Children are full of spirit, passion, life force, vitality. It overflows. The world is new! The body amazing. Puddles are endless fun. Strawberries! The fur of a cat. Hard edge of a rock. (Ouch!) Tears. Up. Look. Sunlight through a fall leaf. The ocean waves. Your child can point you to where you’ve grown stiff […]
habits
One-liners: parenting in a single sentence
“It’s only a mistake if you don’t learn from it.” My son spoke this sentence today. We were stuck with the car in an icy ditch. Foolishly, I had tried to reverse uphill on a crust of compacted snow and rain. There was a lot for me to learn here (and model too!). He’s heard […]
Releasing expectations so your child can grow
Suddenly your child is not who you think she was. She used to seek your presence then suddenly she is more remote. She was once a calm and content child and suddenly she is unruly, wild and angry. She would fall asleep without a fuss and now she refuses to go to bed at all. […]
You are not a father, not a mother
You are not a father or a mother. You are not a carpenter or a yoga teacher or a gardener. You are not a role-player, a work-title, a position or a label. You’re a spider. A fool. A rain drop. You are a nebula. A becoming. A being. A part of a greater whole. Easy […]
Withhold or flow
Family energy stops flowing when you withhold your inner life. You might want to hide your endless worry from your overworked wife. You’re secretly fuming that your husband has left his underwear on the floor again. Or you hesitate to show your joy on a day that your partner is in pain. When you withhold, […]
Planning family-time before anything else
Work comittments easily take precedence over family-time. Not without conflict though. Someone in the family will eventually feel left out, or ignored, or excluded. If communication is unclear, there might be anger or withdrawal. Or, god forbid, the leaden cloak of supressed anger. Let’s bring our family-time back to the center of our lives. Here’s […]
Change the rhythm to get the fruit
It’s time to make cider on our farm. I climb the apple trees, and shake the branches to tumble the fruit for harvest. But they don’t fall from an even rhythm. It’s the changes in rhythm that breaks the stem and drops the apple. Sometimes we get into routines and ruts in our families when […]
Imagination and the art of parenting
Our imagination is vital to our ability to parent joyfully. Imagination dies when our lives become routine. It withers when we too often choose comfort over change. It goes undergound when we become trapped in family roles. It goes stale when we set our up lives to avoid surprises, spontaneity and the unforeseen. It freezes […]
The richest inheritance you can give
It’s not wealth, property or an expensive education. The richest inheritance we can offer our child is our joy. It flows from us when we learn to love ourselves and others. It’s our laughter. Our delight. Our curiosity. Our awe. Our gratitude. Our acceptance. Our passion. Our playfulness. Our vitality. It’s the gift of our […]
Choosing to step into a larger world
Sometimes our world shrinks in an instant. A relative says something disparaging about how we parent. Our partner turns to another screen while we’re sharing our heart. Our child shatters a glass of blueberry juice on our new woolen carpet. Our bellies tighten, our chests constrict, our minds whirr with the incessant voices of trickster […]