Simplicity Parenting (19 page)

One of the simplest, purest forms of stability or predictability in daily life is politeness. It is a level of communication and interaction that can be counted on, that builds trust. When you ask me for something, you say “please;” when I respond to your request, you say “thank you,” and I say “you’re welcome.” What could be more predictable? In the flow of the day’s words, noises, shouts, and various utterances, this polite exchange stands out for children like a nursery rhyme, secure and familiar. It is also a code. In its regularity, politeness affirms and reaffirms our connection; the way we treat each other.

Some people may feel that politeness, especially for young children, is a form of blind obedience, or enforced conformity. I take a different view. Politeness is one of the simplest ways to establish a base beat of predictability in the home. Points of politeness throughout the day are like the lights of a suspension bridge, securing and connecting.

We are so concerned with safety as parents. (I’m sure you’ve seen kids going out to ride their bikes or skate, dressed in so much padding it is a miracle they can move.) Politeness practiced in the home is a very basic, simple way to give children deep feelings of safety. Even if your schedules are untamable, your thoughts and days as cluttered as can be, a form of predictability is established with politeness. In a rushed, often rude world, a line is drawn around your family when you speak to one another with respect. Count on it; your children will. They hear and feel it, like their own heartbeats. They often seem to forget, but not really. The rhythm is internalized: Notice how quickly they look up if
you
forget a please or thank-you.

Establishing Rhythms

We’ve talked about how children feel when their daily lives are rhythmic or at least predictable. Rhythm calms and secures children, grounding them in the earth of family so they can branch out and grow. The implication of rhythms is that there is an “author” behind how we do things as a family. Parental authority is strengthened by rhythms; an “authority” is established that is gentle and understandable. “This is what we do” also says, “There is order here, and safety.”

For parents, the advantages of rhythm are equally pronounced. Rhythm carves the necessary channels for discipline, making it more intrinsic than imposed. Where well-established rhythms exist, there is much less parental verbiage, less effort, and fewer problems around transitions.

Parents also suffer the effects of a chaotic, arrhythmic home life. When life is a series of improvisations and emergencies, each day different from the next, children don’t know if they’re coming or going. As parents at least you know. You know that you are coming
and
going at the same time, crazy busy, and no matter how adept you may be at “multitasking,” you feel stressed by it all. Beaten down, mentally and physically. Yes, rhythm makes children feel more secure. Absolutely. But a sense of rhythm makes adults calmer, too, and less plagued by parental craziness. With consistent structures in place, you’ll feel less like a Border collie, constantly nipping at your children’s heels.

“All well and good,” you may be thinking. “But how does one impose order on chaos? If my life were more regular, rhythm would be easy. But it’s not regular, it’s crazy.”

The good news is that you can start small, gradually establishing little islands of consistency in your daily life. If your family life is a piece of music, what does it sound like now? Which points of the day can you begin to connect with others, so bits and phrases of a melody emerge? We’ll consider an average day, looking at opportunities for rhythm and regularity along the way, but any repeated note of the day can be made more rhythmic.

What are your children’s “flashpoints” or difficult periods? For a lot of kids, transitions are the trickiest: getting out the door in the morning, coming to dinner. The flow of the day will be improved when more rhythm is brought to those points. However, start small. Choose basic activities that need to be made more consistent, and work up from there, slowly changing the composition of your days. Once you’ve established some routines and rhythms you can more easily tame the day’s stickiest wickets.

When you build rhythms when your children are quite young—between two and six—they’ll be soaked up naturally and eagerly. Little ones are already very process oriented, with strong body clocks. A small investment of effort on your part will yield lifelong habits and rituals. However, the process will need to be front-loaded, with parental closeness and interaction for a couple of weeks before your child will be performing
the task and following through on autopilot. Make sure your commitment is complete—especially for these first attempts—and you’ll lay the groundwork for success with this and future routines.

Let’s use teeth brushing as an example. To make it consistent, you have to ground it either to another dependable activity or a specific time. If bedtime is anywhere between 7 and 10 P.M., you can’t use that as an anchor. Walk them through the steps, stay close. Secure each step: Where’s your toothbrush? See, right next to mine. How much toothpaste? That’s right, about the size of your thumbnail. We need to brush for two minutes. Ready? Let’s turn over the egg timer. There you are, good.

In his book
Secrets of Discipline
, Ronald Morrish beautifully identified the steps that parents need to take with their child: Start small, stay close, insist, and follow through.

To make any activity more rhythmic, it’s helpful to connect the process with a bit of melody, especially for kids five or under. The steps along the way can be sung—no arias needed, just a singsongy delivery. Washing hands before dinner? That’s it! “A little soap, a little water, rub and scrub until the bubbles come!” Hand washing is then tied (in time) to the meal, it is tied (in feeling) to the physical sensations involved, and it is tied (aurally) to a little melody, heard and also sung. All of these small connections help to ritualize the activity; they help your child “file” it in their view of an orderly world.

