Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I'm enjoying hte book, as well.  We have a 4 year old boy, and are just 
starting to feel like we want him to do all these things... Learn foreign 
languages. Play soccer.  Study acrobatics. Take dance class. Play 
basketball.  How do you reconcile your desire to give your kid great 
opportunities to do fun stuff and "overprogramming"  Is there a magic 
formula?  Can I have it?
  

    
We tried to let our daughter try each activity at least once but did
not push. I knew going in that there was not enough time in the week
for everything. 

In a way it was simpler for us because with two working parents, our
daughter was in day care and then after-school care and that just
pretty much ate up everything. The after-school did get a few programs
in, but it was a very different dynamic.
  

    
Hi Adam! I’m thrilled that you like the book. I think the “magic
formula” is the notion that there is time. I also recall age 4 as an
age when I thought that there might be a narrow window in which to
introduce Anna to lots of activities. This may be partially true of
foreign language – someone here may know what the optimum age range for
receptivity to foreign language is – but even in that case, the range
may be wider than we think and, even if a child learns something later
than the optimum for maximum fluency, is the activity and exposure
still worthwhile? I think it is. Scheduling activities to the point of
overwhelm isn’t doing anyone any favors. One or two scheduled
activities at a time may be best. There are also many ways to learn
through free play, family time and independent discovery, and these
seem to get short shrift in our achievement-oriented culture.  

I suggest trying one sport and/or one art offering at a time (for your
child, as your family seems interested in both). If your kid doesn’t
respond to it, try another the next round. My daughter loathed soccer,
which she and we learned when she tried it at around age 4, when it was
exceedingly popular. At a young age, she also tried gymnastics and
ballet, and even French (a very cute class that involved song, dance
and food). In early elementary school, she took piano for a few years
and was on a softball team for two. Then she was in community plays,
and that phase lasted a long time. In high school, she turned largely
to sports. Each activity seemed to have a time and each one seemed to
begin and end with ease (except piano which, as mentioned, we parents
might have held onto a little long, *just to be sure*). We also had
lots of terrific family time to do puppet shows and make clay beads and
play tag. Those things are all really worthwhile, too, and some of our
favorite ways we spent time. When there were opportunities to do
things as a family, we took them.

Betsy, it sounds like you've reached a comfortable point about this
for your family. There is neither deprivation nor stress. 

Jessica asked about consumerism. I do advocate cutting the overwhelm
that comes with too much stuff, when possible. We try to give away or
store excess toys and other items. When Anna was first born, all of the
grandparents seemed very enamored of electronic toys, which were often
loud and called for passive play, in which kids are entertained rather
than creating open-ended scenarios. We accepted the gifts graciously,
but we also let them know that the best gift would be their time. Each
grandparent had special time with our daughter, when possible. (Not all
lived nearby.) Yes, some took her shopping, even though I tried to
encourage some different experiences. But there were also meals out and
mall merry-go-rounds and other wonderful things that helped reinforce
those relationships and memories. I still try to encourage gifts of
time or fun experiences, rather than things, in our own family. Or
gifts of art supplies, games, or similar items that can be used in a
variety of ways. 

(And, thanks, Jessica, for noting that most of the crafts and
activities in my book can be done with items people probably already
have in their homes.) 

Hanukkah is tough – 8 nights! And we’ve done 8 nights of gifts. Some
of the gifts were books and useful things, or small or homemade items.
At some point we drifted toward getting Anna one or two bigger things,
rather than lots of smaller gifts. Now, this is very individual. We
happen to have an extremely thrifty, zero-waste-oriented child. She
doesn’t want stuff just to have stuff. But everyone’s different. For
some, small symbolic gifts might be meaningful. What is extremely
meaningful to us is to fill holidays with friends and food. We have a
lot of traditions around cooking and gathering. At holiday time, our
house smells like butter, sugar and cooking oil. That said, our house
isn’t the most decorated. We don’t buy multiple gifts for every
extended family member or send hundreds of cards or hit every local
holiday pageant, though we’ve done some of those things at different
times. (We used to send a few paper cards, to far-flung relatives, and
alternate between an ice show and a “Nutcracker” each year.) We’ve
managed to choose the holiday traditions that are meaningful, joyous
and low-stress to us, and shift and change when needed. 
  

