Cereal

I was getting ready to make myself an omelet when Amy came into the kitchen and asked what I was doing. I told her, and asked if she wanted one. She said, “No, I’m going to have cereal.” After wandering around the kitchen a bit she asked me to get it for her. I took down the box, got out a bowl, gave them to her, and asked her to get the raisins.

She began to be distressed, saying that she couldn’t pour the cereal herself. I calmly assured her I was confident she could do it (she’s done it before), and when she repeated herself, I asked what would happen if she tried and it didn’t work — she said she would pour too much. When I suggested that if that happened she could pour the extra back into the bag, she protested that she couldn’t do that, that then she’d have to pour again, and that she didn’t know how anyway. I said I’d be happy to help her figure that part out if need be.

By now my omelet was ready and I sat down next to her and started to eat. She’d taken the cereal bag out of the box and was playing with the clothespin we use to keep the bag closed. Then she tried to pour, and only a few pieces came out, and she put the bag down and cried. I talked gently to her some more, but she was not ready to try again or to receive reassurance.

I asked if she wanted me to show her how I would do it, and she said yes. I picked up the bag and showed how I would pull the side straight so the bits wouldn’t get caught in bag wrinkles, how I would hold it at the top and bottom to keep it straight, how I would tip it — so that the cereal almost poured out into her bowl — and then put the bag down. She cried again. I reached out to touch her shoulder warmly, and she turned away from me and then got down and ran away.

I followed her to the music room, where she’d wedged herself between two desks, sitting on the floor facing me. The closer I got the harder she cried, commanding me to leave her alone. I kept a little distance and sat down, saying that I wanted to be with her right now. We exchanged similar phrases a few times, then she crawled through the legs of one desk and ran away again. I followed her again.

Now she was back in her chair at the table. She reached for her bowl, looking like she was going to bang it or fling it down, so I gently took hold of her arm and, with my other arm, picked her up to sit on my lap on her chair, reminding her that when she starts to throw or bang something, it’s my signal to hold onto her for a while.

She began to thrash her arms and legs and cry harder — sometimes the crying would turn to grunts of effort while she focused on twisting and thrashing, and sometimes her body would get still as she focused on crying. We didn’t have much to say to one another during this part. I held on, only firmly enough to keep her with me and keep her from hurting me or kicking the table nearby. I focused on keeping us safe and on maintaining warmth and kindness, moving with her movements, stroking her during her more still moments, occasionally moving my head to where she could see my eyes if she wanted to.

After a while she was still and no longer crying — just the little chest heaves you get after a hard cry. I told her I was sorry she’d had a hard time with the cereal. She didn’t cry again or say anything.

I peeped around looking for her eyes, saying “Where are your eyes? I’d like to see them!” First she turned her head further away, but then suddenly turned to show me one eye, closed. “There it is!” I said, gently touching her eyelid. “Where’s the other one?” And “There you are! I was missing you.” “I was here — my eyes were just closed,” she said, smiling.

I asked if she was ready to try pouring the cereal again. She said no, she just wanted to cuddle with me. So we moved to my chair and I held her on my lap while I finished my omelet. After a while, I said I would need to get up soon.

She slipped off and went to her chair. She poured her cereal without a problem. She even got the milk and poured that herself, even though the gallon jug was half-full and heavy. She excitedly told me to see what she’d done, and said she’d had “confidence she could do it,” echoing my words from before. She even poured in the raisins, and when she poured in too many, laughed about it and accepted it graciously.

And this — the metabolizing of anxiety and worry, the restoration of broken connection, the replenishment of confidence and grace — this is what I love about Hand in Hand Parenting, and other gentle non-punitive connection-based parenting resources. The work we did this morning is called stay-listening — the idea is to stay warmly connected when the child is throwing a tantrum or being aggressive or crying hard or expressing upset and disconnection in some other way. You stay safe, you stay close, you stay warm, and without words, or with very few basic words, you support them in their work of emotional metabolism, being the safe refuge where they can fully concentrate on this work and carry it out.

*disclaimer* — Of course it doesn’t always go this smoothly. Sometimes I’m not in a good frame of mind to stay warm while holding her, and I have to separate myself and let her be. Sometimes I don’t get away soon enough and I lose warmth and get rigid. Sometimes I blow up. Sometimes the underlying feelings don’t fully resolve, and she’s still cranky or upset or agitated later. But this kind of session, where it goes well, is becoming more the norm.

