August 13th, 2008 Lisa
Living in the San Diego area I have so many amazing attractions at my finger tips - the world famous San Deigo Zoo, SeaWorld, Legoland, Wild Animal Park, Disneyland; not to mention the beaches and museums of a metropolitan city. It’s tempting to spend every day visiting something new or a favorite friend (Shamu) and indeed, most of our days do start with a car ride somewhere. But when we have a “free day” I ask my kids what they’d like to do and most often the response is “stay home.”
Why do I feel compelled to get out and “do” things?
I grew up on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere. The closest neighbor was at least a mile; the closest general store about five miles, the closest movie theater forty five minutes. Most days “going” somewhere meant walking down to the barn or riding my bike along country roads. I spent days not going to town - not going anywhere outside of our farm-world. Now I know as adults we have a tendency (I have a tendency) to romanticize our childhoods - I’m not saying it was all a bed of roses. But it was simple, in terms of activities, and I see that I’m going a little overboard with our schedule.
The community I currently live in is about mini-vans, playgroups & playdates, soccer moms (and spanish/gymnastics/music/dance/karate-moms). I’ve read a lot about the over-scheduling tendency our society has gravitated to, and from what I can tell it only gets more difficult to manage as children get older & are competing for college acceptance letters. Where’s the balance between giving our children enough space to simply be versus exposing them to enough activities that they have a chance to flourish as swimmers or musicians or gymnasts?
One of my good mom-friends has started Tuesday-home day; the one, sacred day of the week where she stays home all day with her kids. Her and I are still in the pre-school years so we have this luxury - for one more year - of dictating our schedules rather than having the school system dictate it for us. I like this idea, and am reminding myself to spend more time at home, staying put for a day or even an afternoon for unscheduled, unspecified play.
Try it. Stay put and see what happens.
Posted in Mothering Muses, child education | No Comments »
August 5th, 2008 Lisa
Tonight my five year old asked me, ‘Where did the first people come from?’ Well, I replied, different people believe different things. Scientists think that humans evolved from gorillas. ‘What is evolved?’ That’s when things change from one thing to another, like a caterpillar to a butterfly. Other people believe in God, that he is up in the sky watching over us all and he created the first people. ‘What is believe?’
These questions – my golly, where do these questions come from? I was struggling to answer them. I wanted to tell him to believe in everything – in god, in spirituality, in all the angels above, in scientific evolution. I have to be careful, I need to explain this right, I was telling myself. I want to give him a clear picture, an understanding that was like fresh grass after the rain; clear, clean, crisp and inspiring.
But first I had to explain believe. What does it mean to believe? I thought about the service I went to for the little boy who was killed in my neighborhood, and how the parents believe they will see him again. How do I explain this belief? How do I explain heaven? We talked for awhile, me muddling through his questions. ‘Can you see God?’ he asked. I tried to explain how you can see him in things that happen around you, in nature, in kindness.
He seemed to accept my answers — for the time being. I’m simultaneously thrilled and horrified that he’s asking these questions. He turned five yesterday — YESTERDAY — and suddenly I see how grown up he has become. I’m honored that he trusts me to ask me these things….and now I need to tap into my mothering network to find out how other moms have handled this.
So, what do you say when your child asks you about God?
Posted in Mothering Muses | 2 Comments »
July 28th, 2008 Lisa
Sometimes the best places to take your kids are not even “kid” places. Today I discovered a small nursury in Encinitas, California that I just adore, and I can’t wait to take my kids back. It’s called Weidner’s Gardens, locally owned and a little gem for our community. It has winding paths with all sorts of garden ideas, a small play area with grass and playhouses, and shelton ponies!!
Then towards the back are begonia fields where you can dig up your own plants and take them home. These are real, flowering begonias ready to spruce up your own garden. In my experience, I see that my kids love planting and seeing things grow, and this is a great way for them to contribute to their own garden. (Other seeds my kids love: carrots (which take about two months); sugar snap peas (which take only a week to poke out of the ground, and about 21 days to produce edible peas!); pumpkins (planted in spring for Halloween) — those are few ideas that I’ve done with my kids.
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July 18th, 2008 Lisa
My son is doing a little summer school program focused on science, and each day they do a different experiment. They are learning about compounds and reactions of things that I didn’t learn until high school, if at all.
So yesterday I tried my own little experiment; I went without my laptop. I decided to spend the day with no checking of email / surfing the web / grabbing info on my “machine”. I don’t know about you, but I’m a technology junkie; my laptop sits on a corner desk in my kitchen, accessible to everyone in the family but used primarily by me. This works when the kids are busy with their own little activities, or eating lunch, or watching a show: I can sit for five minutes and “just check my email.” Admittely most of my world is online - that’s how I communicate with all of my friends, my playgroup, my sons preschool, heck it’s even the primary way I communicate with my husband, via instant messenger and google calender which has become the bible of our scheduling-life. So going for a full 24 hours without all these things I “need” was certainly deliberate, noticeable. I needed to schedule a hair appointment and call our dentist, both whose numbers I’d usually search for online. But I was able to find them without the net. I needed to send out birthday invitations, and addresses are online. But I found old printouts and my - yes, written, bound address book which had many addresses.
Here’s what else I did: spent time with my kids, uninterrupted by emails that would send my mind into different directions thinking about….? whatever those emails make me think about. We painted rocks at the craft table. We did puzzles. We read stories. We built a huge train track on the floor in my bedroom. I noticed that my kids didn’t ask to watch a show (which is their usual request). They were with their Mom, and she wasn’t preoccupied. She was there, present, for the first time in along while.
So — how do you incorporate the necessary evil of technology into your life? Do you login to the net only after the kids are bed? Do you allow your kids to go online? If your not a technology junkie, what are your other vices and how do you deal with them? Where do you draw the line?
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July 15th, 2008 Lisa
I’m currently reading What Every Kindergarten Teacher Knows, a handy little book that divulges little tricks that teachers use to keep their classroom running smoothly. One of the first, basic ideas is the nix the words “okay” from parent’s vocabulary. I read this part last week, and today I caught myself doing it so many times that I decided to write about it here in hopes that I’d stop! Here’s the idea:
Saying to your child, “put your shoes on because we’re getting into the car, okay?” is NOT telling them to get to the car, it’s ASKING them if they’d like to put their shoes on to get in the car. It’s a question, not a command. So, a typical kid will hear the inflection in your voice as you ask “okay?” and think, hmmm, do I feel like putting on my shoes, or continuing to play as I am doing?
Once you tune into “ok” you’ll be amazed at how many times you say it. “That’s not how we treat out sister, okay?” I said tonight, while reprimanding my son. “We’re going for a walk, okay?” “It’s time for dinner, okay?” My gosh it drives me insane to think of how often I do this!
So, I intend to strike those two little words from my daily vocabulary to stop confusing commands with choices, and ask my kids questions only when I truly am giving them option to choose.
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