You accuse me of sheltering my kids like it is a bad thing.

For 9 months they were part of my body.  For another year+ they needed to be within arms reach for both nourishment and mobility.

They will walk out on their own into the world around the age of 18. But there is a a huge transition for them to go through between being a toddler and being an adult.

This transition is made possible through sheltering  

It is a parent’s job and responsibility to help kids grow, learn about the world, and feel the pain of the world at a rate that they can handle and will benefit them.  This is sheltering and I fully intend on continuing. Read the rest of this entry →

This is the second post I have written about Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids.  The first post I wrote about the deep thoughts, discussion, and changes we made after reading the first two pages.  This post is based on a bit farther into the book.  About page 50 I believe it starts talking about…

Soul Fever

Since I had to take the book back to the library, I don’t have it on hand to give references or share some of the great quotes I found, but I wanted to share with you the idea and how we are trying to use it.

Soul fever is basically when kids get emotionally ‘sick’.  He used the comparison with a physical fever because of the similarity.

Causes of Soul Fever

Physical fever come from over-activity, not enough rest, and exposure to sickness.  Soul fever can be caused from over-activity, not enough rest, and exposure to stress.  Too much stimulation and an inability to process or handle it.

What the author found was that kids in first world countries were exhibiting similar symptoms as kids who have gone through very traumatic situations (natural disasters or war) from a constant level of stress building up.  Soul fever is when this constant stress tips over the top and starts being displayed.

Symptoms

Just like a fever, cough, runny nose, etc for physical sickness, kids with emotional ‘flu’s’ or soul fever start displaying symptoms.  Just like each kid and germ creates different physical sicknesses, the symptoms for each kid with soul fever are different, but as a parent, we know something is up.  They can be withdrawn, or hyperactive. They can be demanding or refuse everything. They can be destructive or controlling… the list goes on.  Basically, what the author talked about is that we all have personality quirks, but it is stress that makes them really stick out.

As a parent, sometimes it is hard to put our finger on physical or emotional sickness symptoms, we just can tell something is up.

Treatment

With physical sickness we put our kids to bed, cancel all activities, make them special food, cuddle and read books etc.  The treatment for soul fever needs to be the same.  Kids need to rest emotionally and heal/process.  They need to have some really quiet days with little activity, lots of attention and maybe even hot soup.

This is where our society has a disconnect.  Most parents (hopefully all parents) can tell when their kid has soul fever and is emotionally stressed beyond the processing point.  They know something is up, they can tell something is different.  But it is at this point that they either don’t know what to do, or they don’t want to slow down.  Cancelling activities and staying home from school is a requirement for kids with physical fevers, but stressed out kids can be pulled around everywhere with promises, threats, treats, or other parenting tools until they have a really serious soul ‘fever’.

This is why a simple life for kids is so important.  I do lots of things so that my kids can stay physically healthy and not get sick.  A simple bubble around my kids and their life helps guard against this kind of emotional sick.  Just like age is no barrier for physical sickness… it isn’t for soul fever either.

What I have loved about home school is that it is much easier to pull back and take a break.  Whenever either kids hits a new concept that doesn’t come easily they take breaks and go lay down for 10 or 15 minutes.  At first, I didn’t give them a choice.  It wasn’t a punishment, it was just a rest if they were struggling and we weren’t getting anywhere.  Now, they do it willingly, because they feel much better after a few minutes of quiet.

As adults we understand this.  If we are in a stressful situation we need to pull out and have a few moments of quiet alone time to process.

So on this note, Lily especially has been struggling with a new concept in math the past few weeks.  She can do it, and understands it, but it is mental exercises to get all the way through it and it has been stressful for her.  I decided to take the whole week of Thanksgiving off.  We haven’t had a day off school yet this year and the school system has had several already.  I have done a few shortened or field trip days, but this week was just off.  Nothing planned, no field trips, just sitting home doing nothing.

This was also because the book talked about the need for kids to have more unscheduled time.  Scheduled time needs to be structured for the comfort of routine, but kids need lots of unstructured time where they can just play and learn to play.  They need to learn how to play on their own and come up with their own entertainment because that is where they develop their creativity and imagination.

What happened?

