Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids

In its complexity and sensuality, nature invites exploration, direct contact, and experience. But it also inspires a sense of awe, a glimpse of what is still "un-Googleable" . . . life's mystery and magnitude.

Meaning hides in repetition: We do this every day or every week because it matters. We are connected by this thing we do together. We matter to one another. In the tapestry of childhood, what stands out is not the splashy, blow-out trip to Disneyland but the common threads that run throughout and repeat: the family dinners, nature walks, reading together at bedtime (with a hot water bottle at our feet on winter evenings), Saturday morning pancakes.

Children need time to become themselves--through play and social interaction. If you overwhelm a child with stuff--with choices and pseudochoices--before they are ready, they will only know one emotional gesture: More!

Rest nurtures creativity, which nurtures activity. Activity nurtures rest, which sustains creativity. Each draws from and contributes to the other.

As parents we also define ourselves by what we bring our attention and presence to. This is easy to forget when daily life feels more like triage. By eliminating some of the clutter in our lives we can concentrate on what we really value, not just what we're buried under, or deluged with.

Consistency also teaches us that some things do not change, though we may wish they would. Not everything bends to our personal preferences.

But a half hour or an hour of quiet, restful solitary time during the day is restorative at any age, and a habit worth cultivating.

Nothing we are told, nothing we read prepares us for the feelings we have as a new parent holding our baby, and knowing that we also hold their life in the balance.

Most families have increased the speed of their lives and the number of their activities gradually--even unconsciously--over time. They realize that there are costs to a consistently fast-paced, hectic schedule, but they've adjusted. And looking around, there always seems to be another family that does everything you do, and more, managing to squeeze in skiing, or Space Camp, or French horn lessons on top of everything else. How do they do it? They do it by never asking 'Why?' Why do our kids need to be busy all of the time? Why does our son, age twelve, need to explore the possibility of space travel? Why do we feel we must offer everything? Why must it all happen now? Why does tomorrow always seem a bit late? Why would we rather squeeze more things into our schedules than to see what happens over time? What happens when we stop, when we have free time?

What I have noticed, and what I feel compelled to mention, is that the experiential scale of parenting—anxiety versus joy—is tied to the “scale of involvement” between the spouses. In my experience, it is more commonly the case that the mother is overinvolved. What I have seen, though, is that when the father steps up, many mothers are able to take a welcome step back. These adjustments take time, as habits of work and responsibilities are ingrained, but the results are usually well worth the effort. A better balance of involvement benefits the partnership. It also simplifies parental involvement in the children’s lives, reducing anxiety as the duties and concerns of parenting are spread on a wider, stronger base.

Family is not disparate relationships between individuals and machines, in separate rooms of a house. Childhood is not a race to accumulate all of the consumer goods and stresses of adulthood in record time. Simplification signals a change and makes room for transformation. It is a stripping away that invites clarity.

After all, it's not just what you make of your time, it's whether you have the time to make it your own.

What better reminder do we have than our kids of our own best selves, our less stressed and more carefree selves? In their silliness we see the echo of the way we used to be: when we were kids, yes, but also before we had kids, or even two weeks ago, before all of the stress of these year-end corporate meetings. Their joy, their infectious enthusiasm, their sense of "mission" as the poor dog is dressed in boxer shorts, cannot help but cajole you, and beckon you, to lighten up.

Children are such tactile beings. They live so fully by their senses that if they see something, they will also want to touch it, smell it, possibly eat it, maybe throw it, feel what it feels like on their heads, listen to it, sort it, and probably submerge it in water. This is entirely natural. Strap on their pith helmets; they’re exploring the world. But imagine the sensory overload that can happen for a child when every surface, every drawer and closet is filled with stuff? So many choices and so much stimuli rob them of time and attention. Too much stuff deprives kids of leisure, and the ability to explore their worlds deeply.

