In Support of Stillness

My husband and I live in a fast-paced, affluent suburb where we are constantly bombarded with noise, information, and a current of family and kid activities available.

Living here I have always struggled against the feeling that I must rush from one thing to the next.

And that my children must do the same.

I could give in and sign my kids up for soccer and swim lessons and music camps.  But instead, I choose to listen to my gut and accept that for our family, less is more.

We spend more time at home snuggled up reading books, eating slow dinners together, and taking walks to the park to play.

The less packed our calendar is, the better we seem to feel.

It’s taken me years to be comfortable living where we live and keeping our lives calm and not filled to the brim with activities.

We don’t always have to be on the go.  Nor do our children.

I know you know this.

But sometimes it takes someone saying “I don’t subscribe to the status quo” in order for others to feel confident walking the same path.

I wish I had more mentors in this area.  I would love someone to teach me more about how to be still with my family.

There are few leaders and few pockets of our society where I feel like true peace can be found.

Ours is a culture that values doing and being busy and achieving.

So, without moving to another country, how do we learn to put more trust in stillness?

Here’s a few ways I try to provide our family with calm in the midst of the suburban storm of busyness.

1. Allow for quiet in the house

The TV is not on unless the boys are watching a show or two.  Reduced background noise makes it possible for them to concentrate fully on play or reading or just quiet contemplation.

2. Keep the extraordinary extra ordinary 

We do so much for our children that if we’re not careful, the bar for extraordinary can be re-set without us even realizing it.

Going to the zoo use to be a big deal for me when I was a kid.  Now with zoo camps and season passes and playdates, going to the zoo has become just a regular activity.

Same for water parks and concerts and sporting events.

It’s okay if your kids go to the zoo once a year.  Or once every two years.

Zoos are pretty incredible, but like anything, when not done in moderation, the special quality and feeling of excitement fades.

Same for eating out and trampoline parks.

We mistake activities and stuff for happiness, when really our children just want subtle routines and attention.

3. Feed Resourcefulness

Instead of trying to figure out what you can do for your child to fill their day, try to think instead of how you can help your child to be resourceful so that they may better fill their own days.

Since Mr. B and Mr. C were babies, I’ve used the word resourceful with them and now at 4, not only are they incredibly resourceful, they understand what resourcefulness means.

Just yesterday Mr. B asked if he could have an apple.  I said sure.  He went to the kitchen, got the apple then returned to our bathroom.  He proceeded to grab our hand soap dispenser and use it as a sort of grappler attachment to reach and turn on the faucet.

He washed his apple, then used a bottle of lotion to turn back off the faucet.

Then he went on his way.

While this isn’t necessarily an example of how a child can be encouraged to entertain themselves, it is a great example of how fostering resourcefulness will help everyone.

Children have to be guided a bit on how to play alone.  How to invent games and fashion new toys out of odd materials.

When I just tell the boys to go make a castle, they look at me like I’m crazy.  But if I spend five minutes showing them how moving boxes can be turned over and opened and stacked, before I know it they are lining them up and dreaming up intricate control centers and tunnels.

4. Inject spontaneity

The tricky thing about all these activities where you have to sign your kids up and then pay is that they tend to last a longer period of time than your kid’s interest will, and they cost more money than you might want to spend.

Try to find a new forest to explore.  Take a nature walk.  Go to the farmers market.  Take a soccer ball to a popular park and see if you can get a pick-up game started.  Cook a new snack together.

These might sound like crazy ideas, but crazy is relative right?  Kids do these things daily all over the world.  And a lot of them are happier than our kids are right now (or at the very least, much less medicated).

The great thing about spontaneous events are they are free.  They are real-life (which is becoming more and more important as our world changes).  They can be done with older and younger siblings as they are all easily modified for older or younger siblings.

5. Allow for Daydreaming

Being bored is okay.  We were bored.  Our parents were bored.  And our parents parents were definitely bored.

Daydreaming and staring and idleness can and should be celebrated. Boredom is often the spur to creative thought, stretching our abilities to fill in the precious gaps in time with words, worlds and wonder.

In Conclusion

Life doesn’t have to be so fast-paced, especially for our tiny people.

The pace that we are setting and demonstrating now is going to guide how our children move through their lives as adults.

Let’s teach them to embrace the stillness by doing it ourselves in small ways every day.