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Life throws us many curve balls. The specifics of the current situation aside, as adults, we come quickly to realize that our grand plans sometimes do not pan out as we originally intended. As a teenager, I already had deep respect for home life and motherhood. I desired to stay at home with my own children someday and planned accordingly as I moved through college and the beginnings of my career. When my first son was born, I quit teaching in a public school setting and moved into staying at home, but I almost immediately took up caring for other children and teaching yoga to afford the transition to one primary income. Then, just before our second son was born, it was accomplished. I became what I had always dreamed of– a “stay at home” mom.

In many ways I loved it. But, as destiny would have it, I became unsettled and began searching for something different in less than a year. Let me be very clear here, I did not say “searching for something more” because using this term undermines all that I value about home life and motherhood. I did not feel what I had was “not enough.” Yet, as much as I wanted the dream of staying at home to be for me, I knew in my heart that I needed, and was needed, for something different.

Fast forward nearly 10 years and I know exactly why those plans changed. You all know why those plans changed, too, as I have been here to care for and love your children. I bring this up, though, as an example of trusting the process. We don’t always know why our plans don’t work out, and those changes can lead to a gamut of emotions. It can be frustrating, bewildering, even infuriating. But trusting that there is a greater plan and reason has carried me along to where I am today, and created within me deep gratitude, confidence and sense of purpose.

It is not easy to participate in trusting the process of life, nor is it always easy to participate in being just where we are, but the two go hand-in-hand. I may not know or understand the greater “reason” why I am here, but I still infuse it with purpose when I wholly choose to be here now. And that has brought me richness and great joy.

This pandemic may not change your ultimate journey in terms of career choice, or it may. When this is “all over,” some of you may choose to try returning to the rhythms you had previously. Some of you may already be choosing to imagine how you could maintain being at home more often, through a four-day work week, or shorter hours. Some of you may have even discovered that you are choosing to stay at home in the coming years, and transition out of your career for a little while. The point is, you are free to do the choosing. And you can choose to be- really BE- where you are right now while we are all at home.

This is not an easy moment for any of us, but that does not mean it has to be unrewarding. We can push ourselves to trust this moment in the context of our lives. I have pushed myself to trust every uncomfortable and unsettled moment of my life through the last thirteen years of motherhood. As a reward, I have found the Good that was living in all of it. I wish this for all of you.

Butterfly Wand Craft

As I was searching for a tutorial for a butterfly craft, I happened upon the site of Natalie Trusler. It turns out that, years ago, she left a successful career to be at home with her five children. Now she teaches mothering arts and homemaking in addition to caring for them. She shares a lovely story about this on her website as well as an abundance of recipes, crafts and content. She provides a video tutorial for her butterfly wand craft that makes it easy for people at many skill levels. This wand will be a very sweet addition to your child’s collection of spring and summer toys.

In today’s blog we want to share a picture of how children might play with the same materials in different ways given their age and development. In LifeWays with its focus on life as curriculum, it helps to understand why the sandbox or folding washcloths or raking leaves (especially for big boys) are not only relevant, but often therapeutic. They are both highly practical and academic in its best definition. 

Sandbox Play

In the sand box, for instance, we see each age group playing somewhat- and often times- very differently with the same materials: digging tools, sand, the perimeter of the sandbox, each other, cups and sifters and bowls, trucks, planks, sticks and leaves. Our littlest ones pour from one container to another with great satisfaction and often play beside but not so much with another child (unless another child appropriates their cups and bowls). With the littlest children, the sandbox is a stable place in which to remain planted—no losing balance or negotiating uneven surfaces. And with such a cozy and sturdy posting, they can dig, feel the texture of the sand, and pour from container to container. Three and four-year-olds are moulding the sand into cakes, towers, platforms and have the beginnings of a narrative to inspirit their structures. In the next sandbox, our five and six year olds tell stories around the great tunnels and holes they have dug and across which they have made raised bridges. 

