returns, we feel more inclined to be outdoors
more, to be more active.
We may feel more social. Waldorf teachers refer to these periods of "in breath" in the
winter and then "out breath" in the summer. Children are especially sensitive to
rhythm and cyclical changes and the more we are aware of this,
as parents and teachers,
the more we can really help them and believe me when I tell you that rhythm
is your friend.
If you're a parent or a teacher working with young children, the more rhythmic the
day is, the easier your days will be. So how do we create more rhythm in our
days?
First think about a young child who can't tell time or read a calendar.
When life is unpredictable and they don't know what to expect
it can be stressful and unnerving for them. It can become anxious.
So here's just an example: a child is busily, happily playing at home and
suddenly Mom says "Oh come on, honey,
we've got to go. Mommy has to be at the DMV and I need to get my license renewed.
Get your coat on."
Well a child in that situation
first of all might feel like her play has been disrupted and might feel upset by
that.
And DMV, what is that?
I've never been there
before, where are we going?
What's going to happen there? That could be anxiety provoking and it
could result in a temper tantrum.
We'll get back to that example in a moment but let's talk about a
rhythmic day, what does a rhythmic day look like? The more you can plan
ahead and schedule all the regular things that happen
each time of day — for instance waking up, what time we get up, making
beds,
getting dressed, then we eat breakfast, then depending on the age of your child
either it's time to go to school or it's play time or if you're a homeschooler it's time to start
learning, there's snack time, there's lunch time, nap time, time to prepare for dinner,
dinner time, cleanup time, might be followed by
bath time and story time, and bed time —
the more we can plan ahead and decide what happens when and what is followed by
which activity,
the more predictable life becomes for a young child, the more secure
they feel, the more confident they feel because they know what happens next
and they can relax. There's also a rhythm to the week.
So what would a weekly rhythm look like? It might mean that Monday's grocery
shopping day, Tuesday we go to the library,
Wednesday is laundry day, Thursday we go to the park, Friday is house cleaning day,
you get the idea.
Likewise you can also plan meals, you can have a weekly rhythm to meal
times. This not only benefits your children,
you can also make meal planning and grocery shopping a lot easier. For an
example, in my Waldorf kindergarten classroom we served lunch and on Monday we
had rice and carrots and boiled eggs, on Tuesday it was vegetable soup day, we called
it Stone Soup and
each child would bring a vegetable to help chop and add to the soup and that became
our activity for the day and our meal.
Wednesday was millet porridge day, Thursday we baked bread, that was our
activity of the day. The children in the morning would help make the bread dough
and knead to form into rolls. We'd bake it and that would be our lunch for the day.
We'd have it with cheese and apples. And Friday was oatmeal day,
oatmeal porridge with yogurt. You can do the same sort of things for breakfast,
lunch and dinner or start with just one meal time a day. When you think again
to the young child who has no concept of days of the week or telling time,
what does "Tuesday" mean? It's a word,
it's an abstract word that has no meaning for a child.
So because of the weekly rhythms in our classroom
the children would refer to Tuesday, say, as "soup day" and they knew that soup day
always followed rice day and next day would be millet day. So they had a very concrete
grasp of the concept of days of the week but
instead it was rest day or soup day or bread day,
something much more meaningful for a child.
Now when there's a strong, predictable rhythm to the day and the week and even
the seasons, children really have a great sense of
security and allows days to go more smoothly and they will be happier.
Some of the questions were also "How do I get work done around the house with
young children?"
Well rhythm also fits into this. If you have a weekly rhythm of laundry day or
house cleaning day, you can involve children in those activities.
Parents often forget how capable young children are. We are used to caring
for them when they're young, helpless babies and
we forget when they're not so helpless anymore.
A child as young as 3 or 4 can help set a table,
they can help sweep after dinner and they not only can do it, they love to do it.
They love to imitate the work of adults around them and it gives them a
feeling that adds to their sense of confidence and capability. You can give
them child-sized tools to help, I'm looking across the room and seeing our child-
sized broom that
we carry at Bella Luna Toys, and we have a dustpan and brush and little mops. When you give them
their own tools you can get your own work done because they work alongside of you.
You can help them prepare with meals, chopping vegetables, letting them
gather napkins
after dinner time. All of this can be part of your rhythm of the day and the
week and also will help you get done what
needs to be done. Now of course there will always be times when you have
these arrhythmic, unpredictable tasks that need to be done, like that trip to
the DMV to renew your license.
So going back to that, if you know you're going to have to do that tomorrow
you think ahead, look at your calendar instead of waiting until the morning of.
Let your child know ahead of time. So in that example if the mother had
said to her daughter the day before, "Tomorrow, when we would usually go to the
park we have to take a trip.
Mommy has to go visit an office, I need to renew my driver's license.
That means that i'll be allowed to keep driving my car. You're going to come
with me and I'm going to have my picture taken and I might have to fill out some
papers but it might mean a long wait
so we're going to bring some books and while we're waiting
we can read books together.
Then we'll come home in time to get ready for dinner."
Then you can remind the child again in the morning,
that's what's going to happen that day. When a child knows what to expect
and has been given warning and a picture of what's involved, she'll have a lot
less anxiety and won't feel so jarred and jolted out of her play and much, much less
likely to respond with a temper tantrum. There's much more that can be said
about rhythm but maybe in future weeks we'll talk more about it.
Probably in the future we'll talk about seasonal rhythms and the rhythm of the year. But in the
meantime, as always, please leave your comments here. Let me know,
are your days rhythmic? Have you sat down and planned a daily rhythm to
your days and weeks?
How's it working for you? If not, is it something you're striving toward? Do you
have tips to share with others?
What's working for you?
I always love hearing from you.
So I'll see you again next Sunday, have a very rhythmic week.