Simplify your summer!

My first series of workshops has been announced! Posters are up, as is my enthusiasm. Let the learning experiences begin!

First of all, I already know that I made too many posters. Funny, when I'm walking around town, I feel bombarded by visual advertising and yet when I walked around trying to find appropriate places to put up my poster, I found them lacking!

Secondly, I chose to make my posters in English despite its minority status here in Montreal. I did this because the book Simplicity Parenting, is still not available in French for the time being. The parent group in which I participated was primarily in English, but francophones were welcome and participated in whatever language was the most comfortable for them at the given moment. I plan to do the same and I do invite the French-speakers specifically in a small paragraph at the bottom left of the poster. Nonetheless, I have been turned down twice to put up my poster because it was in English. I am going to work on a French version this weekend, at least to be able to furnish a home-printed version if necessary.

I now have ten brand new beautiful copies of Simplicity Parenting just waiting for their new owners. Exciting!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

How do you view change?

This was a question posed to me and the other participants in the Simplicity Parenting Group Leader Training in one of our recent sessions. How would you answer it? I was surprised by the variety of answers and glad to understand this facet of working with a group in a learning environment.

Do you prefer your changes to be slow and organic, or intentional and systematic, or another combination?
Do you find yourself doing a lot of research or do you let your intuition guide you?
Do you see change as an opportunity for growth and increased consciousness?
Do you find that change is humbling or difficult? Do you feel this is more or less the case for children versus adults?
Do you tend to just let change happen?

One participant, who had recently attended a talk on the subject of change, explained that there are three types of change:

1) Change that simply happens a s a result of time moving forward.
2) Change that we control.
3) Change that is imposed upon us.

The first one, we are powerless to control, but we know it's inevitable. Obviously, the second type is generally the easiest to accept. The third type is where one would most likely meet up with, or be more likely to show resistance!




Working with Simplicity Parenting involves changes. When in a study group, participants are guided through a process where they identify a dissatisfaction involving an aspect of their home/family life; create a "small doable change" to address the dissatisfaction; then review and adjust if necessary. In these study groups, it is ideal if both parents can attend the sessions so there is not the need for the extra step of bringing the ideas home and enlisting the agreement of the partner who was not present for the initial thinking process.

This brings me to my contribution to the discussion on dealing with change. An acquaintance recently expressed, when discussing this work, that actually she was sending her husband to the group sessions because it was so often she who did all the research when it came to parenting and who was always in the position of having to"convince" or at least explain everything to her husband. And, (in addition to the discoveries that we were the same age, both Americans (from NY!) living in Montreal, married to Quebeckers (who are the same age), with two children...), I exclaimed, maybe too quickly, "Oh my gosh, my husband and I are exactly like that too!" To which she nonchalantly, trying hard to hide the "duh" in her voice said, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's a pretty common dynamic." To me, I felt instantly part of a new community and I have been noticing other moms talking about the same phenomenon, without me even bringing it up.

My husband and I have been making the effort to find a little couple time, a dinner here, a lunch there, and a nice long walk on a sunny Sunday in January. During these precious occasions I have been able to benefit from the lack of interruptions enough to continue to express some of my wishes for our family, mostly stemming from my work with Simplicity Parenting. Everything has been so well-received, I feel lucky. But it's not just luck. It is also because the ideas in Simplicity Parenting are adjustable...they are not "one size fits all" like some parenting advice that's out there. My husband and I are able to make these ideas our own and adjust them to fit our values and realities.

Testimonial

"I love how Simplicity Parenting in general, and especially in group work, encourages you to celebrate every step, even the smallest of steps, toward creating a life for your family that is in line with your values, not someone else's."

This is the testimonial I submitted to the leader of the Simplicity Parenting study group I completed recently, I hope those who will participate in my future groups will be similarly satisfied!

For me, for you...