    
(I note that there are still a couple of questions pending. I'll be
back with more thoughts, after some quality family time. :))
  

    
I worked as a nanny for 8 years to a child whose parents enrolled him
in every conceivable after-school and summer activity. My greatest
contribution to Peter's upbringing: I don't drive, so on his days with
me, we'd walk to the beach and throw rocks, or lie in the hammock and
I'd read aloud: we had a Lloyd Alexander summer, and I read Mrs. Piggle
Wiggle to him and the kids, one a bit older, one a bit younger, from
across the alley. After school we'd bounce a playground ball back and
forth; we are neither of us terribly adept with sports.

Peter was in 1st or 2nd grade when Harry Potter came out, and his
parents read it to him with much more enthusiasm than he had for it.
After school, we'd read "My Father's Dragon", and Esther Averill's
stories about that shy black cat, Jenny Linsky.
  

    
My dream for Ruth was that she would grow up with an E. Nesbit summer,
or a Swallows and Amazons summer.  The sort of thing I read about in
all those books -- leave home after breakfast, bring lunch, come home
on time for tea and bed.  Of course those kids had mush and milk for
tea, and went to bed at 6pm, but other than that it sounded like
heaven.

For the most part, there just weren't enough other kids around with
the same sort of freedom (and free time) to make it happen.  

But there were a couple of glorious days when a couple of other
neighborhood kids and Ruth just roamed free -- around age 9, I think --
for something like 6 hours.  She had a great time.  I don't know if
she remembers those days as fondly as I do.
  
  

    
Twice a year I work with children at a regional Quaker event,
Quarterly Meeting, which gathers at a summer camp/ retreat center where
a stream runs along the lawn adjacent to where our preschoolers meet.
The most important activity each time is sailing boats (most made with
styrofoam meat trays, string, and duct tape) up and down the creek.

Our older grade school kids have recently developed a tradition of
building "forts" alongside the river that runs through the camp. They
also relish using glue guns to assemble creations from wood turnings
(including, once, heavily armed boats which all sank.)

Unstructured Messing Around is the most important thing that separates
Quarterly Meeting Quaker space from most kids' usual lives.
  

    
We take our kids to family camp for similar reasons. Neither david nor
I love it (we're city vacationers, really) but it's the one time a
year when they can be totally unencumbered--able to walk as far as they
physically can, but still not be lost or unable to get back to the
main camp. 
  

    
I really want to do family camp. Rafe's YMCA camp in the Berkshires
(brother camp of the one I went to) offers it. He really treasures the
camp experience, which allows for tons of quiet exploration and play in
the outdoors. There is structure, of course, but he really feels free
while also deeply connected to the other guys there. 

Suz, what pes of community resources do you see out there for families
looking to do this? What do you see lacking?
  

    
When you come back, I'd still like to know more about the intended
audience for the book, and about whether you've heard (anectodally or
otherwise) that the book has actually gotten people to change the sorts
of things they do, or if it has been more beneficial for those who
already knew they wanted to do things like this and just needed a
catalog of good ideas.
  

    
( not pes, TYPES!)
  

    
Katherine and David, I love your tales of blissful summers. I think
that’s what many of us want for our families. I’m sure the children in
your lives will remember theirs. How wonderful that you were able to
contribute that way, Katherine. It is too bad, David, that the kids in
your neighborhood were largely unavailable to play with Ruth. Anna has
found that, too – or she used to. By middle school, there seemed to be
a larger contingent of kids who were free to bike around and spend long
afternoons in a park or at a creek. 

Family camp is another wonderful way of having a slow experience as a
family in nature. My family has actually never been to one. I wonder if
others have family camp resources? I work for a non-profit called
Children & Nature Network, and they are an excellent information source
for another way families are getting outside together, Family Nature
Clubs. These are actually surpassing more formalized scouting troops in
some places, and they allow families to enjoy hiking and other nature
outings with neighboring families and friends. (For more info, check
out www.childrenandnature.org)

David, to your question, my book has only been out two months, so I’ve
not gathered a lot of information from readers. A lot of people relate
to the feelings of overwhelm I describe in the book and want to calm
their family life in some way. Some people have told me that they like
the idea of “making one small change” and they like that a lot of the
activities are easy to do with items on hand. One woman who called
herself “craft averse” made some easy crafts with her family. Some
families who were already getting out in nature enjoyed finding new
activity ideas, such as making nature bracelets and creating treasure
hunts. I heard from another mom whose son liked the slumber party
activities, and from a few people who liked being reminded of
long-forgotten campfire songs and hand-clap games, which they then
enjoyed with their children. 

