Simplicity Parenting (18 page)

It has been my privilege to work with many families, and to speak with a great many more over the years. Along the way, I’ve developed and gathered lots of ideas and techniques that work, ideas that have been “tested” in busy homes. You can choose from these to establish more consistency in your own home. The primary rhythm of this chapter itself will be stories, from which you can gather ideas for your own family. Some will take, others may not, and some may serve as springboards for new ideas. You’ll know the keepers, though, with great certainty. Your children will embrace, and rely on them, as though life made no real sense before doing “favorite things” at dinner (for example). Your reaction might be more subtle. At first you may realize that all of the worries you had about committing to this or that now regular
part of the day/week/month have vanished. What’s more—surprise!—you find yourself looking forward to this new little ritual as much, or more, than your kids do.

We’ll address the major chords of a child’s daily life: meals and bedtime, and expand out from there, with many ideas for establishing “notes” your child can count on in the pattern of their days. By surrounding a young child with a sense of rhythm and ritual, you can help them order their physical, emotional, and intellectual view of the world. As little ones come to understand, with regularity, that “this is what we do,” they feel solid earth under their feet, a platform for growth. Such a stable foundation can facilitate their mapmaking: the connectedness that they are charting in their brains, in relation to other people, and in their emerging worldview.

Meaning hides in repetition: We do this every day or every week because it matters. We are connected by this thing we do together. We matter to one another. In the tapestry of childhood, what stands out is not the splashy, blow-out trip to Disneyland but the common threads that run throughout and repeat: the family dinners, nature walks, reading together at bedtime (with a hot water bottle at our feet on winter evenings), Saturday morning pancakes.

A rhythmic home life has a pattern and a flow. Its cadences are recognizable, and knowable, even to the youngest members of the family. Because the primary patterns—daily, weekly—are so well established, life’s other sequences—seasonal, annual—fit smoothly over well-worn grooves. The tempo of a rhythmic daily life, as described by a child, would sound something like this: “This is what we do on school day mornings …” “Before we leave the house we …” “When I get home from school, I …” “When my mom or dad starts dinner, I …” “Before bed on winter evenings, we love to …” “The thing I love about Saturday mornings is …” “When one of us is sick, we always …” “The special thing we do when someone’s birthday is coming up is …”

We are connected by the things we do together. There is a regularity, a consistency to what we do as a family.

“That’s nice,” you might be thinking, “nice maybe for a family living on the prairie a hundred years ago. But my family is way too busy to have any kind of rhythm to our days.” My response to your imagined comment is this: The busier your life, the more your children need and will benefit from the establishment of a sense of rhythm. I would also say that you can start with
any
point in your day—from dinners together right down to teeth-brushing time—and make it more rhythmical. I’ll show you how, and I’ll bet that you will then continue on, establishing more beachheads of rhythm and regularity throughout the day. Finally, let me reassure you that even if rhythm remains elusive, you can still provide your kids more security by increasing predictability in their daily lives.

Predictability

So, what is this cousin of rhythm: predictability? What I mean by greater predictability and transparency is illustrated very handily by the story of Justin, a six-year-old boy with whom I worked. Justin’s parents contacted me because he was refusing to get out of bed in the morning. Justin was mounting what I came to think of as “the pajama defense.” His thinking—or unconscious logic—went something like this: “If I stay in my pajamas, then nothing much can happen to me, and certainly nothing bad.”

There is a simple beauty to the argument, isn’t there? I considered it myself, ever so briefly, but I’ll save you some time: Your children would
love
the idea of your mounting a pajama defense, but your spouse will
never ever
go for it!

As I came to know Justin, I realized that he led a very unpredictable life. Both of his parents were salespeople, with extremely hectic and flexible schedules, and a lot of traveling. Each worked for a different pharmaceutical company. Some mornings Justin took the bus to school, sometimes one of his parents dropped him off, some mornings one of his parents would get him up early to drop him at a friend’s house to be taken to school by the friend’s parents.

School pickup was also erratic. Some afternoons Justin was picked up for a playdate that had been arranged while he was in school. Sometimes he would be picked up by one parent and learn that the other parent had left unexpectedly for a trip and would be gone for a few days. Occasionally after his mom or dad picked him up at school, they would
have to continue going on their sales calls, and Justin would do his homework or read in doctors’ waiting rooms until dinnertime. While dinner was always a part of the daily equation, the what, where, and when of it was ever changeable.

The better I came to know Justin and his parents, the more certain I was that the concept of rhythm did not, and would not, work in this family. Justin’s mom and dad were paid, partially, for their willingness to be adaptable, to travel and to keep hours that were more convenient for the doctors they served than for them. I came to see also that (and perhaps this was why they were good at what they did) by nature, both parents were very flexible, go-with-the-flow people. Their son Justin was clearly the most “fixed” entity in their lives. They were working toward a plan; Justin’s dad was aiming for a position in corporate sales that would require less travel. In the meanwhile, I could also see that they were doing everything they could to keep Justin “covered”: safe and protected.

