Slow

Slow parenting, that is. A friend sent me this link about the movement, alone with the comment, "I think I like it...it's almost like, if we give a name to it, that gives us permission to create (or NOT create, but allow to happen) a way of parenting that is good for parents and kids all at the same time!"

I replied: I love this. Of course, I also feel an extreme amount of tension and pressure. And, with Ellie's diagnoses, I have to do things differently than I intended to. But not that differently. A good reminder! (And also the way I was raised once upon a time.)

"It seems to me that today we are speeding up children too much in some ways (academic hot-housing, for example) while slowing them down too much in other ways (not letting them walk to school alone until they’re, um, 23)."

But with Ellie, I've found that I do a lot of things differently than I expected to do, as a parent. I wanted to allow my kids a lot of independence . . . yet Ellie still can't do a lot of the tasks that many toddlers can do for themselves, like dressing, or walking all the way around the block. I've had to adapt.

I wanted to let my children choose their own passions, regardless of whether or not they were "cool." But kids like Ellie have such a hard time fitting in anyway; parents of kids with disabilities talk about the importance of figuring out what other kids the same age are listening to, watching, wearing, doing, and exposing our children to those same things so that they have a common frame of reference with their peers, so that they don't stick out . . . unnecessarily? In avoidable ways?

It's fabulous to encourage individuality in children. But most children are influenced by - or at least aware of - subtle societal pressures. Some children . . . are not. They just notice when they're excluded, left out, different. And they feel the hurt. So if a parent can help ease a little of that, shouldn't I?

There's a recent post on the Power of Slow blog called Planning the Space in Between that suggests another interesting way of looking at how we schedule our lives.

I love the idea of slow. I feel suffocated by our current schedule, in which Ellie has preschool 5 mornings a week, then both girls have gymnastics on Saturday morning, and we have church on Sundays. Both girls still take afternoon naps. This leaves us . . . basically no unstructured time at all, other than the little pieces before and after dinner. (Except on Wednesday, when there's music class, and so forth.) I hate that.

But-but-but. Ellie needs more physical activity in her life, and we're having a hard time getting her to enjoy and engage in exercise. Might not the special needs soccer association be a good idea? Or the Kids Enjoying Exercise Now program? Or a special needs tae kwan do program? And what about foreign language classes?

How will my children be able to compete with children whose parents are giving them every class, lesson, sports experience imaginable, practically from birth? Perhaps they won't. And perhaps that's OK.

Thinking of slowing down . . . Ada's sick. "I'm not sick! I'm happy!" she insisted with a weak but adorable grin at dinnertime, despite her fever. Her first real illness, less than 2 weeks after weaning. Coincidence? Regardless, we'll be taking things more slowly for a couple of days. I, for one, am looking forward to it!