Even at nine or ten, sand play can grow in complexity and exist as a very satisfying game. My brother and I spent hours figuring out how to make a pond. We began by finding the right place to dig our hole with several false starts as we ran into objects meant to remain buried, or found that our would-be watering hole was too far from the hose to get the water we needed. We experimented with different materials to “plug up” the bottom of the pond: grass laid close together, grass into a mat, stones lining the entire construction the way it does at the river. We did not actually manage to make our pond waterproof, or to figure out how to make the water clear and fresh to support the tadpoles and fish we planned to put in it. At that point, it became a mud hole. Though this is good, too, as it provides clay for making sculptures or“quicksand” for dangerous adventures, and it still serves as a pond which one must cross without falling in. Sand play, along with most other forms of play in early childhood, is never the same. It keeps shifting with the child. 

This is the case for nearly all games and household tasks, especially when the materials remain much the same throughout the years.  There exists, here, a case for open-ended toys and play materials that can grow with the child as opposed to the child “growing out” of them. As they grow, children have a sense of their own history, and the proper materials themselves accommodate different learning styles and skills. The mastery they build at their own pace contributes to their self-efficacy as well as their basic skills. Because in a LifeWays setting, different ages play together, there are consistently available models to support learning as the bigger kids to show the way. The child can learn at her own pace and repeat as often as needed to attain mastery. Likewise, an imaginative or quick learner can continually complicate the game and the skills needed to play it. For instance, with your 8-12 year olds (or very competent younger ones), you may be called upon to help them with the skills needed to support their games: how to use the hammer and nails for fort building, how to tie knots to support structures or build tree swings or climbing or jumping ropes, how to use the tape measure and the handsaw (with monitoring).

All of the children, no matter their age or developmental stage, are learning about change and transformation, about stable and precarious qualities of materials, about quantity and measuring, hypothesis and experimentation—all basic science concepts. They are learning and practicing flexible thinking as other children change their game. The structure or the character of the materials themselves may require the child to reframe his idea, an idea that may have evolved many times since they first sat down. Each time children play this game, they will bring forward their increased development- the skills and knowledge regarding materials and building techniques and possibilities for storying they learned last time- as well as increased social skill to incorporate others into the game.

We are all being delighted by the bounty of flowers in the yard right now! Yet, in all their beauty, it is hard for little ones not to pick them and carry them about. To encourage enjoying the flowers’ beauty without disturbing them, I turn to this story each year. It is easily adaptable to fit any flower in bloom so that I can tell it any time in the spring and summer, keeping the magic alive all through the seasons of flowers. It is a traditional tale that has grown over the years as it has become my own. It is suitable for ages four and older, but with a more brief version it could also be told to three-year-olds that are not new to storytelling. Especially with those young ones, a couple of props (flowers or a “fairy” made of a knotted hankie) and gestures (rocking the babies) will enliven the story and help along their developing imaginations.

The Tulip Fairies Story

Once upon a time there was a sweet old woman who lived in a little house surrounded by flower gardens. She had flowers of every color and size that bloomed from Spring to Autumn, but the flowers she cherished most were her tulips. There were tulips of
many colors: red, purple, yellow and orange. The old woman spent her days tending most carefully for her flower gardens, and at night when she went to bed she stood at her bedroom window admiring them one last time in the moonlight.

One night as she slept, she was awakened by the sounds of sweet singing. But as she sat up in bed, the singing faded and she thought to herself, “Aye, I must have been dreaming,” and so she went back to sleep. The next night, she was awakened again. This time she stepped to her window. The singing seemed to come from her tulip bed, but she could see nothing. After looking out of the window for a few minutes, she decided to go back to bed. All the next day as she tended to her flowers, she thought of the sweet singing. She found no sign of any one having been in the garden the night before.

On the third night she was again awakened by the sweet singing. This time the old woman wrapped herself in a robe and stole quietly into her garden. The moon was full and bright, blanketing the garden with silver light. As she crept to a tree beside her tulip bed the singing grew louder. She quietly peaked around the tree, and there she saw standing by each tulip, a little fairy mother who was singing and rocking the flower like a cradle. Inside each tulip cup lay a little fairy baby laughing happily. It was the most beautiful music the old woman had every heard, and the most wonderful sight. She stood very still, watching the fairies with their babies until her eyes grew heavy with sleep. Then, she returned to bed and slept peacefully til morning.

