Simplicity Parenting (26 page)

At each section of this book—simplifying toys, clothes, foods—I’ve mentioned that your life will also be simplified by simplifying your child’s. I probably don’t even have to mention that here, do I? I’m sure the thought has occurred to you by now. Here perhaps more than in any other facet of the process, it’s true: the tenor of your family’s daily life will change—will simplify—when you reduce the complexity of your child’s schedule. After all, who is the “support staff,” the drivers to all of these activities? If your child had fewer practices, club meetings, classes, test preparations, auditions, playdates, performances, practices, and meets, who else’s schedule would open up? And as unscheduled time goes up, do tensions decrease proportionately? Balance benefits adults, too … even if they have to back into it by balancing their child’s schedule first.

The Gift of Boredom

“I’m bored.” I’m sure you’ve heard the expression. Numerous times, perhaps. In the span of a half hour. Here is a shift of awareness that will help you open up your child’s schedule: Think of boredom as a “gift.” Sigmund Freud thought of frustration as the precursor to learning. With apologies to Freud, I would like to shift that slightly to say that boredom is often the precursor to creativity. Think of a bridge between “doing nothing” and the sort of deep creative play we talked about. The bridge is almost always paved with (the frustration of) boredom. “I’m bored.” Now
that
is when something interesting usually happens. (Don’t bother explaining this to kids because they won’t believe it, and they’ll find the thought of it very annoying.)

In Chapter Three, when we were simplifying toys, we realized that nothing in the middle of a pile can be truly cherished. This principle holds true for activities, too. When a child is constantly busy, bouncing from one thing to another, it is hard for them to know what they “want to do.” First of all, nobody’s asking. Their schedule, responsibilities, plans, and parents are driving them. But scarcity—that frustrating, “nothing to do” state—is like a hush in the crowd. Silence. What whispered voice can begin to be heard? The child’s inner voice. Stand back. Anything can happen. By reaching for something to do, instead of always
being scheduled or entertained, children get creative. They begin building a world of their own making.

All right, the “gift” of boredom is hardly a gift for you, if your child continues their “I’m bored!” laments. My suggestion is to flatline it. Outbore their boredom with a single, flat response: “Something to do is right around the corner.” “But Daddy, I’m bored!” Here you become a broken record. You become the most boring thing in the universe.

“Really? Something to do is right around the corner.” “Huh?” “Something to do is right around the corner.” Hmmm. It will become clear to them that not only are you
not
going to rescue them, you are also
not
going to entertain them, and you are
not
a bit interesting after all. You’re boring. Off they’ll go.

Some parents find this difficult to do. After all, as a society we parents have signed on to be our children’s lifelong “entertainment committees.” We’re unpaid performers, that’s for sure, but performers nonetheless. And we take it seriously. As such, we’re accustomed to seeing our children’s boredom as a personal failure. From their earliest days, we hung mobiles over their cribs and never stopped. A break in the festivities (or in the string of classes and playdates) and we are liable to jump up and dance. No wonder we’re exhausted.

Let your kids be bored. Let them be. Sometimes in my lectures I write up a “prescription” for parents: “Boredom. To be allowed three times a day, preferably before meals.” It’s ridiculous, I know. But sometimes it’s easier to make a leap with some sort of official “okay,” and I am willing to offer the okay, even if somewhat humorously.

Once when I described my “flatline” approach to a child’s “I’m bored” chant, a mom mentioned that she does something different. She grew up on a farm, where there was so much to do that being “bored” was a dangerous liability. If any of her siblings mentioned the word
bored
, they would have a chore to do within thirty seconds. “This tactic works in the city, too,” she said. “If my kids are ever bored, they sure don’t tell me!”

Arousing and Calming: Balanced Schedules

I am forever learning valuable lessons from the parents who come to my lectures and workshops. One mother, Sarah, showed me how she shifted her awareness about her daughter’s schedule in a way that proved very beneficial. It has been helpful to countless others as well,
and with her blessing, I’d like to share it with you. It began with the Jewish holiday of Passover. Holidays, Sarah realized, drove her daughter crazy.

Sarah’s big, welcoming old farmhouse seemed to expand to accommodate however many people showed up. That was the good news: Family holidays, in all of their busy, messy, happy, and noisy glory, were always at Sarah’s. The bad news was that Sarah’s daughter, nine-year-old Emily, would invariably melt down at some point during these visits. There would be a lot scheduled, with places to go, people everywhere, big meals, and one thing stretching into the next.

Even though Emily claimed to love these gatherings, after the first full day her behavior would begin to disintegrate, going from naughty to aggressive; slamming doors and acting out. Embarrassment led Sarah to discover how she could make these holidays easier for Emily. One day during the long Passover weekend, when Emily was being quite disagreeable, Sarah wanted to get her out of the house, away from everyone’s well-meaning questions and comments about her behavior. She took Emily out for a long bike ride, just the two of them. That break—an insertion of peace into the busy day—really made a difference for Emily. When they returned she was much calmer, her equilibrium restored. After that, Sarah made sure to build a break into each day. She and Emily would take the dog to the park for an hour, or take a walk on their own.

What Sarah realized was that these big family holidays were too crazy, too arousing for Emily if they weren’t balanced with some more calming activities. As an only child, living a fairly predictable daily life, it took some getting used to having the house full of people and activity. Rather than adjusting, Emily acted out. With more balance, though, Emily did fine. She felt more in control, and she felt cared for rather than lost amid the hubbub.