Anticipation

Dear Amy,

How hard it is for you to anticipate something fun ALL DAY, so that when it finally arrives, your flexibility is all wrung out. You end up expending so much energy in the anticipating, in feeling how hard it is to wait, in envisioning what you’ll play and how it will go. All that intense focus keeps you wiggly, so that you spend a lot of the day lounging around with your thumb and blanket, and other times have trouble deciding what to do and can’t easily get absorbed in play.

It doesn’t help that I had a lot of work to do to prepare, and so wasn’t as available to you as I would be on an ordinary Saturday. I bet some pillow-fighting and chasing and such could have helped you unload some of the tension you were carrying.

I’m glad we had some special time and a story during some of the waiting time. And we made a few little connections in the evening, when I noticed you having a hard time — when you were upset because the little girl didn’t want to play what you chose, or when you wanted to participate in the dinner conversation but people weren’t talking about what you wanted to talk about. I’m glad I was in a frame of mind to be compassionate instead of annoyed with these moments — I know sometimes that’s not the case.

I can’t protect you from all the difficulties of life. I can’t prevent all your inner storms. That’s not what you really need anyway. I can, and will, be there for you in those times, as best I can, and am so glad that I’ve been able to learn, and keep learning, about better ways to do so, to support you in this work of yours.

Sleep well, little one.

And now I’m done.

Today was my last day playing a teacher’s assistant at the Montessori school.

If this is what I’m going to be doing next school year, I have a lot to learn.

I need to be really familiar with all of the materials in the classroom — where they are, what they’re for, how they’re used, what they’re called.

I need to accumulate a much larger classroom management toolbox, one suited to the Montessori way of doing things. How to be available to kids without intervening too much. How to help kids get to a working frame of mind. How to deal with the fact that there are more of them than there are of me. How to help develop and maintain a classroom atmosphere that lends itself to a good working flow. How to minimize cracks for falling through, whether it’s the less skilled or the more skilled or the ordinary or the different who are most at risk for neglect or insufficient support.

I need a thicker skin, and to remember that while there’s a job to be done, ultimately I can’t force anyone to do anything, and it’s not my job to control anyone.

Today I spent a lot of time again with the girl who latched onto me on Tuesday and again yesterday. I believe with all my heart that kids who ask for attention in any way really do need it — and that even when it seems they are pulling their neediness out like a hat trick, it’s because they aren’t able, in that moment, to think of a better way to get what they need. And yet… well, after a while I sure was tired of finding this girl by my side and feeling her hand slipping into mine.

I also spent a good bit of time with a young girl from another culture, whose English I have a hard time understanding. She speaks quietly and quickly, sort of abruptly, and more often in single words or short phrases than in whole sentences, so there is less context to help with the more difficult words. I tried to transcribe a story for her today, that she was dictating… as far as I could tell it was about peeing — and included some apparently unrelated words — and none of it seemed at all related to the horse sticker she’d put on the page. She’s little and quiet, and in these three days I haven’t seen her demonstrate much focus, but she’s got some fire in her and is more skilled with things than I thought she was.

The bulk of the rest of my time was spent trying to redirect the two girls playing “puppy” to choose and actually do any work. In a play-based preschool, it wouldn’t be a problem that they were crawling around the whole room, under and around tables — but it’s not what’s done in a Montessori class. The teacher suggested I have one of them just sit with me for a while — side by side on the carpet, doing nothing. The other girl found a willing accomplice and continued playing. The girl sitting with me just seemed withdrawn. The teacher had someone else in her lap, and it did seem for him to be a warm and safe place to get settled. Perhaps if I weren’t a stranger, sitting with me might have been warmer and safer.

At the end of the three hours, I had a renewed appreciation for this teacher’s calm steadiness — nothing unruffles her, even terrified screams from the bathroom and a bizarre cut from an ordinary shelf unit. (Or if things do unruffle her, she must have some excellent coping skills.) I’ve never heard her yell at a kid, and yet she’s perfectly able to set and enforce limits.

I suppose next week sometime the powers that be will want to discuss the experience — and next year’s possibilities — with me.

Day two

Today was better.

First of all, I was indeed able to make some warm connection with some of the kids who I’d started out poorly with yesterday. Two showed me the trinomial cube, for example, a material I haven’t had much experience with. I think they felt good that they knew something that I found interesting, and that they could help me learn about it.