Well, Lily loved it.  She read, colored, played Barbies as well as many other games she came up with on her own or played with me.

Ian, still needs some practice on this.  With nothing to do, he becomes a terror.  This is probably because he is the second child and hasn’t had much practice playing alone.  By the second and third day he was doing a bit better.  It was this week that he first chose a book (by himself) from the library, decided to read it to me (by himself) and read the whole thing (except 1 word) all by himself.  It was Dr. Seuss ‘Green Eggs and Ham’.  Easy words, but they aren’t short books.  I am so excited!  Sure, he has been reading for a few months and we have been practicing, but it was this week that he (several times) has chosen to read for fun.  He also woke up Thursday morning and over breakfast decided to count to 100 for daddy.  I was speechless.  We haven’t done numbers past about 40 with his math yet.  He went from 1-100 straight with no trouble.   Was it our quiet week that helped with these two things?  Who knows.  Might have just been timing.  Either way, taking the time off sure didn’t slow them down much.

I struggle with ‘Tiger Mom’ tendencies with my kids, especially with home school.  I believe they can do much more than the school system would dish out and it has been proven because Lily (and now Ian) are working ahead of their age.   With my learning and trying to practice more simplicity I have been bringing more and more simplicity into my kids life with home schooling as well as many other areas.  It is a balance, but I am happy with where we are going and what we are learning.

I’ve got more pictures from the Omaha Childrens Museum for the post today.

I started reading Simplicity Parenting last weekend (off my November reading list) and was pulled in with the first page.  There is no way I can give away everything in the the book, I recommend reading it, and would love discussing it together, but I wanted to share with you what has come of my beginning the book.

Disclaimer or note: I am not writing any of this to say that I am a good parent, I struggle with it.  It is hard to come out and admit struggles, especially with something as close to home as parenting, but I hope with my sharing my experiences it can help others who are also struggling.

I came out of our room after reading the first few pages and said to my hubby “this has to change our parenting”.  We have done a lot in the last year to simplify our lives and our family life already.  I believe that the simplicity of schedule, of belongings, and of home schooling instead of the the sensory overload and social pressure of school all make a big difference with my children.

But, I knew/know it wasn’t helping as much as it could.  My daughter still struggles, less now, but went through a bad week last week.  She struggles with refusing to eat/being extremely picky, and goes through times when she can’t focus on school at all.  At the age of 7 I can’t tell if it is intentional or not, but it seems more unintentional.   It is so hard for me, because in her struggles, I see or feel my parenting fail, I want to do all I can to help her.  When I ask or look for help, I feel like it is admitting that the fact that I am doing everything I can for her and spending nights awake stressing about it, and it still isn’t helping.  There is no one parenting manual, there is more parenting theories out there than there is people on the earth and every child is different.

This is the only pic I caught of her ‘shopping’.  She was moving so fast.

What I found in the first few pages of this book were stories of kids that struggled like Lily.  I would love to tell you that everything is much better after finding the right ‘pill’ overnight, but it isn’t like that.  What I wanted to share with you today is what I learned in these first few pages and what we are trying to do differently because of it.

What I learned (though not rocket science) is that kids are way over stressed and struggling and really need a simpler life.  What the author was pointing out and discovering was that kids in our first world societies were acting and showing signs of ‘Post Tramatic Stress Disorder’ PTSD that are usually associated with very large wartime events or life-changing traumas.  He discovered, in research all over the world, that the same type of disorder was being caused by little and constant stresses that built up.

Just like every kid in a refuge camp is going to process and have different issues, so children in our society all react differently to the intense pressure that is now on them.  The truth is that they are being affected by the huge increase of stress.

Just think, even 50 years ago (maybe less) most kids didn’t have

• daycare at 6 weeks of age,
• rooms so full of toys that there is only small pathways
• start school at the age of 3 (if they already weren’t in daycare)
• multiple extra curricular activities
• tv’s, phones and computers in their bedrooms (even as teenagers)

Ian got caught running by.

This is a mass of stuff and stimulation to take in and process.  It seems like each year grows more crazy with advertising to kids, must-have toys, and new ‘necessary-for-learning’ extra curricular activities.  I am an adult and learning I cannot handle all the information and choices put in front of me, so I can only imagine how crazy it is for kids.