Sarah began to bring this awareness—the arousing/calming balance—more generally to Emily’s schedule. She would look at the week ahead and, based on what was scheduled, decide whether each day looked to be either a very busy, active “A” day, or a fairly predictable,
more laid-back, calming “C” kind of day. Her intention was not so much to control Emily’s days as it was to build in a little balance when things got crazy. So if Friday was the big class play—a definite A on that day—Sarah would make a mental note to balance that with a quiet weekend, or two calming C days.

The idea is not to steer away from stimulation. The class play, with all of the buildup and the excitement of performing, is wonderful. Like the holidays, the class play is a big event. These events present wonderful counterpoints, or “high notes,” to the normal melody or rhythm of a child’s days. The purpose of being aware, or recognizing what is arousing and calming to your child, is to avoid the overstimulation that can string them out, or derail them in the same way that a big dose of sugar and caffeine derails them in the short-term. By working toward some balance in Emily’s schedule, Sarah was not trying to avoid stimulation so much as overstimulation.

Here’s a good example of this distinction. I received a funny letter from a mom, Eleanor, whose husband was a monster-truck fan. Now, Eleanor did not thrill to the racetrack: the noise, crowds, crazy promotions, the fast food. Her husband loved to take their eight-year-old son with him. This solved one problem for Eleanor—“If I never go to a monster truck rally again, I’ll be a happy woman”—but created another: “Frankie comes home crazed! He ‘crashes’ all of his toys, and gives a blow-by-blow description of
everything
in this superloud announcer voice. He bounces off the walls!” Frankie loved these days with his dad, too, but honestly, Eleanor wondered, was it worth it? He seemed unrecognizable to her for at least a day afterward, and emotionally sidetracked for some time.

Based on the A and C balance, Eleanor made a deal with her husband: He could take Frankie to a rally, but that day would be considered a “Triple A” day, and it would need to be balanced (either afterward, or sandwiched) by three C days. Her husband agreed, and he saw, too, that the system worked. While he loved the rallies, he knew they were over-the-top, especially for an eight-year-old. By consciously building in some calmer days afterward, they both watched as Frankie settled down and came back to himself. The funny part was that Eleanor ended her letter saying there was a huge national, three-day super monster truck rally coming up in Atlanta. Her husband didn’t even suggest bringing Frankie; he was going by himself. “As he said to me, looking with excitement at the website: There’s
no way
we could possibly schedule enough ‘C’ days to balance
this
thing!”

Sabbath Moments

In terms of how kids spend their time, we’ve seen what a difference a generation can make. This has been brought home to me in another way. I sometimes ask parents whether they remember a Sabbath or Sunday feeling in their homes. Now, by this I don’t mean whether they observed religious rituals or went to a religious service. Many of them did. But in posing the question, I was looking for whether there was a day of the week that felt “different” to them from the other days of the week. A day that seemed slower, quieter than the rest.

Is there a moment—not a day, but a moment—when you can’t be reached? The very idea makes many of us nervous. Think of how communication methods have exploded in the past generation or two. The evolution from fixed to portable phones was a big change; and now with emails, pagers, and every possible phone gadget imaginable we are each a walking communication field, ever reachable, distractible, and available. However, given how reachable and distractible we are, you might question how “available” we really are at any moment. Surely if you’re fully available to the person on the phone, you can’t be to those you’re with, and vice versa.

What has decreased, as the frequency and convenience of our communication has increased? Moments of Sabbath. As my friend and colleague at Antioch University, Torin Finser, points out, peaceful moments have been eroded as our various forms of communication and interruption have increased.

Sabbath
obviously means different things to different people. But beyond the spiritual component, the Sabbath/Sunday “feeling” was usually one of increased quiet. It was very often a “family day,” whether that meant the immediate family, or a bigger, extended family group sitting down for supper. Many people avoided commerce, and the work of the week was put aside. (That is, if you don’t count cooking that family supper for four or twenty-four as
work!)

However parents may feel when looking back on the days of their youth, most agree that those Sunday/Sabbath days had a quiet peacefulness to them that’s hard to find today. Physicians are accustomed to being “on call,” but now we all are: twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. As a result, most of us are in a slightly anxious, arrested state most of the time. So when our cellphone rings just as we’re trying to squeeze onto the off-ramp lane of the freeway (“It might be the school
calling!”), physiologically we go from moderate to a hyperarousal state quite quickly. And we have a hard time returning to a calm state. Sorry to say, this is a symptom of high stress. We could all use more “moments of Sabbath” built into our lives.

Some parents feel that there’s a separation—a safety zone—between their own lives and their children’s. Some feel that their “reachability” is what affords their family some ease. But really, it’s much more muddled than that, isn’t it? Being reachable by cellphone may enable a mom to attend her daughter’s soccer game, but it also means that she carries the office with her. An article in
The Wall Street Journal
detailed various ways some parents had to sneak their BlackBerries (hiding in the bathroom, slipping out for a walk) when spouses or children tried to limit their use at home.
⁵
Everyone is distracted when one member of the family is distracted. Even if the kids don’t have their own cellphones or BlackBerries, they understand when they have someone’s attention and when they don’t.

Moments of Sabbath are “distraction-free zones.” Not many families can set aside a whole day of the week for quiet family time, but we can still carve out some moments. Doing so adds balance to busy days and establishes boundaries. As you refuse to answer the phone during dinner the message your kids get is “Right now, we’re together, sharing this meal.” Some families can go further, setting aside a half day for a hike every week, or establishing a “no-drive Sunday” of staying home, a symbolic gesture for the family and the environment.