Also, the regular teacher was back, and there wasn’t any unusual behavior or interruption in the morning, and I was less new to them all than I was yesterday.

The same girl shadowed me all day again. How do you manage such a thing? What would be both compassionate and respectful? How much time spent in devoted attention is appropriate? How much of a cut-off later is appropriate? How to navigate such a dance, considering all the others in the room…

Similarly, there were a few who just weren’t getting into a focused work cycle. In the middle of the day, I was taking a story dictation from one girl, and three or four other children were sitting nearby or leaning against me, watching and listening. This is learning, too, is it not? If my paltry presence gives them some sense of security and warmth, isn’t that worthwhile? Isn’t it good to honor that sense of needing physical / emotional connection? And while there, they’re still observing someone at work, and perhaps learning a little something academic in the process.

I failed at line-leading. The class across the hall was lined up seated in the hallway, many with feet extended in front of them, and I asked my teacher if we should line up behind this class instead of in the hallway across from them. She agreed, but as I started helping our students line up, leaving what I thought was a big enough gap, some kids from the other class got mixed up in our line. Then, as the other class left, the hallway opened, and for some reason (did someone say something suggesting it?) I thought we should move into the hallway, which apparently is the normal place for the line. It was a little crazy for a minute or two.

I failed at taking dictation — should have gotten a lesson first on how to write on this special paper!

And then I failed at discerning when to hold firm to a limit and when to be flexible considering a child’s desires and needs. One little one, who I have rarely heard saying more than a word or two, did not want to change from outside shoes to inside shoes — I thought this was a fairly hard and fast rule and so I offered to do it for her if she was unwilling to do it herself. This did not go over well. And the teacher told me that it was okay if she didn’t want to change shoes — that usually she does want to, but if she didn’t today that was fine. It is hard when you are working under other people, in a particular accredited system / philosophy / method, to know when the rules stand firm and when they bend.

I was surprised by how much time, at this point in the school year, some children spend apparently doing nothing while they have a work out. They may get distracted by a neighbor’s work or conversation. Or they may not know how to proceed, or may not want to. Maybe their brain is working on it while they look like they’re just dawdling. Or maybe they ARE just dawdling. Or maybe there’s no such thing as just dawdling. Where is the famous Montessori concentration? I thought it was supposed to happen even in this age group, even with the toddlers. What classroom practices foster concentration? What needs or desires might be working against concentration? How should they be addressed? How important is the concentration anyway?

I guess I’m a little surprised at the strength and pull of some social ties — kids that spend the whole day, two days in a row, perhaps all year long, just with their one friend. In a way I am pleased to see a school setting that honors their desire to develop such ties. In another way it does seem to be distracting. What does Montessori training and best practice encourage a teacher or assistant to do with such dyads, especially when they spend more time wandering and talking than working? Again… is it really important at this age to not be distracted, or to focus more on work than on friendship? I think of Teacher Tom and other play-based preschool programs where the only expectation seems to be to respect others and to be wise around risk.

In parenting, I’ve been increasingly learning about how to support a child who is upset. What matters is listening, and keeping safe. It’s not important to end the upset, by distracting, redirecting, isolating, reprimanding, exhorting, contradicting, or whatever. It’s instead important to validate, to hear, to mirror, to reflect — with very few words — the feelings that are being expressed, and to stay close, warm, and connected. And if there is any effort to hit, throw, or whatever, it is important to contain the child so as to stop such violence — to keep the kid, yourself, others, and property safe. To offer safe alternatives such as punching a pillow. And to do it all without exasperation or anger or scorn or shame. (It is HARD to avoid these sometimes; adults who care for kids need an outlet for their exasperation — an adult who can listen to them the way they’re listening to the kids.)

I’m also increasingly concerned about the motives we attribute to kids, and how that influences how we handle their off-track behavior. Do toddlers and preschoolers make bad choices from a place of informed and empowered authenticity? Do they consciously manipulate or rebel? Or do they generally act straight from feelings, impulsively, and lose impulse control when they’re upset or feeling disconnected, and show their sense of upset and disconnection by acting out? What response to their off-track behavior is best suited to their understanding and abilities, best suited to helping them behave better, more like their own true selves? I think the same kind of connected, empathic listening and warm limit-setting I mentioned in the previous paragraph applies to apparent disobedience or poor choices as well as to sadness, fear, and other upsets.