So, for the most part, the people I’ve heard back from were probably
initially receptive to the book’s principle and have enjoyed learning
about and doing new activities with their families. Time will tell if
anyone makes lasting changes based on the book’s ideas. My hope is that
some will, and that perhaps learning about some of the research
regarding the importance of play time, down time and family time will
help them make the sorts of adjustments that allow their families to
thrive in ways they’re not currently.
  

    
Paula asked if Slow Parenting is a movement yet. I'm not sure when it
qualifies as a movement, but there are certainly a lot of allied,
popular and influential threads that were not in place a few years ago.

I have 2 sections on my web site, www.slowfamilyonline.com, one for
Resources and one for Press, in addition to my blogroll. All are very
rich with allied groups and individuals, from the specifically matched
Slow Family Living and Simplicity Parenting groups, which provide
training and other resources, to the broader embracers of all things
Slow. You'll find Playborhood, which advocates for neighborhood play,
Free-Range Kids, which advocates for childhood freedom and minimal
parental intervention, play advocates the U.S. Play Coalition, the
Grass Stain Guru and the Save Recess group, and films such as Vicki
Abeles' "Race to Nowhere", which advocates changing our thinking around
education and models of "success" for children. More and more books
are coming out about the topic as well, such as Madeline Levine's new
"Teach Your Children Well", which has been on various bestseller lists
for the 2 months it's been out.

All of these efforts have tremendous, if not full, overlap with what I
call Slow Parenting. In my town, many parents are indeed calling for
less homework, more play, and an alternative to the chronic testing
(and teaching to the test) that characterizes No Child Left Behind.
(That said, there are surely parents who want the opposite.) Are slow
foods, organic foods, gardening and handcrafting movements? They are
all extremely popular and their popularity has grown exponentially over
just the last few years. (About half of all U.S. households garden, up
from about 30% just a few years ago.) I see these trends as all
related. I'm happy to be part of the mix and the message.
  

    
Small correction: The areas of my blog where you'll find some of the
Slow allies I mentioned, and more, are Resources, Slow News, and the
Blogroll. 
  

    
Apropos of this conversation, I just came across this, from the Irish
Times.

Even in rural Ireland, a writer has noted "U.S.-style" trends of
parental fears around safety, increased indoor and screen time for
kids, and kids being driven everywhere -- to the detriment of their
physical and psychological health and their connection with the natural
world.


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2012/0904/1224323570492.html
  

    
So how was everyone's weekend? Did you find good family time? Any
challenges?

We had mixed weather, so Saturday the kids got some good outdoor
playtime and also played with their friend from next door in the house.
Lucas went to an ice skating party and we all went out to a local
restaurant for sushi. On Sunday we had a very quiet rainy day. I did a
lot of knitting and cooked a stew, while the boys played in the house
and went to a movie with their dad. We took in an exhibit of Chagall
paintings at the very good small local museum (you can do the whole
place in an hour, and they have lovely grounds for walking, so it's a
great family destination and we are members) and enjoyed our stew
dinner.

The downside of all this unstructured playtime in the house, however,
is the restoration of the carpet of blocks, Legos, markers, Playmobil
guys, and toy food in the boys' rooms and the playroom. Working in
cleanup time isn't so successful for us.
  

    
That sounds like an excellent weekend. We cooked together, had a nice
long ride in the car, and got my daughter's costume together for a
themed party Saturday night. 

To which, I must note, some of her classmates brought a fifth of
vodka. Keeping your kids safe and letting them have enough room to
grown and develop their own judgment is a never ending series of
adjustments. I want to give other people some room to chat here, but
would like to come back to the question of slow parenting of teens.

Also, the cleaning up thing? I feel your pain.
  

