Inspiring families to find their happy place.

Follow your family’s flow

August 14, 2012 by 7 Comments
flow

I had big plans this summer.

The break from school was going to be fun and memorable. Oh yes indeedy.

But it was also going to include a lot of learning time as well.

I set plans into motion early. The kids would go to camp but when we came home and after dinner and clean up, we’d take time to do fun learning games, including the rather large homework packet they were sent home with on the last day of Kindergarten.

My first learning plan was too vague, I thought. They weren’t buying it.

So, I spiced it up and made it more fun, which helped a little but they still weren’t buying it.

Flow.

“Don’t try to steer the river,” says Deepak Chopra.

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be,” says Lao Tzu.

Better than both of those quotes is this one:

It is not action or effort that we must surrender; it is self-will, and this is terribly difficult. You must do your best constantly, yet never allow yourself to become involved in whether things work out the way you want. ~ Eknath Easwaran

My daughters’ rivers are flowing in new and unpredictable directions and I can’t do a thing about it. They have changed too much. Things that used to excite them no longer grab their interest.

Instead of playing a game with me after dinner, they want to wrestle with each other.

Instead of arts and crafts, they want to do cartwheels and backbends and play leap frog.

Instead of helping me in the kitchen, they want me to call them when it’s ready.

The river they follow is the only one they know, the only one they can follow. I can only float beside them, bobbing along with the many twists and turns that are ahead of us.

And, strangely, I am at peace with this.

Here are some ways to follow your own family’s flow.

Study it. Before you implement a new schedule or a change in the rules, study what is currently happening. What is the natural flow and order of things now? If you change that, is it worth the stresses that may come with it?

Let go. Perhaps dinnertime hasn’t been working out. The kids are crying. You can’t seem to find the time you need to make the food. What would happen if you surrendered and let go? Just toss together some cheese, bread, fruit and veggies? Stop trying to force anything at all. Forget your agenda for a single day.

Lower your expectations. As a control freak, it’s hard for me to sometimes have to give up on the expectatations I have created for my family. I’m OK with having no expectations of other people but I have plenty for how I want things to roll each day and when that fails, or appears like it’s going to fail, I can get rather cranky. The best days are the ones where I have no set agenda of my own and just go along with whatever comes along that day. Those days are the ones when I actually sneak in a nap or reading a book, too. The children are fine. Win-Win.

Go with the flow. Ride the river. Sneak in what you need to sneak in as you float along. Things will get done, just not on your rigid timeline. It’s better not to fight it. Find natural moments to work in good conversations, reading aloud and teachable moments. Find natural moments to play together and work together to tackle the chores. Parenting is a lot like waiting for the right time to step onto the down escalator. Timing is absolutely everything for a smooth ride.

Accept imperfection. Some days just don’t turn out the way you wanted them to. Some days you’re just picking up the pieces of the chaos. That’s motherhood. That’s parenthood. That’s life with children.

Keep perspective. Playing and having fun is always at the top of my list of things to do today with my children — even more than dishes and cleaning up. I just have to fit the other things into my free time after the kids are in bed. The flow of a day with children is not always perfect but it’s always open and ripe with possibilities. Like tonight when we spontaneously went barefoot around our neighborhood playing follow the leader and I GOT TO BE THE LEADER! Be open to all the possibilities. As Kelly Rae says … be a possibilitarian.

How has your family’s flow changed as your children grow up? How have you coped with those changes? Any advice to offer?

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Filed Under: Intentional Parenting, Peaceful Living, Playful Living Tagged With: , ,

The Importance of Pausing as a Family

July 24, 2012 by 11 Comments
pausing

 

Slowing down isn’t always easy to do.

Recently, I realized my daughters needed more slow times, more unstructured play and more quiet activities. Summer is always so tempting to rush about — swimming, walking and playing outside, going places and visiting parks. Playing outside and doing activity after activity is not always what we need but it’s always what we feel we must do in the summer. Add to that a summer of very little rainy days and it’s enough to exhaust a family.

At least that’s how we’ve been feeling — judging by how tired and cranky we’ve all been feeling lately.

In fact, I suspect we’ve had a very bad case of a soul fever in our house.

Soul fevers is a phrase coined by Kim John Payne, author of “Simplicity Parenting.” I read Payne’s book last fall when I was launching Awesomely Awake and I yelled out a few, ah-has when I read the chapter on Soul Fevers. The authors describe soul fevers as illnesses of the soul that are just as serious as a physical fever. In fact, recovering is much the same. You know your child has a soul fever if he’s just not acting right — perhaps misbehaving or withdrawing more than usual. This acting out, the book states, is a sign of a larger issue and a serious break is needed.

In the adult world, we called them mental  health days. Remember those? When was the last time you took a mental health day and watched a chick flick and ate take out? Yeah, me either.

When was the last time you gave your children a mental health break?

An Awesomely Awake parent knows when things just aren’t right. We are present and aware and understand that slowing down is as important as breathing.