I’m interested in learning more how these insights from parenting can work in a school setting, especially such a respectful and compassionate one as Montessori. I’ve heard of Montessori schools that have adopted RIE practices for babies and young children; I wonder if any Montessoris have connected with Hand in Hand Parenting or other resources in the same natural, gentle, respectful childcare vein.

Anyway, that extended parenting tangent was inspired partly by a moment in class today, but it’s also something I’ve thought about while I’m a parent of a kid at the school. The moment — I noticed an abandoned work on a table, saw a certain boy working at the other end of the table, and thought, aha, his friend is probably the one who was doing that abandoned work. I’ll go find him and ask him if it’s his, and if so, if he’s done or not. But when I found him, he was hunched over in a corner, quietly crying. I asked if he was okay, his head shook; I offered a hug, his head shook; so I told him I would sit by him while he was upset. After a while, he got up and worked on something else, and not much later was back with his friend. I wonder if they’d had some kind of conflict.

I’ll close with little extra bits — we had an assembly today, to hear the band (one flute, one trumpet, one clarinet, three percussionists) and see the lower elementary’s story-play, and I tried to quickly peel and cut up four mangoes without injury and mainly succeeded (no injury, but pretty slow!)

One more day of this classroom experience — for this year. I wonder what next year will bring!

Thrown in the fire

Today I was thrown in the fire.

I mean, I got to be the teacher’s assistant in one of the early childhood classrooms at Amy’s Montessori school, as a sort of test or practice or something as I apply for the job for next school year. The original plan was that I would be working with the regular teacher while the regular assistant subbed for Amy’s teacher who’s absent this week. But the regular teacher was absent, so the regular assistant played teacher while I played assistant.

I was nervous anticipating this day. And then I got there and sat on line with kids while other kids were arriving. One kid who barely knows me (I was at her friend’s birthday party quite a while ago) attached herself to me in a possessively cuddling side-sit, and helped me learn all the other kids’ names. And I felt welcome and potentially competent — names was one of the things I had been worried about.

And then, one by one, the kids were released to go begin work. In a Montessori early childhood classroom, kids work independently. They select some self-contained activity from a shelf in the language, art, culture, practical life, or (isn’t there a fifth area? science?) area, take it to a low table or the floor (using a small rug to define a working space), do the activity, put it away, and choose another one. Theoretically, it works. In reality, it works — I’ve observed enough to see it working beautifully.

Today? It did not work very well. There were two pairs of boys, and a pair of girls, and several individuals, who spent most of their time wandering the room, being loud, doing things that are not supposed to be done in the classroom, such as cartwheels, ninja fighting, even hide and seek, or just standing around talking. I would try, as directed, to go to them and endeavor to move them toward work — “what work are you going to do?” was my standard strategy — and most of the time the standard response was a glazed, set look and / or moving away from me. And I just didn’t quite know how to manage that.

Classroom management has NEVER been my strong point. Even when I had a class of six students, at the homeschool co-op I taught at in Virginia, the class felt like a group to me and not like six individuals. Similarly, here, I never felt I could give anyone my undivided attention — I felt I needed to have eyes elsewhere, or even interrupt my peaceful and productive exchange with one child (like possessive cuddle girl, who spent the day sitting with a map work that she would not do unless a teacher was with her, even though she was clearly capable of working it out herself) in order to deal with something less peaceful elsewhere.

In a way, I would have liked to have chosen one student and followed through with him until he was seated and actively pursuing his work. Maybe it would involve just sitting with him a while and getting to know him and to show him that I was someone who found him interesting for his own self and not just as a student to manage. In a way, I felt out of sorts, like I was trapped in opposition instead of invitation, support, encouragement, etc. I suspect there really is a way to guide a child to a work without it feeling like opposition to either child or teacher — that’s something I’d really like to learn more about. Because today I felt like I was trying to pry kids away from what they wanted to do, and make them do something else against their will, and that doesn’t feel good to anyone. (If I was starting to feel like certain kids were my enemies, I bet they were starting to feel like I was their enemy, too!) Again, I’m not saying kids should be able to do cartwheels in a small classroom where they could easily run into furniture or run over a friend. But that there ought to be a way to approach such a kid, and talk to her, in a way that would help her tune into her own inner motivation to choose something appropriate for the time and place. And there ought to be a way to approach such a kid in such a way, without “letting” chaos rule in the rest of the classroom in the meantime.