    
I just got the book.  I have an almost 2 year old, so we are not yet
in the overscheduling stage, but I'm getting a head start on slow
parenting.  I'm one of those people sooz mentions who are really
enjoying the rediscovery of old camp songs and games.  I knew a lot of
them from my own Girl Scout days and had forgotten them!  I sing to my
daughter a lot, and she's started singing along on certain songs so I'm
always trying to think of simple ones that she can learn with me.

I have a tendency to overschedule/overstructure myself, so I'm already
thinking ahead to how I can avoid doing that for my family and my
little girl as she gets older.  I love schedules and structure and
plans and all that, but sometimes I end up biting off more than I can
chew.  Or, the schedule starts running my life instead of my life
determining the schedule... tail wagging the dog.

I think that when I was a kid my parents were good about not overdoing
it with me,  they weren't the ones pushing, and neither was my school
or other activities I participated in, but even then I would
overstructure *myself* and get totally overwhelmed.  I don't know if
they could have done anything different to help me learn to set my own
priorities and boundaries in a more judicious way, but I have been
thinking about that a lot in this conversation.
  

    
I am waiting for my library copy of the book to arrive (actually, it's at
the library, but they're not open again until tomorrow.)  But it's an issue
I've been thinking about quite a lot, in the past year or two.

I think in our family we enjoy unstructured time (to the point where if our
time was so unstructured that we didn't have to plan on preparing and eating
dinner or weekends, or how our 2 year old was going to take a nap while we
were all out enjoying a festival in our neighborhood, we'd perhaps have an
easier time of it!).  But we live in a place and time where we feel
surrounded by so much cool stuff we can do - whether that cool stuff is
relatively one-off and spur-of-the-moment, like "let's go eat dinner
at the local Greek church's food festival, have some fabulous lamb and some
fabulous baklava and visit the bouncy house" or "let's walk down to the
square and listen to a bunch of activist marching bands play music on
different street corners", or whether it's signing up for a chorus that
meets once a week where our whole family can sing nerdy songs about science
together.   I feel rich and fortunate, having so many things we love to do
as a family at our fingertips - and if you asked me to choose, I'd say ina
heartbeat that I value culture and eating tasty things together over vegging
at home with a book and a pad of paper or even watching the TV. And yet,
it's overwhelming, having a few things on the agenda every day, and when we
have a blank slate feeling like we ought to spend it catching up on laundry
or grocery shopping or repairing something in the house.

We certainly aren't doing the kid activities because we think without them
nobody in our family would get into Harvard! And we're not dropping our 7
year old off at things she does alone without us, for the most part -- there
are a lot of things like soccer games where the whole family is out together
on a nice day, or like the family chorus where even the 2 year old has come
along with us each season, the first time napping on his dad's shoulder
during rehearsals and the second time with a mother's helper teen to chase
him around but give him a chance to hear the music whenever he was being
quiet enough.   We love the things we do. And yet, my daughter's week
includes - soccer practice today (even though there's no school), a class
after school tomorrow in a 3-part series where they are building their own
catapults and trebuchets, an art class with her good friend on Thursday,
and then on Saturday a violin class, a soccer game, and language classes to
learn her dad's native language (and the only one her grandparents speak),
and religious ed on Sunday morning.   She likes it all, and a few of them
are non-negotiable like the language and religious stuff, but if we drew the
line and said "that's enough scheduling" then we'd miss out on all the fun
things driven by her own interests.

And adding a second kid into the mix, we don't do a huge pile of organized
activities with the 2 year old, but even remembering that it'd be nice to
spend some time with his peers to meet up intentionally at the park or get
together at someone's house requires some more entries in the calendar,
and I aspire to at least one fried visit a week and honestly don't even get
there a lot of the time. (I'm a full time mom right now.)

So I guess my question is how to cut back when all the activities seem like
so much fun, and when our whole family *wants* to do them?  Or is there a
way to turn marching with the kids' circus in the activist street band
parade into something that doesn't feel like frenzy, rather than lose such
richness of crazy fun?
  

    
I could ask the same question.

And separately:  tonight at bedtime my daughter asked,  "Why do they
make the world go so fast?  Why can't it just stop, just for a minute,
so I can catch my breath?"
  

    
I thought of this topic over the weekend when I politely (I thought)
declined the invitation of a mom from my daughter's old preschool to
have my daughter join a new Daisies troop being formed. I said I did
like the idea but we just couldn't fit in another activity right now.
This mom replied with a kind of manic energy, "But if you don't start
her now, she'll be BEHIND!" I said, "What, behind on s'mores-making?"
and she said "behind on BADGES!" I had to take a deep breath and walk
away.