In my Summer E-course, I’ve talked a lot about having the most meaningful moments summer can offer as well as mixing in some slow days.

But, I forgot that the kids need slow days, too. Well, I guess I just didn’t think they needed them since they are on summer break from school after all.

Clearly, they have needed downtime despite their arguing that they do not. We had to get serious and start cutting back. I have to do this every now and then for myself … you know, start looking at the calendar and really start considering what’s important and what is just going to have to wait another year. It’s hard to make those decisions — especially when you’ve been looking forward to something. But this year it’s urgent. I see how this crazy go-go-go mentality that my kids often inspire with their wants and desires is impacting our days negatively. They may not like that we have to forgo a few social events, but it’s what we need to do to get back on track.

Last week, we put swimming on hold and just enjoyed each other’s company inside. We made friendship bracelets and other art projects that were just fun and had no purpose.

This week, at their urging for a walk, we went on a slow pajama walk instead with strict rules of no rushing, no playing and no running. We’re having Sunday Sundaes. We’re squeezing in more snuggle time. Now that we’ve started doing all of this, the girls seem more open to staying close to home rather than running about. They are now choosing more quiet, simple activities rather than the loud, boisterous ones they were picking a few weeks ago.

The result has been a much more peaceful, much more loving atmosphere at home.

I’m kind of liking soul fevers, in fact.

How about you? Has anyone in your family suffered from a soul fever? Anyone needed a pause in order to reset and get back on track? How did you handle it? Do you have any advice to offer? We’d love to hear it.

**Get your copy of my book, “The Playful Family,” today!

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Filed Under: Intentional Parenting, Peaceful Living, Playful Living Tagged With: , , ,

7 Reasons to Slow Down

July 22, 2012 by 7 Comments
slow down

If the world has been spinning around you and your mind has been going along with it, slow down.

If the demands to keep up, join up, show up, stand up are weighing on you, slow down.

If the worries, the crying, the tears, the fighting, the tattling, the middle-of-the-night waking is frustrating you, let go and slow down.

If it feels like a chore, a job, a battle, slow down.

If there is no good reason to go yet you feel you must go anyway, slow down.

If things are just not right, not balanced, and you’re not saying “Hell, yeah, I got this,” then slow down.

Slow down when you find yourself down and out. Slow down when everything around you says speed up.

This week, let’s slow down and let the unimportant things fall to the side for a bit and let the good stuff — the stuff that leaves us smiling to ourselves – rise to the top where it should always be.

Slow down and see what comes.

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Family Art Night: Create a Family Banner

February 21, 2012 by 9 Comments

I love family art days. When our family gets together at the dining room table to do art together, my heart swells with pride. It’s perhaps one of my Top 10 family moments each year.

Fortunately and unfortunately we had time to throw together Family Art this past weekend.

To say that one of my girls was under the weather would be an understatement. It was the kind of illness that leaves you worried around the clock. The result was not only the cancelling of a very big trip but the inability to really do anything at all but sit and soothe.

In the middle of it all, I really wanted to do something fun and special to cheer us all up, especially the sick girl. First we wrote her little notes, which were fine but not enough. By the third day, notes just weren’t going to cut it.

And then I remembered a project I had been planning to do: A Family Banner. You can take this project in many directions, but we wanted it to be so simple that everyone could do it, even a very sick little girl. My amazing friend Jena sparked the concept of this project in me when she commented on my Wonder Board post about how she has conversations with her daughters about how to describe their family.

I love how this project requires a little thought, conversation and planning. I love how it gets us all thinking about what family means. I love that it’s artistic but also very meaningful to us. I love that it hangs just so under our family photos that mean so much to us as well.

Again, I emphasize that I love creative projects that are easy, accessible and practical. I feel this falls into that category perfectly. Anyone can do this with very simple materials and effort.

All you need to do this project is the following:

  • Colored Paper of your choice
  • White or lighter color paper of your choice
  • Yarn, string or some other hanging material
  • Hole punch
  • Art supplies — whatever you have on hand.

First I cut the papers to fit to a nice rectangle size. I actually used two colors of the background paper and a nice light gray.

And then, while everyone was sitting around — well, that’s all we did — I asked questions about what it means to be family such as what does family mean, family stands for ___ ? or what is our family like? For our girls, who are 6, it took a little effort to get this conversation started but once it did, their ideas were overflowing. These were some of their answers:

Family is cool

Family is sweet

Family is caring

Family takes care of each other

I added a few of my own as well …

Our family is beautiful

Family is forever.

We took turns writing those saying on each flag and then decorating those flags.

And then, the magical part, came when we each created our own Name flag for the banner. We wrote our names — I wrote my many names such as Mama, Mommy, Shawn, Writer, etc. — and then we gave them flair with collage!

We had a ton of fun with this part of the banner.

Our banner now hangs lovingly in our family room where we can all see it every day. It’s a nice happy reminder of what really matters each day — even when things really don’t go our way. A wonderful reminder that the four of us are always here for each other when the going gets tough.

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