If you are establishing rhythms for the first time with an older child, the process may take a little longer (a month), but the method is the same. (Though for kids seven or older you should probably stick with a nonmusical, spoken delivery!) Your involvement (start small, stay close, insist, and follow through) is even more important, since compliance is less assured as a child gains in age and independence. You want to be sure they reach the point where the process is automatic and unquestioned. That’s when it will feel like success.

With a child seven or older, who has rarely done the same thing in the same way at the same time any two days in a row, again, you’ll want to start small. Begin with a humble task that will either be pleasant or help them in some way, such as hanging up their favorite baseball cap and backpack in the same place every day when they come in from school. When your child has mastered these, and felt some benefit from them (“At least I don’t have to search for my hat anymore, Mom…”), then you can point to these advances as inspiration for bigger changes and more consistency.

With older children, you’ll need to discuss the change beforehand and consult with them about the best way to adopt it. Especially for kids approaching adolescence, make “what’s in it for them” clear, even if the primary benefit will be less nagging from you. You don’t need to plead a case; you can keep it short. But you should let them know that besides the obvious benefits (getting to the bus on time, feeling more on top of their schoolwork), this change will also mean that they are taking more control of their own lives. And you will notice.

Anything can be made more dependable with repetition and care. The necessity of waking up in the morning can be made into a small but pleasant ritual. When you sit on a young child’s bed and sing or hum softly for a minute or two—or just sit—they wake to a loving presence. If you have an early riser, you can prepare a tray for them, with quiet things to do until the others wake.

Dressing in the morning can be made so much easier with a little preparation the night before. We make “scarecrows” of our daughters’ outfits for the day by completely “dressing” a hanger, topped with a hat in the winter. This saves time, but also helps propel kids into their day by limiting the opportunities for choice and conflict. For kids with sensory integration problems, it helps to have clothes laid out that have already been vetted for scratchy labels or bumpy bits.

Breakfast tends to be less formal than dinner, but it doesn’t have to be completely on-the-go. You can anchor breakfast with some rituals of connection and security. It’s an ideal time to preview the day, verbally walking your child through what they can expect. Do you sometimes wish your kids opened up more about their days, and what’s on their minds? Sit down across from them in the morning, as their blood sugar is replenished over breakfast, and as they reflect on whatever they processed in their sleep the night before. You never know what you’ll hear!

For kids who are studying an instrument, after breakfast can be a good time to practice. If they don’t enjoy practicing, the chore is then finished first thing. Meanwhile, though, especially for kids who tend to be grumpy in the morning, playing music will usually balance their
mood. It brings them right into the brain’s center of creativity, or limbic system.

The islands of consistency and security that rhythm builds throughout the day are like breaths. Such intervals allow a child’s brain to maintain balance, and to flow through its willing, thinking, and feeling centers. If constantly on the run, and always reacting to changing circumstances, a child will default, or return mentally to a form of amygdala hijack. They operate from the part of the brain that is quick to react, but less able to consider things thoroughly or flexibly.

Once in a workshop a dad shared with us his clever way of building an “ejector” rhythm into the mornings. He and his wife were having trouble getting their kids out the door. Wake-up, dressing, and breakfasts all went fine, but then there would be considerable foot-dragging. One kid would go missing, shoes would be “lost,” excuses made. The final push took forever. It makes sense. When the house is warm and cozy, why not linger? So they incorporated a new rhythm into the mornings. Once each child was dressed he or she had a small chore to do before leaving. Whether this was carrying out the compost, feeding the cat, or making the bed, somehow the call of “Come on! Out we go!” was more welcome, coming on the heels (or in the middle!) of a chore.

When the emphasis in school is toward testing, the day’s pauses are often cut or shortened. Recess, art, music, movement: Again, these are the intervals that allow a child’s brain to maintain balance, to process information. In teaching to the tests, schools try to “insert” more, bypassing themes and longer curricula processes, increasing regimentation and fragmentation. An average day may include “units” on Egypt, insects, long division, Spanish, and sentence diagramming. The more fragmented their school day, the more children will benefit from consistency at home.

The time between school and the evening meal is an important transition period. Some kids are involved in after-school programs, for others there may be a succession of lessons or activities before dinner, and still others are involved in sports. Many parents feel that their kids benefit from some sort of cathartic release, a way to “go crazy” and expend energy after school, so they add a scheduled activity or two to the end of each day. Some kids really do need to move—to run around, climb a tree, ride their bikes—especially after sitting in a classroom most of the day. But after-school time is also a great opportunity for free, unscheduled time. Having time for open, self-directed play is a nice balance to the rules and schedules kids follow at school. What a delight
it is for a school-age child to set their own agenda; what a blessing, even, to be bored.

Not all activities, done regularly, constitute a sense of rhythm. After all, a strict regimen is rhythmic, but only in the driest, most lifeless meaning of the word. A rhythm’s value comes from the intentions behind it. As you consider increasing the rhythms in your family life, ask yourself: Would this make life easier, more balanced? Will this help with what we need to do? More importantly, will this contribute to the way we want to live?