Natural Parenting- Rhythm in the Home

Musical notes, originally uploaded by Emily & Greig Walker.

Many people ask me how I seem to find the time to do so many creative things? And I always say, Rhythm.

"Rhythm? What is rhythm?"

To steal a quote from an unknown source, "Rhythm is not mindless routine, but a MINDFUL awakening to the many blessings of the day"

The key word is MINDFUL.

You could think of it like this.

We can read a musical scale two ways:
Firstly- to hear each individual note, to name the notes eg A B B C, to isolate the instruments
Or- to play the notes of a piece of music, with feeling, taking notice of the greater harmony, the spaces in between the notes, the full picture of the symphony and all the instruments

The first picture is 'routine', repetitive days that bore you and the children, inflexibility, strict time rules = NO FUN!!
The second picture is 'rhythm'. A stable platform for the family orchestra. Full of music, and song, and art, and creation, and joy= EMBRACE LIFE!!

My home rhythm provides safety and predictability for my little man but each day flits along almost musically with time for inside play, time for outside play, time for eating, time for rest, time for creating, time for family, time for quiet and time for boisterousness. The transitions between the parts of the day become like little games, and he plays along happily.

A lot of the normal frustrations of a toddler disappear within a home rhythm as he 'expects' things to happen. For example, he knows that rest comes after lunch and happily goes, wide awake, into his bed, only to drop off to sleep within 5 minutes. He knows that dinner will come after we have said a little blessing, and he'll sit in his high chair to wait whilst we get everything ready.

A daily rhythm for our family means that there are less 'wasted minutes' and more blocks of time for creativity. This truly is the key.

I also know that a home rhythm requires a little planning and forethought, and conversely, letting go and being flexible.

I treat my home rhythm as I would my 'working week', in that Monday to Friday are pretty solid but weekends are for rejuvenation.

My home rhythm is far more relaxed than my classroom rhythm would have been, and I focus far more on my weekly touchstones than my daily ones. In my classroom, my entire day from 9am until 3pm was encompassed within my daily rhythm. At home, my daily rhythm is broken into four parts- eg the morning, before Ned's sleep; Ned's sleep time; the afternoon (including dinner/bath/story) after Ned's sleep; and evening time. It is even less about the clock than my classroom rhythm and more about being in touch and in tune with our own body clocks.

(The classroom -whilst flexible about time frames- did, by virtue of being within a school framework , have some necessary time goals to meet eg being outside in time for our relief staff to do lunch breaks, meeting child-adult ratios etc.)

My weekly rhythms, however, are pretty solid and stable.
Cleaning house day on Monday, Moondew Tuesday, Craft and MamaMoontime Club day Wednesday, Visiting and Library Day Thursday, Moondew Friday. Jobs get done in the afternoon- things like picking up and dropping off the teen, exercise, banking. Having a weekly rhythm means we get stuff done. I write everyday (when Ned sleeps). Mostly, the rhythm keeps our family life happily bobbing along so we all get a bit of time together and a bit of time to do our own bits and bobs too. Weekends are predominantly family time but the rhythms still support.

Funny enough, my first parent evening in a few weeks is about this very thing! It is a juicy idea, so I might explore it a little more for a few days.