Yet simplification is not just about taking things away. It is about making room, creating space in your life, your intentions, and your heart.

when something is really “up,” when they don’t feel right, you will notice and respond. when they are overwhelmed—physically or emotionally—normal routines will be suspended. when their well-being is threatened, they will be brought close, be watched, and be cared for. when they are not well, they will be afforded the time and ease to recover their equilibrium. your love will accommodate, and look beyond, their less-than-best selves. they are deeply known and instinctively cared for.

But imagine the sensory overload that can happen for a child when every surface, every drawer and closet is filled with stuff? So many choices and so much stimuli rob them of time and attention. Too much stuff deprives kids of leisure, and the ability

With simplification we can bring an infusion of inspiration to our daily lives; set a tone that honors our families' needs before the world's demands. Allow our hopes for our children to outweigh our fears. Realign our lives with our dreams for our family, and our hopes for what childhood could and should be.

Imagine all of your children’s toys in a mountain at the center of their room. You’ve rounded up all of the outpost piles wherever they gather and grow throughout the house.

play stages: parallel (“I play this while you play that”), cooperative or crossover (“If we use your bricks and mine we can build a bigger house”), sociodramatic (“I’ll be the witch and you can be the little boy in the woods”), and game play (“Let’s say that if someone touches the line, they’re out”).

In this way, we make a molehill out of a mountain, leaving for the child a mix of toys that they enjoy most consistently, and for the longest periods of time. Rarely are these favorites complex, or motorized; rarely do they “do” anything. The toys that are too detailed or complicated—too “fixed”—can rob a child of an imaginative experience. Dear nighttime toys can never disappear. Even if they are totally hideous, dear nighttime toys are nonnegotiable. The remaining toys have to include a mixture of active toys: building, digging, construction toys; and more receptive toys, such as dolls and stuffed animals, toys that just receive. There can also be creative materials, such as paints, crayons, and some modeling substances, such as beeswax or clay. The toys with staying power are usually—not always, but pretty consistently—figures of some sort, either dolls or knights or stuffed animals; building toys; and scenes or dwellings of some sort, into which the child loves to project his or her figures, and thus themselves.

Before you say something, ask yourself these three questions: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? True

Louv offers scientific evidence for what most of us know intuitively: that time in nature is restorative, that it helps us recover from the stresses of daily life and improves our capacity to pay attention. In its complexity and sensuality, nature invites exploration, direct contact, and experience. But it also inspires a sense of awe, a glimpse of what is still “un-Googleable” … life’s mystery and magnitude. For

So many choices and so much stimuli rob them of time and attention. Too much stuff deprives kids of leisure, and the ability to explore their worlds deeply.

Before you say something, ask yourself these three questions: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

Relationships are forged in pauses

When we refute the notion that our child’s development is a race we have to win, and that their imagination is for sale, we step off a consumer treadmill.

The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.

Children need experience, not entertainment, in play. The more kids can do, see, feel, and experience for themselves in play, the more connected they will feel to the world, and the less overwhelmed. We live in an information age, where kindergarten-age children know all about the tropical rain forest. Yet have they thoroughly mucked about in their own yards and neighborhoods? Have they grown their own plants, taken mud baths, climbed trees, dug for worms, or seen a robin’s nest close up?

Kids don’t need many toys to play, or any particular one. What they need most of all is unstructured time.

If your child has many versions, or copies, of the same toy, consider reducing the number to a more manageable and lovable little group. This is especially important if the original toy (not the “clones”) is one your child has imbued with special affection and loyalty. Our best intentions to increase the circle of love surrounding our child can have the opposite effect. By overwhelming a true connection with too many superfluous ones, we can send a message that relationships are disposable.

children given so very many choices learn to undervalue them all and hold out—always—for whatever elusive thing isn’t offered. “More!” Their feelings of power, from having so much authority and so many choices, mask a larger sense of vulnerability.

If a child has been able in his play to give up his whole living being to the world around him, he will be able, in the serious tasks of later life, to devote himself with confidence to the service of the world. —RUDOLF STEINER

Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?