But there’s a gap between “safe” and “secure,” and Justin had devised a way to fill in that gap for himself: He was staying in pajamas until further notice.

Justin’s parents and I worked on ways to increase predictability and transparency in his daily life. Predictability is understandable. By transparency I mean that we, as adults, have an understanding of how our day may proceed. No matter how hectic it promises to be, we can picture how it might play out. Children need some level of that clarity. They may not be in control of their day, but they need some access to the “picture,” the understanding of how it might proceed.

So every night, one of Justin’s parents would sit with him and “preview” the next day. This was hangout time, not a hurried “coming up next” rundown of the following day’s highlights. It doesn’t have to be at bedtime, or in bed, but it does need to be a guaranteed relaxed, not-rushed period of decompressing. Justin might talk about what happened that day, or his current theory about UFOs, or whatever was on his mind. His mom or his dad would talk about the next day, and what might happen.

Children live their lives pictorially, especially when they’re really young (under seven). They need “visuals.” Your intention here is to create a picture that they can then “live into” the next day. This doesn’t mean you have to have everything figured out, but you do need to give them some markers, some elements that they can count on. Justin’s mom or dad would often mention what the weather was supposed to be
like, and point to where his clothes (“with your new sneakers, because you have gym tomorrow”) were laid out. They would tell him how he was getting to school. They might even say “Either mom or I will pick you up after school. We don’t know who yet, but there you’ll be, waiting at the apple tree, and you’ll look up to see either my red car or mom’s blue truck pull in.”

It is very helpful for children to take this picture, this sense of clarity into sleep. Whatever happens in those mysterious, healing processes of sleep, you can be sure that if your child has a concern, you’ll hear about it the next morning. “Dad?” “Yes?” “I was thinking, Mom’s truck isn’t really blue.”

What this previewing of the day does is say “there is no hidden agenda here.” You are giving your child markers, and so including them in the process of your days together. It’s true, as the adult and parent you govern the movement between those markers, but you are not entirely imposing your world on theirs. You are establishing yourself as “captain of the ship” in a way that would be comforting to any small being afloat on a large ocean. So, instead of never really knowing what might happen, the child is able to see that there is someone in charge. This person (the “captain” or “co-captains”) not only have a handle on things, but they’ve just shown you the “log book,” and you understand how you fit into the picture.

So, while your child may not know the pattern of your days by their consistency and repetition (rhythm), you can provide markers and previews of their day, thereby letting them know what to expect (predictability).

A single mom I knew used to do this previewing with her little daughter in the sandbox. Her sandbox was actually inside—a sand table more than anything—and she used to sit there with her four-year-old and talk about what the next day would be like. As she spoke, she would move a little car around in the sandbox, stopping at the wooden “school” or “grocery store.”

You set the mood, and create an expectation for the day not only with what you say, but how you say it: a comfortable place, restful eye
contact, an unhurried, relaxed approach. You don’t want to go over every single detail of what might happen every moment of the next day. You know the expression “too much information”? That applies here, as such an approach would surely increase your child’s anxiety rather than security. Let the process, as well as the message, be comforting.

In general, for greater predictability, you want to try to reduce the ways that your children are caught by surprise. I often see toddlers being scooped up from behind by their mom or dad. Granted, if you are in a busy parking lot or a dangerous situation, you need to use any means you can to protect your child. But otherwise, I think of this approach as a mini-shock, a surprise that, when done habitually, says “my world rules” instead of “we’re doing this together.” Imagine instead that wonderful way that kids sort of bend their knees and jump up, face-to-face with their mom or dad as they’re gently lifted. Up we go! That kind of “working together” is comforting for the child, and gives us parents the illusion that we might still be able to pick them up when they’re ten or eleven.

Your three-year-old is engrossed in play, but you know you’ll need to leave in a half hour to pick up your husband at the train station. Perhaps you could discuss the train schedule with Katie, and the relative probability of an on-time arrival? (No, she’s three!) Wait until the last minute, grab her, and go? (No, she’s three; a little warning helps.) “Love, soon Mama is going to say that its time to clean up. Not now, but in a few minutes I’ll say that, and then we need to start with the blocks and clean up. We’ll clean up, then we’ll go get Daddy at the train station.” These sorts of “advance notices” can help increase security and ease.

If your children are older, approaching or in adolescence, family meetings can do what previewing does for younger kids. Sometimes tied to Sunday supper, the meetings take place with everyone hanging out for fifteen or twenty minutes beyond the cleanup of the meal. The previous week is reviewed: What worked? What didn’t work? What were those things we meant to tell one another, before we forgot? The following week is then discussed, with everyone’s plans, and the necessary logistics, rolled out on the table. It may all be quite complicated, but as the pieces come together, what lingers, with the smell of dish soap and the last bite of dessert, is this: We’re in this together.