My dear old Mac laptop, that I have had since 2006, is slowing down considerably and the funds are not there to replace it at this time. I've been deleting some things, trying to make room in the memory and then I came across my list of bookmarks--my extreeeemely long list of bookmarks--and I thought "Hmmm, blog=free storage=less clutter on my computer." So now when I come across something simplicity-minded that I want to save, I will post it here. For me: free storage and a way to organize some of my bookmarks! For you: handy dandy information from me!

One website in particular may appear regularly in my posts--Apartment Therapy. This site was co-founded by a former Waldorf teacher. I used to look at it quite a lot when I was in "baby room decor" mode and found many refreshing and affordable ideas. Now, I receive their updates on Facebook and notice that I don't have the time, need, or desire as much to look at their most common posts, which are house and room tours. But from time to time they post something that I find more practical and such was the case recently when I came across these organizing tips.

Here are, briefly, Apartment Therapy's ten tips on "How to be your own professional organizer," (the complete descriptions can be found by clicking the above link):

1. Get ready the night before
2. Open mail over the recycle bin
3. Write it down
4. Slow and steady wins the race
5. Time out
6. Play cards
7. Pad your time
8. Set goals
9. Give it up
10. Put it away now

I think numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 10 are pretty self-explanatory. The two that I plan to try very soon are numbers 5 and 6, which are basically cleaning games for you and your family. Number 5 suggests setting a timer and, with your children or without, doing as much straightening up as you can in the time you've allowed yourself. I can imagine this working for me and my daughter. Number 6 is also game-like as it suggests writing down a number of chores on index cards and you draw, or each family member draws, a card and that is the chore du jour (there are 'free days' included). My kids probably need to be older for that one, but I like the idea.

My husband is so good at number 10 that sometimes it gets on my nerves. He'll walk in the front door, walk straight to his desk, open the mail and recycle the envelopes before he even says hello (I guess that's number 2 too)! Luckily, it sometimes rubs off on me (not the anti-social part, just the "put it away now" part)--but not often enough !

Number 9 is a big one for the Simplicity Parenting folks. Especially in the realms of children's clothing, books and toys. The book perhaps doesn't speak strongly enough to the fact that we need to hold ourselves, the parents, to similar standards. "Give it up" refers to the idea of putting unused items in a box and after a certain amount of time, if it's still unused--give it up!

I confess that just before my baby arrived last Spring, I engaged a professional organizer to help me with getting the storage areas (closets) in our new condo organized. It was helpful, but sadly I have been not been 100% able to maintain the order we established, but maybe 75% and maybe that's not so bad! The biggest thing that stayed with me is to "keep like things together"--duh! But it's odd how, for example, I had craft supplies split into several spaces!

My efforts in the area of organization fall back into one of the ideas above--#4, "Slow and steady wins the race." I need to remind myself that even if I do something very small, teeny tiny even, that maintains or creates a more orderly household, it counts (hence the idea of "small doable changes"), and I get to be proud of even the smallest bit of domestic productivity during my full days!

And so do you! Which of these ideas will you try? Or maybe you've tried some already? I'd love to hear about it!

Begin...

"Begin." is the last sentence in the book called Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne.

This book has affected my life in a number of ways. I first read it about a year ago, quite quickly...more or less devoured it! My husband and I were inspired to make some changes in our household as a result. The toys were sorted and trips were made to the second-hand shops, known here in Montréal as friperies. The biggest change we made at this time was to move our 42" flat-screen TV (that was given to us as a wedding present and on which we so cozily and casually loved to watch movies before the arrival of two babies in 20 months) into a corner of our master bedroom and hid it behind a curtain.

This past Fall, I attended a parent study group and read the book a second time and completed homework assignments consisting of creating and following through on a "small doable change" related to each chapter of the book. Then there were the discussions: laughter, tears and sharing among parents who are trying to figure this job out!

In a few weeks I take the next step as I begin a training program to become a parent study group leader. I have been on maternity leave since the summer of 2009 and I welcome this opportunity to use my creativity and skills to spread the word about this work of simplifying, while at the same time enlarging my network of like-minded folks.

So, let's begin!