We have cut out most of this stuff, but what the author started talking about was the mass of information and the adult world that kid were being exposed too.  I had never thought of that.  Neither of us are kid people so we have never been great with kid things.  We have been functioning in an adult world and bring our kids with us.

First of we never fight in front of the kids, that should be a given.  We never stress about not having enough money or get upset in front of them.  That said, they are still getting lots of adult world through us.

1. We talk work, lots of work, in front of them.  Being self-employed, work is a big thing, it is a constant problem to solve.  Reading this book it made sence that the kids could be stressed by hearing all that.  I want them to learn all about business and the excitement of creating a business and the joy of figuring it out.  It is (typically) good stress to me, but they might not be able to handle it.
2. We have moved around lots in our life.  That, by itself I don’t think is that bad, but all our discussions of moving and where and how have been around or even involved the kids.  I want them to feel a part of the family and of the decisions, but reading this it makes perfect sense that they probably aren’t ready to process that and those kinds of decisions.
3. It specifically talked about the environment and how that was a problem that was more than kids could handle.  I had never thought of it that way.  I have done a bunch with my kids teaching them about the importance of taking care of the earth.  I don’t harp on the fact that it might just blow up and be gone or they might run out of water in 20 years or anything, but that stuff is in there even if it isn’t specifically designed as a scare tactic.  The environment is a huge problem, as an adult, I don’t know what to do about it.  As a kid it is a way bigger issue than they can fix or process.  For example, I love the ‘story of stuff’ movies, but watching the movies (especially the one about beauty products) has made my daughter toxin phobic.  The world is full of all kinds of issues, and toxins are a big problem… but I don’t want my 7 year old to be loosing sleep over which shampoo she uses.
4. I have tried to educate my kids on the struggles that so many people have with not enough food and water because I want them to grow up to want to help.  It has created very compassionate kids, Lily prays for the people who don’t have enough food every night.  It is good that she wants to help, but it is a problem that she can’t solve or even wrap her mind around.  It is a stressor.
5. I have always tried to tread lightly on the issue of physical health and appearance, but this is another stressor that kids pick up on that creates all kinds of lasting issues.  I was grateful to learn that sleeping and eating were places of control that came out most often when kids were stressed and it wasn’t somehow an eating disorder.

This was a bubble show.  Ian was the lucky one to get picked to go inside a bubble.  He was so excited!

I sat there, with only the first few pages read staring in the face the mountain of well-meaning stress I had allowed my kids (specifically my daughter) to deal with in these last few years.  I want my kids to grow up well-informed and globally responsible, but maybe my kids can’t handle that, maybe no kids can handle that…. sure would make sense, as an adult, I can’t handle it.

So, this week hubby and I have been trying very hard to remove these stressors from the kids view.  It is hard not to talk about adult things (work, people, politics, money, etc) when the kids are awake, but creating a world where they don’t have to process or deal with any of it quite yet sounds wonderful.

He has such a focused look

Kids still need to be eased into all this stuff and I am not sure how to handle all that.  Probably kids are very different.  As an adult I can’t watch the news and read very little on global problems because I find it drains me.   I know and care deeply about the problems and do what I can to live responsibly, I believe knowledge to that point is good (and everyone getting to that point may need different amounts of information).  My kids could easily take after me and have a low threshold for handling this stuff before being overwhelmed.  ….. so how to handle this I haven’t figured out.  What I am going to try and do for now is take it out of their view and environment as much as I can at this age.

Parenting is huge to me. I stress about it a lot. My first priority needs to be my relationship with God, but my second is to my family and my kids (taking care of myself is necessary for both of these relationships). I am glad I have made the choice to spend more time with my kids, but I still screw up all the time and feel terrible about it. I stress and stay awake at night trying to figure it out. Parenting is not easy, especially when each kid and each parent is so different. The crazy thing is that with parenting you don’t know if you have been successful until much later… or to late. So my perfectionist, over thinking personality spends lots of time on this issue.