I think so much over-scheduling cones from this kind of inchoate fear
of being "behind." (We got the same reaction when we waited to start
our son on team sports until he was in *kindergarten,* for god sakes.)
  

    
I think that is such an important point, that a lot of frenzy is
motivated by a fear of being left behind or left out. I think I feel it
most in terms of my kids being left out socially if I don't do the
work of involving them in activities, making playdates, going to
birthday parties, and so on. It's crazymaking on two fronts -- my worry
for them about being left out, and my worry that IT'S ALL MY FAULT
because as a mother with a full-time job away from home, I'm simply not
available to set all this up for them and connect them socially to the
network of other kids and their parents. So, I guess, I worry that I'm
opting out by default, not because I'm being intentional about it.

sooz, do you find that with other parents, that they feel that their
other commitments get in the way of doing the intentional parenting
they'd like to do? What would you advise?
  

    
I love hearing about your many unscheduled, spontaneous, and joyous
weekends and days! And they serve as nice examples and inspiration for
others. Thanks for sharing.

Katie, definitely, I think a lot of extracurricular activities for
kids arise from parental fears about being left behind. The Daisy scout
example is a perfect one. Many expectations and activities have slid
down the age scale, so that our children's kindergarten and even
preschool looks suspiciously like our own 1st grade. I remember when
Scouts (Brownies for girls) didn't begin until 2nd grade. Now there are
Daisies for kindergarteners. A lot of parents who enter scouting still
opt not to do so until about 1st grade. The children aren't left
behind. Some haven't met the other troop members yet, but at that age,
friendships are pretty fluid, and there are bound to be other new kids.
At that age, perhaps the down time and family time are more important
to your child and family than the opportunity to add another activity. 

In addition, of course, it's a shame that that leader is focussed on
badges as opposed to experiences. In my experience, most kids don't
care much the badges, and certainly don't at that age. When they're
Brownies, there's a new badge system anyway. :) Most kids just want to
run around and have fun. This is a perfect example of adults putting
their ideas on kids. 

Holly, it's interesting that you're checking in with your own tendency
to schedule things. And, David and Abbe, it's interesting that you're
taking a look at your own schedules and tendencies. I think there's no
one-size-fits-all solution here. Individuals and families are
comfortable at various paces, and those paces may change within a
family at different times in life. If you like to schedule, and that's
working for everyone, then continue to. If, however, you'd like to
leave more room for spontaneity, then try to leave some open
unscheduled time - something I personally relish, even if I end up
filling it with something fun. Likewise, if the family's having fun
doing all kinds of things, then by all means continue them. My ideas
about slowing have to do with those times when the family feels
stretched and stressed and is wondering why all these activities are in
the mix. I think when families do things together, they don't feel
that as much as when kids do multiple scheduled activities that require
parental transport and not much else.

Jessica slipped with another question. More to come!
  

    
I think it's so difficult not to feel guilty as parents .. no matter
what we do! It may sound paradoxical, in our achievement-oriented
culture, but it could be that what kids and families with full-time
working parents need most is family time. Perhaps that can come on the
weekends? When Anna was little, Saturday mornings were our time to
spend together, hiking, biking, doing art or whatever else we felt
like. She didn't do soccer or other sports then (and we later learned
that, rather than being left behind, she eventually discovered more
unusual sports that she liked and that allowed later entry.) There are
always choices and everyone can't do everything. I contend that time
spent as a family is highly useful, relaxing and bonding. 

While I do feel for parents who are not as available to physically
help with play dates and activities after school, I note that there are
other opportunities for child interaction. Often after-school programs
provide lots of enriching activities and friendships and are a great
solution for working parents - and for kids. Anna did those when I was
working a longer day than the school day. Though it's not done as much
in our culture, it's always an option to call on other parents to help
with transportation and workday arrangements, and perhaps pay back by
hosting a Saturday (or Sat. night - date night) activity at your house.


I think there are lots of guilt-free, rewarding ways to make time work
for your family and your kids, and to allow for both down-time and for
more mediated forms of enrichment.  
  

    
i have changed my pseud.