I suppose, too, that some days it’s just like this. The weather changes, someone comes in crying loudly, there’s a missing person and a new person… one or two kids behave differently, and it’s contagious. You breathe, and do the best you can.

Of love, fear, and anger

I have been finding some wisdom and good ideas through Hand in Hand Parenting, based on a philosophy of connection and what they refer to as four listening tools:

• special time
  Paying devoted attention while your child leads you in playing together for a specified time. You follow her lead as long as it’s safe, enjoy the time together, and notice what themes or topics might show up in the play.
• play-listening
  Using humor and / or physical connection to release tensions, such as around setting a limit or dealing with the grumps. Pillow-fights, chasing, wrestling, and so on — with the adult adopting the less powerful role, bumbling and falling short but good-natured and always hopeful. Physical play is good all by itself for fostering connection and confidence, and humorous physical play can be designed to help a child work through a particular issue as well.
• stay-listening
  Remaining close and warm while a child cries or tantrums — calmly restraining if needed to keep the child (or parent, or others) safe. The idea is to support emotional release by providing safe and secure connection — too many words get in the way of the emotional work.
• listening partnership
  Having another adult to vent to, someone who will not judge, be shocked, offer advice, but will facilitate emotional release so you can offload your feelings around the baggage that makes your child’s off-track behaviors so provoking.

Today Amy and I had an amazing stay-listening session.

The initial trigger — the small thing, the last straw, that opens the door on a backlog of pent-up emotion — was a box she could not figure out how to close properly. When I suggested she could either keep trying or bring the box to me and ask for help, she came upstairs (without the box), and as we talked more, she was pushing around a laundry basket — I asked her not to, and when I took it away, she hit me in the face, then backed up and stood looking defensive. I moved the laundry basket and reached for her, bringing her close and putting my arms around her.

For the next half hour or so, she cried, flailed a little, occasionally got angry and tried to hit or bite me, while I held her close, as loosely as I could whenever I felt she wasn’t trying to hurt me. Every so often, when there was a lull in the crying, I would express empathy about how difficult the box was, or that we weren’t having nachos for lunch. After a while, she told me to stop looking at her — I just said, “I love you.”

And here’s where we got to the heart of the feelings — between cries she kept saying things like “No you don’t” or “I don’t love you” or “You’re not supposed to love me” or “I’m going to run away” or “I’m going to break everything.” With that last one, I had the thought that she might be dealing with feelings about us being angry with her. I said a few things like “Even when I am angry, I love you” or “I love you no matter what you do.” It seemed we were nearing the end of the emotional outpour, and so I thought it was okay to get more verbal and discuss these important things. I remember saying something about how it’s okay to be angry, even though it doesn’t feel good, and that it’s not okay to hurt people. I remember her saying something like “You should stop being angry. If you don’t like it, you should stop doing it.”

We had to stop when lunch was ready, but it seemed both of us were ready for a break. While still lying down together, with my arms around her, I told her we’d take a break to have some lunch. She complained about what we were having (leftover grilled chicken), asking instead for a chicken sandwich. We negotiated how that could happen — that she could take apart her chicken leg and get out some bread for it, and that I or Daddy would do the mayo for her. Then we got up — I asked if I could give her a hug, she said yes with a smile, and as we hugged I said “I love you” again and she said “I love you, too.”

“Punishment is painful”

Not long ago, a mom was telling me and some other moms about how she taught her young child the Bible verse that says “All punishment is painful,” and how she explained that this is why spanking has to hurt, and that it’s God who says parents have to spank. She described how the teary kid would come to her after an infraction, and repeat the verse, and await the spanking.

Meanwhile, I’ve been conversing with a blogger friend on and off her blog as she blogs through her daily Bible readings — we’ve been largely discussing the punishments and judgments and afflictions occurring in the Old Testament.

These things and my ongoing journey toward a more gentle parenting have had me thinking rather a lot about punishment, parenting, and the Bible — whew!

First, that verse about painful punishment. Hebrews 12:11 reads:

• NASB “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
• NIV “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

I looked at this verse in every English translation listed at Bible Gateway. “Discipline” and “chastening” occurred most frequently, while “chastisement,” “correction,” “training,” and “punishment” occurred least often.

“Punishment” and “discipline” are not synonyms — “discipline” is the broader word, with connotations of guidance, training, discipleship, teaching, correcting, and so on. It is possible to conceive of “discipline” including punitive methods. It is also possible to conceive of “discipline” as entirely non-punitive. So “punishment” is too narrow a word-choice for this verse.