From that time on, the old woman never picked a tulip, nor did she allow her neighbors to pick the flowers. Her tulips grew brighter and fuller than ever before, and they became the most cherished tulips in all the land. And every night the little fairy mothers sweetly sang as they rocked their babies to sleep in their little flower cups.

Felt Flower Craft

It’s also fun to create some pretty flowers that can be played with. The Magic Onions has a felt flower craft that can be easily customized to create many types of flowers to play with on sticks as wands or stems, and on pins or crowns as costume. With adult guidance to varying degrees, this craft could be completed with most five and six year olds. Some crafty 4 year olds could participate in fringe cutting and sewing.

Communicating with children of any age can present questions. Intuitively, parents know that children have different needs and communication skills at different ages, and they know children have different communication needs than do adults. Though, they are sometimes not certain how their own behaviour might look as they speak to, with and around their children. 

As we adults spend so much more time with our children in this pandemic moment, how we communicate matters. Put simply, less can be more when it comes to words. The larger picture of communication is, of course, another matter. If 70% of our communication as humans is non-verbal, then we have lots of ways to come at this. Our word selection, timing, tone and motives all contribute to this larger picture.

Especially with very young children, under the age of three, simple and often silent presence can be plenty of communication. A smile. A hug. Most of what we do, we do together to communicate with our actions. Parallel activities, such as when we are working at a desk while our child is amusing herself or playing with an older sibling, are non-verbal or low verbal ways of communicating. She could be dressing a doll or playing with trains, climbing and digging in the yard, or participating in joint activities with older children such as chopping vegetables or cleaning windows. Our presence is a communication. In verbal communication, speaking clearly and simply supports our child’s speech development, while maintaining a quiet and calm environment allows her the space to dream and imagine. It supports the process of naturally “coming into her own” in the world. 

As a child gets to three and a half and four, we may notice how spoken words often need our close physical presence to have any impact on behaviour.  We must remain close, use our bodies to help children understand. For instance, “Amy, time to put away the toys.” Amy keeps playing. When spoken to again, she runs to the other side of the room. When you come close to help her body and spirit comply, she fusses, makes her body rigid, tries to get away. She has gotten a lot of what she wants here: your attention, your close physical presence, information about your own ability to help her find boundaries and right behaviour, help putting things away. A lot of communication went on. 

We may have also been wanting physical closeness without really knowing it. Next time we can plan some physical closeness before the clean up time- wrestling during indoor play, snuggling, or sharing a story during some lap time. Then when it is time to clean up, we have both been nourished and have more ability and social capital to get a job done. It does not mean that clean up will be seamless, but figuring out what everyone is communicating, or even what was communicated three hours earlier and is still unresolved, contributes to a greater understanding of how to make the whole process more successful.

Words are only one piece of the communication process. Because it is an exchange in which both parent and child are communicating several things—the desire to keep playing, the need to clean up and move on, the desire for attention and perhaps physical contact, a lack of interest in the cleaning up activity, the desire to teach good habits, the desire to be acknowledged, the desire to know that our child trusts us enough to do as we ask—it is imperative to know what the most important message is to be communicating at a given moment.

Sometimes it is just comfort for one or both parent and child. Sometimes it is event-specific such as when transitioning from play to bath time, or washing up for supper. We must be clear with the goal of our communication but also consider our child’s personality. Does she need a heads up before a transition, or a firm and clear boundary with particular activities? We must be aware of our child’s developmental moment and choose our objectives/battles accordingly. For instance, three to four years old can be a pretty independent time for children–they push a lot of boundaries. Sometimes it is best to ignore some of the naughtiness rather than have them learn a self-concept of non-cooperation or orneriness. On the other hand, at five and six years old, children are very capable of much more self-regulation, so helping them to develop good listening and cooperative habits— by staying close and following through with requests— is important. That means we want to disrupt poor listening habits or lack of courtesy, etc. 

