Mary Heard ⏐ Simplicity Parenting Coach
By taking the inflammation out of our lives our families are able to heal themselves from within.
THE FOUR PILLARS OF SIMPLICITY PARENTING
Environment – Reducing clutter and sensory overload
Rhythm – Creating predictability and security our daily lives
Scheduling – Time for calm and connection and moments of being in all the doing
Filtering out the adult world – Scaling back on media, limiting the deluge of information and stimulation that can sabotage family life
THE SIMPLICITY PARENTING STORY
Are you and your children feeling anxious? Are you drowning in stuff? Are you having trouble connecting with your children in our ever present screen culture? Advertising tells us that the solution to all our problems is to ‘have more, do more, BE more’
But what if we were to take stuff out of our lives instead of putting more in? What if we were to create space, space in our homes, space in our lives, space in our minds?
Do you ever sit down with a cup of tea and watch your children play in the back yard?
Do you go for a family walk to the local park on a Sunday afternoon?
Do you see the full moon rise?
Tell stories of what Grandma and Grandpa did as children? (Did they have milk delivered to their front door)
Do your children help out with chores, sell their old toys in the front yard, make birthday cards, know how to sing Christmas carols, ride their bikes to the shops to buy milk?
…….a whole family life can be built on these activities
Children do not need screens to keep them entertained and they do not need you holding their hand either – they just need space!
‘When a child is constantly busy it is hard for them to know what they “want to do”’ but as life slows down “like a hush in the crowd” the child hears their inner voice. Our society is terrified of boredom but boredom is actually the precursor to creativity and without it a child will never really get to know themselves.
Simplicity parenting teaches us how to live with just the right amount of stuff, how to put moments of family connection into our day in a rhythmical way that makes children feel loved and secure, how to minimise our ‘going out’ to just the things we want to do, how to control screen usage in our homes so that WE are running our houses instead of mass media.
Your children can grow up with good strong values and with an understanding that they will get out of life what they put into it. They will be self motivated from a lifelong experience of daily rhythm and will grow into adults who can engage in conversation, look after themselves and feel comfortable in their own skin.