When the verse states that discipline is painful, it is not a prescription, but a description. In other words, it’s not telling parents that they need to make sure their disciplinary measures hurt — it’s certainly not telling parents that spanking is the necessary tool of discipline. Instead, the author is merely stating that discipline is, in fact, painful — it is unpleasant to not get what we want, unpleasant to be disappointed or frustrated or limited or to have to wait. There are enough unpleasant things in life that we can learn from — there is no need for parents (or teachers or bosses or whoever) to create painful situations in order to discipline children (or employees or spouses or church members or whatever). Discipline IS painful — no one has to MAKE it painful.

Back to punishment. Some say there is such a thing as rehabilitative punishment — punishment that allegedly brings about repentance, restoration, redemption, reconciliation. These folks argue that this kind of punishment has a proper place in discipline. I don’t know if anyone argues that retributive punishment also has a place in parenting, but even if someone does so argue, it’s not part of discipline. Retribution is not discipline.

My impression is that studies of spanking, any kind of corporal punishment, indeed any kind of punishment at all, do not indicate that punishment is very effective for rehabilitation. Instead, the studies indicate that punishment erodes both relationships and moral development. Whatever results it may seem to get are generally surface results that depend on the continued presence and power of the punisher. Or else, if the punishment is especially severe and long-lasting, the results are psychologically crippling. That hardly sounds like a harvest of real peace of the fruit of real righteousness.

And that brings me to the conversation about God’s punishments in the Bible. In multiple books and passages, there are statements like “I punished you, but you didn’t turn back to me!”

Given the studies about punishment, it doesn’t seem to be that surprising that people would not turn toward the person punishing them. So what is God getting at in these passages?

Is it that the biblical authors are interpreting natural afflictions as punishments deliberately sent? That’s problematic for me, because, while I think there is wide room for interpretation and the significance of genre, I am very reluctant to question statements in the Bible that are directly attributed to God. If the Bible says God said something, I want to believe that God said it.

Is it that God really does deliberately send such things as punishments, at least some of the time? There are other cases that make it clear that not all disasters are specific judgments — Jesus talked about the tower that fell on some people, or the guy who was born blind but not because he or his parents sinned. But if some disasters are direct judgments, then the question is, did God really expect that they would be effective instruments for bringing about repentance and reconciliation?

If so, then what does that imply, if anything, for parenting? I am more and more persuaded against punitive parenting, and so I am more and more reluctant to think the Bible calls for it or demonstrates it in any way. My friend points out that a) God is not always painted as a parent, and that b) God bends to speak and act in ways that would be understood at the time and place. True… and yet… I’m not yet persuaded!

What I have started to think about is, what if God is using this ineffective cycle of punishments and falling away to demonstrate that punishment is never going to be the way of salvation? What if it’s pointing the way to Christ as not only the final perfect sacrifice for sin, the atonement, but also as the demonstration of God’s kindness, which Romans says leads us to repentance?

It seems to me that whatever repentance and reconciliation happened in response to a punishment from God, was not a lasting thing — just like results from punitive parenting don’t last. And these instances of repentance and restoration were not deep enough, not reaching the hearts of the people, but more calculated, more fearful, more driven, more attempts to win back God’s favor on people’s own effort?

It seems to me that only Christ’s kindness, along with his work on the Cross, can effect real heart change, invite true repentance, provide authentic reconciliation.

And yet, if this idea is true, why did God speak as he did, as if surprised that the people weren’t repenting every time and forever?

Yes and no

I tell Amy, “Please ask.” “Ask for help.” “Let me know if…” “Please tell me.”

And then when she does, I say “No.”

I think of myself as someone ready to help, happy to connect, and yet, it doesn’t seem to be entirely true.

Well, if it was a beautiful day and Amy and I woke up smiling and I didn’t have anything on my to-do list, or not much, and she asked oh-so-politely, “Would you like to play Junior Monopoly with me?” I might cheerfully say yes. On such a beautiful day, I might even say yes if she asked oh-so-politely “Would you like to play paper dolls” (or “Miss Clavel” or “Cinderella”)? I’m not sure I would ever cheerfully say yes to “Would you like to play mean girl,” though.

I guess the problem is when the asking is inconvenient to me, or when it happens AFTER I’ve found the end of my rope.

