Sunday, October 7, 2012

Grounded

Axel, Williamsburg, 2012


We've been out on the town three nights running. Don't get me wrong, I am quite pleased that we still feel able to go to last minute BBQs, fancy brunches, and birthday gatherings without too much anxiety.
Today, however, we're grounding ourselves...

Will made crepes with blueberries and I felt like a family on a sit com (it was delicious.) I also watched the first episode of the BBC series Call the Midwife and read a bit of Simplicity Parenting (another borrow from Caribou's lending library.)

The premise of the book is that children today are so often overwhelmed by too much stuff and too many structured activities and as a result are under a great deal of stress (that often manifests itself as bad behavior.) Obviously, some of this is directed at older kids, but the book is so thoughtful I really think it's helpful in making parents more mindful of the choices they make about toys, after school activities, bedtimes and so on.

A while back, Fern and Feather had a great blog series with posts on each chapter, covering issues like a child's home environment, the importance of routines, and the pressure to pack your family's schedule with a million activities. I suppose it's a bit earnest of me to read all these parenting books. Then again, I've always been a researcher, and I am always curious about the "why" of things. A lot of this book affirms what I already believe, but it's kind of nice to understand how it all works and to try to be a bit more aware about how we make decisions.

In these early days we don't always think through our motivations for doing this or that, but I don't want to wake up one day under a mountain of toys, shuttling Axel to his fourteenth activity of the week, wondering how my good intentions got lost in the mist and muck of every day. So far, along with Bringing Up Bebe, this has been my best read so far.

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