Bringing a true Christmas mood to your children.

It seems to me this is becoming more and more difficult. As is so often the case, stories can help. This year I've been reading Alan Howard's wonderful 'Nativity Stories' to our grandsons, who are now six and eight. The day after I read the first story to the six year old he asked to have it again. Surely an endorsement!

They are old enough now to know quite a few Christmas carols, and enjoy singing both the quieter and more joyous ones.

In days gone by we most often had the chance to attend the medieval Oberufer Christmas plays. They always brought a quiet and reverent upliftment. This year we didn't get the chance, but we did have the grace of attending an Advent spiral, accompanied by harp music.

As our two younger grandsons will be away from home for Christmas, I'm sending them each a special card, for the younger, Fra Angelico's 'Flight into Egypt' and the older, Bernardo Luini's Madonna and Child.

Why am I choosing these paintings from the old masters? Well, children today are increasingly exposed to screen time during the day. Many of the images they see are ugly, even hideous, and often frightening. And the trouble is, they'll take them into sleep with them. So, I thought, it's good if they can have a card to look at before they turn off the light or blow out the candle. Then maybe they can sleep peacefully and truly benefit from this holy time of the year.

Modifying behaviour via imitation

Yesterday we took the boys to the beach. It was a glorious late summer's day, the air was soft, the river water not too warm and not too chilly, although shallow... which was lovely for the children, of course.

The blue-eyed boy, now eight (!) was constructing in the sand, a simple conical tower with a moat around it. Another boy (he must have been about eighteen months old) crawled up with great determination. I was standing nearby. As he rose to his feet and lifted a foot, I could see he was intending to bash down the tower. That would not have pleased the blue-eyed boy. So I quickly suggested, "Pat the tower sand. Show him how to do it."

The blue-eyed boy did as I suggested.

At that point the toddler's older sister came rushing up. "Don't bash it! Don't bash it!"

"It's okay," I said. "Keep patting."

The little one plumped down, reached out a tentative hand and... sure enough, he copied the blue-eyed boy. All was well.

What a simple solution, but obviously one the family had never thought to use.

Yes, imitation can be a useful and easy way to modify the behavior of small kids.

eBook available now!

The ebook of 'Magical Motherhood', retitled for the moment as 'How to Welcome Your Spiritual Child' is now available from Amazon, iBooks and Kobo. Take a look!

and don't forget to follow me on Twitter @MagicalNana for the occasional insight or chuckle.

A golden key for parenting

Today I want to share with you a wonderful blog post which will let you into one of the secrets of magical parenting and provide you with a golden key.

Take a read of this, dear readers: http://merriconeag1.blogspot.ca/2014/04/imitation-media-and-world-of-young-child.html

A good article re TV by paediatrician Susan Johnson

It's worth the read. Here's the link for you:

http://www.youandyourchildshealth.org/youandyourchildshealth/articles/tv%20article.html

Exciting news to follow by the middle of this week. Stay tuned!

Screen time for little ones?

These days more and more small children and even babies are given gadgets with screens in order to amuse them and let them 'learn'. I have a question to put to their parents. "Do you really believe your child has accomplished this epic journey into life so that he or she can experience the virtual world?"

No. What small children long for, need and expect is to be given the opportunity to experience the truth of our marvelous and wonderful natural environment... the earth. And to come into face to face contact with those human beings who are connected with them.

It seems to me that we are increasingly required to make an intentional choice as to which way we want to go. Technology is brilliant. So very clever and, of course, often misleading because it can so easily be manipulated. Lies can be perpetrated and disseminated, whether they be visual or readable. Remember, there's a reason why, as reported by the New York Times, many Silicon Valley parents send their children to technology-free Waldorf/Steiner schools.

I myself grow more and more conscious of how much my energies are directed towards this virtual life. Yes, it has its own seductions and allure. That alone should set off warning bells. I doubt it's right and good to devote so much time to living in a virtual world.

But I'm an adult. A small child lacks discrimination and the ability to judge. You brought this individual into this world (or, in the case of adoption, have consciously taken responsibility for him or her). If you take that responsibility deeply and seriously you'll know it behooves you to keep children away from screens as long and as much as possible.

We are all in the midst of a great battle for the soul. Surely our precious babies have not come to earth to learn how to lead a virtual life but rather to learn more about how to be truly human.

Waldorf dolls and creativity

There seems to be a current, on-going discussion as to whether or not we can teach creativity. I venture to suggest creativity is there as potential in all of us, but much of modern life stifles it. I believe it can be re-awakened.

All we as parents have to do is to take care not to stifle our children's creativity, but let it remain open and free for as long and as much as we possibly can. Waldorf education is geared toward exactly this. But in considering the small child we can look to toys and in particular for this blog post, dolls.

See, in preparing for the launch of my ebook 'How to Welcome Your Spiritual Child' I was searching through all things Waldorf on facebook and came upon quite a few suppliers of what were termed 'Waldorf' dolls. But many of these, I felt, had been dollied up (sorry!) to appeal more to the parents-as-buyers rather than staying true to the impulse. A true Waldorf doll has no expression, but simply two dots for eyes and a dot for a mouth.

Let's say, Dolly is sad. But no, she can't be, because she's smiling. On the other hand, in those simple dots for eyes and mouth you have implicit the whole wealth of human emotion. And feeling is one of the roots of creativity. It's bet to leave the child's imagination free to add the expression his play requires.

Take a look at this delightful video!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=574339585975357