I have read part of Parenting with Love and Logic before but wanted to go through it in it’s entirety. I got the book on tape and was able to listen to it while I was in the car for over 7 hours yesterday. There was a lot, especially at the beginning I really enjoyed, but as the book went on I discovered 2 major themes in their theory that I, in my parenting, am working very hard against.

I think their stuff is good verbal manipulation for co-habiting with children until they can be sent off on their own. This, to me, isn’t parenting. Some days the focus is only on survival, but there is so much more I believe parenting can be. The 2 things that bug me are:

1. Choice: I feel I have been given my kids so that I can train them. I believe they should have some choices but this theory seems go to far on this. It isn’t a control freak to say that I am the parent, and I know what is best. I read ‘Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom’ of few months ago. I don’t agree with everything in the book, (I don’t know if the author would have done things the same way the second time, it isn’t a parenting book, but an honest diary of their journey) but I am much closer to this lady’s philosophy than ‘love and logic’.

For example, it says for homework you can require your child to sit at the table with their books for 2 hours but you can’t make them study, that is their choice. That isn’t the way it works at our house, you sit at the table with your books till your done and it is done right. It is far easier for a parent to just control location but kids don’t know how to choose what is right all the time. Sometime they need the tough love that takes time and energy from the parents to make the right choice.

Living civil with others, learning/schooling what they are able, as well as taking care of their body, things and space is not something that is up for discussion. I don’t use fancy words to try and convince my kids to make the right choice I tell them what the right choice is and let them get used to making it as they grow up. Kids used to not fighting, studying hard, showering and living in a clean room will have the habit and will be uncomfortable in a different setting later. My theory. I don’t think a parent needs (or should) control every action of their kids but parents are the ones to set the standards. For example: where they want to keep things in their room, shower or bath, study in room or dinning room. My kids won’t have the option below the standards that are set. Love and logic says it is the kids problem if they get bad grades or don’t get along with others. I disagree, I am still the parent, it is still my problem. Not to solve myself, but to teach my child how to solve and insure they follow through and do.

2. Problem ownership: The love and logic theory is big on making the child’s problem belong to the child. Touched on a bit in the previous paragraph I would add that I think this hurts the family unit and is unbiblical. God created the family unit as well as the church unit/body. Apart from the obvious differences (mostly noted above) between parenting children and being a church member I think they are quite similar, we were made to need each other. ‘No man is an island’ is something everyone realizes no matter what their background. The family unit has enough trying to tear it apart. What is wrong with needing and depending on each other? The bible says about the church in 1 Cor 12 that it is a unit, functioning together and needing each other. Specifically in 1Cor 12:26 it says that if one member suffers, all the members suffer.

Love and logic says that we need to give our kids problems back to them to figure out. Childhood, teenage years, adulthood, just live in general is hard, we all screw up and we all need each other. It seems some people are so terrified their kids are going to be deadbeats living in their basement at 35 playing video games that they separate themselves from them and make sure there are these strong lines dividing ‘my problems’ and ‘your problems’.

Never should a kid just have everything fixed for them but what if the family worked together through all the problems. The argument with ‘Love and Logic’ is the important learning experience for teaching responsibility. Do these same parents want their kids to say “Sorry Mom and/or Dad, sucks to be retired with tones of medical expenses and not enough money. I sure don’t like it when I run out of money. Let me know how it turns out.”

I am also reading ‘The New Good Life’ and, though it isn’t a parenting book, their family dynamics jumped out at me. The author and his wife have lived on practically nothing all their lives and when their twin grandkids were born with lots of complications that had lasting effects they fully planned to use their money to help their kids raise their grandkids. They were living together to share the work of the kids. Then when all the money was stolen all 4 adults pulled together and did all they could to save the house and take care of the kids. I want my family to be like this. I want my family to be a team from now until… forever. I have friends with families like this. Parents and grown kids who are close and do everything they can to help each other. No one trying to take advantage and no one afraid they are being taken advantage of. ‘When one member suffers all the members suffer with it’ Problems in the family belong to the whole family, not just the kids (like ‘Love and Logic’) and not just the parents (like a controlling, enabling parent)

Like I said, there was lots of parts that I agreed with and lots of stuff I liked, but these two underlying themes I think are both issues that are contributing to the problems with our society. High expectations and a tight family team would make such a difference for the better.