So at four, five, or six, clean up might look like the following: Clean up starts with a “heads up” and check in to see that our child heard us. “Five minutes, Bud. Bell rings and we are on it. Got it?” When he says “got it”, it is play time until that bell rings. We must ring it on time so he can build an inner clock for 5 minutes. Also, when the moment arrives, we are sure to be very close to our child, and maybe it is his job to give the bell three rings before returning it to its proper place. Once can see that a big part of this discipline is our own.  We must be sure to follow a predictable and cooperative routine on which our child can count. Messing with his inner clock—being that they as yet have no relationship with an actual clock—cannot help him to build either trust or a sense of timing for tasks. So we must be consistent. 

Some days it is harder than other days- we may be tired, hungry, or out of sorts. Extra help will be needed on those days. When we read the need for extra help, we might provide this by putting the toys right into our child’s hands and dancing her to the toy box. It is helpful to have consistent places for everything so that children know exactly where everything goes. Maybe we take out a novel ‘basket’- such as the stroller or a butterfly net- for collecting the legos or doll clothes to awaken that sense of play even in a chore. This switching up on tough days can shift the mood. Let them be surprises rather than overused ploys that end up feeling a bit like bribes. 

Communicating successfully requires a few things: knowing our child’s developmental moment, understanding their challenges and joys, using preventative strategies to reduce melt downs (either theirs or ours), and knowing what exactly we want out of the communication. Preventative strategies include consistency in schedules, developmentally appropriate requests and support with compliance.  We should target these requests for when our child is not overtired, hungry, or ill, or when we have been apart from her for some time. For instance, after a long day at school or when we have been at the work desk for many hours, is not the time to make requests beyond doing something nourishing together. 

Knowing what we want from a communication includes the immediate and the longer view. Longer view—independence, self-help skills, self-soothing strategies, courtesy, responsibility, joy in both work and in family time—is affected by immediate wants such as supper, a tidy house, and tidy bottoms. So each communication takes into account both what we need now and what we hope to build over the long haul. 

It is often a natural assumption that if we are caring for someone else’s children, we do all we can to make certain they are having fun. If the children are not readily and happily playing together, we quickly step in to create projects, play games, and feed them fun snacks. There is certainly nothing wrong with wanting to do this and create a fun time for all the children. But thinking this through, we may see several undesirable results.

First, and foremost, we rob the children of their opportunity for self-directed, free play that fills the void of friendship they have been experiencing in the past weeks. When we direct the play, we become the centerpiece. Offering some gentle guidance and allowing space for them to work out all the “kinks” makes this moment about being together.

Also, when we spend time planning, preparing and carrying out a bunch of special activities, we tire ourselves out needlessly and set a precedent for it to happen again. Play- real, authentic play- is like a muscle that has to be exercised. It can be challenging, especially after this shelter-in-place, to work that muscle again with a peer. If we take away the opportunity to exercise it by planning out all their time together, they’ll easily take it up as a “need” and expect it later.

What is helpful to plan, however, is a few domestic tasks to accomplish while the children are together. First, we examine our usual rhythm for the best time to have children visit, then prepare the domestic tasks we want to work on around them. For example, we might organize some seasonal clothing while the children play in the bedroom, or weed in the gardens and set new landscape edgers while they play outdoors. When we are engaged in meaningful task nearby they feel our security and assuredness that they can find their way through play. The children may even want to participate in our work.

If they seem to need help settling into play after such a lengthy absence, starting together on a task might be just what they need to reconnect. Children younger than three and a half years will need your activity as an anchor to theirs. They may float in and out of helping you, and exploring their environment. For children older than three and a half, they can be expected to play together more readily. At most, a single circle game or story can “set the stage” as an activity all together before turn to your own work and the children turn to their play.

A Springtime Game

This game is part of our first circle of the year in late summer, but fits perfectly at this time of year as well. It is a favorite of many children, and your older ones may recall it with glee.

My pigeon house I open wide, and set my pigeons free.
They fly around from side to side, up to the highest tree.
Then they come back in evening and close their eyes and sing,
Croo-croo, croo-croo, croo-croo, croo-croo
Croo-croo, croo-croo, crooo-Croo