Like today, when I was practicing stay-listening by following her around after she had kicked or hit something she was frustrated with, and as long as she still seemed upset I stayed near her, explaining that I didn’t feel safe yet leaving her alone.

But then, after a while, she started to back away just a little and giggle as I stepped forward just a little. And, ideally, this is perfect! Laughter is a great emotional release, as well as a great connection tool. Ideally, I would have joined in the new game with enthusiastic abandon.

Instead, I got annoyed.

And figuring she felt better now, I left to get back to the work I wanted to do.

And she started to cry and to say “I don’t feel safe.”

And I didn’t feel like doing the right thing and returning to stay-listening. I (too quickly, I’m sure) felt manipulated into paying more attention than I wanted to. She wanted to connect more and more and longer and longer, and I wanted to get away and do something else.

It’s not that terribly hard to set a limit like “No, we’re not going to have a cookie right now,” using connecting and listening tools. But what if you want to set a limit on being together? How do you disconnect in a connected way?

Sometimes my just-like-me ridiculously intensely craving willful daughter feels to me like a looming monster about to devour me, hovering over my every move, waiting to pounce, insatiable. It’s really hard to say “Yes!” to an insatiable monster.

Knobby

In a Montessori preschool classroom, there’s several different sets of knobbed cylinders. In one set all the cylinders are identical except in height. In another, they vary by diameter. I think there’s a set that varies in both height and diameter, but is otherwise undifferentiated. Each set includes a frame that the cylinders fit into only one way. It’s self-correcting, or, to use the Montessori term, auto-didactic. If you put a cylinder where it doesn’t fit, well, it won’t fit — and it’ll be obvious. The cylinders only vary in one or two ways in order to avoid unnecessary distraction and to allow a greater focus of attention — vs. most educational toys in the store that have a thousand colors, make a thousand sounds, and try to teach a thousand things at a time.

Yes, such specialized material means that it costs a fair bit to properly set up a Montessori classroom — which also means it’s not easy to do Montessori properly at home. Then again, it wasn’t designed to be done at home.

Charlotte Mason criticized Montessori for her emphasis on such specialized equipment. She argued that normal children learn about height and diameter from ordinary things and don’t need fancy knobbed cylinders to help them do so — she also suggested that such materials were actually undervaluing children’s abilities.

What’s interesting about that is that Mason was really big on training focused attention. Her approach to literature involves this training — you read to the child one time, then ask them to tell back (narrate) what they heard.

Mason emphasizes ideas — ideas presented mostly through literature — at least for six-year-olds and older. For the younger ones, she didn’t suggest any kind of formal schooling — mainly plenty of time outdoors. Montessori for the younger ones involves a lot of sensory materials (like the cylinders). But I don’t believe Montessori expects older students to learn primarily through sensory material.

To me it seems rather obvious that sensory exploration and exploration of ideas are both excellent food for whole persons. And I think that Montessori is correct that sensory things and movement ARE connected to the brain and other kinds of learning, and that Mason is wrong to absolutely separate sensory things and movement from ideas and the mind. Montessori’s idea also seems to mesh better with the traditional Hebrew view of persons being whole and undivided.

I think Mason and Montessori both have an excellent appreciation of and respect for the personhood of children, and their need for self-direction. They were both so insistent on their own methods being followed exactly that I can imagine it being a challenge to integrate or blend their ideas — and yet I still want to do so. I haven’t found many resources yet that have done this integration.

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It would be nice if a packaged curriculum was available that was already everything I want and care about. I rather doubt that I will find one, though. Sonlight looks interesting in some ways… it may be, though, that I could do the parts I like about it by using one of the online (and free) Charlotte Mason guides.

I don’t have anything against the idea of a Christian curriculum… but I am skeptical. I think I would rather add my own Bible study than follow someone else’s, and I am especially skeptical that any packaged curriculum could integrate Bible and other subjects in a way that I would agree with.

Some of the Charlotte Mason and Classical approaches seem to have a love of books that are old precisely because they are old. Or they think the older books automatically have better moral content. I’m not convinced — even though I also love a lot of old books. I hate _The Book of Virtue_, for one thing — so pedantic! I don’t think anyone becomes a better person because some pedantic poem told them to do so. It’s more through grappling personally (and vicariously) with real moral dilemmas. It’s one of the reasons I actually like Philip Pullman’s _His Dark Materials_ trilogy — his characters are all real and round — no black and white hats here, no clearly demarcated good and evil. I think there IS value in fairy stories and such that do have clearly good and clearly evil characters, because good and evil do exist and the difference matters… but I think there is also a LOT of value in stories that show people realistically, as we know them, as flawed and beautiful, wonderful and repulsive, fallen but still bearing a glorious image.

I remember really liking “The Story of Ping” as a child but I don’t know why — and on reading it again as an adult I haven’t yet found it compelling — for one thing, I don’t really want to use a story that includes spanking in it, even fairly innocuous spanking like Ping gets. Or I’ve seen “The Little House” on the award shelf at the library, but glancing through it I don’t find it compelling at all. I do love “Blueberries for Sal,” though — partly because Sal wears overalls and has short hair and otherwise isn’t frilly and pink, partly because of the brush with danger involved with the presence of bears, and partly because of the homesteading appeal of picking wild blueberries and canning them.

I don’t know how I feel about history yet. Some approaches do chronological history, like in a four-year cycle, that students go through again when they are older. Others organize it differently. I do like the idea of introducing other parts of the world and other cultures very early — understanding that everyone is in a context and that differences matter is important, especially (it seems) in our country where Christianity has gotten all sorts of cultural stuff attached to it that doesn’t really belong. (Bet that’s true — but different — in other places, too.)

Freakout

Your daughter is freaking out, afraid of something (irrationally, but still), and unable to stay in her room, coming out to stand crying, over and over.

You feel:

a) Upset that she’s so unhappy, wishing so hard you could make it better for her.
b) Angry that her fear is irrational and inconvenient.
c) Both
c) Other…

You respond by:

a) Talking and praying, discussing strategies, climbing in bed with her. (Are you calm, or are you intense? If you can’t sleep, do you try to slip out, or do you feel obligated to wake her so she won’t feel betrayed when she wakes to find you gone?)

b) Ordering her to stop crying and stop coming out of her room and go to sleep. (Do you use an angry voice… or can you do this calmly… if she ‘disobeys,’ will you escalate to yelling or roughness, or calmly and unconcernedly escort her back?)

c) Other…

Whatever YOU feel, is YOUR issue. You need a way to deal with it other than by taking it out on her.

As for how to respond to the child:

I think it’s important to take a child’s fear seriously even when you know it’s irrational. It’s highly unlikely that a little one would pretend to be afraid. She might be working through some deeper subconscious fear that has nothing to do with the surface trigger she’s talking about. Or, sometimes I wonder if a child needs to sort of practice with intense emotions. Anyway, if you think your child is “just doing it to get attention,” perhaps you might consider that she might NEED attention, and is seeking it the only way she can figure out at the moment.

It’s possible to step over a boundary when taking your child’s fear seriously — to let it become important and upsetting and intense to you as well as to her. It’s HER fear, not yours. Somehow one must be able to express compassion and respect while allowing the fear to belong solely to the child. I’m not talking about becoming afraid of the same thing that’s frightening the little one, of course, but about being just as upset about the fear as the child is. If you’re just as upset as she is, it seems likely that the fear will feel even more dangerous and powerful than she initially thought.

That’s what was going on with me the other night. I was doing the same thing Amy was, getting myself all worked up about the situation, bringing into it my concerns about parenting well, not able to disengage (taking the issue on as if it was mine) and accept the unpleasant reality (that even though I needed to sleep and felt very tired, I was not yet asleep, and likewise for her).

Of course it’s also possible to come across as dismissive, shaming, invalidating, and otherwise NOT compassionate and respectful. Just because you know the fear belongs to the child, and just because you know how irrational it is, doesn’t mean you can expect the child to be able to toss the fear aside and be done with it. Again, the fear is real even if the trigger doesn’t merit such fear.

I expect it is possible to be both gentle and firm… perhaps it is possible to express compassion and respect for the fear without taking it on as your own issue, and without making exceptions to the normal bedtime routine. If you’re able to sleep in the child’s bed, or invite her into your own, or think of some other help (we tried a white noise generator, for example), well and good. But if you’re not able to do those things, then I suppose it’s okay not to. You know the kid is safe. You know they will emerge alive in the morning. You know they know you are there in the house and that you love them and respect their fear. You’re letting them cry — the dreaded Cry It Out, some will charge — but the overall environment is compassion and respect, not abandonment and disconnection.

Interesting.