Child Development and Patience

Dear Families,



This will be our 4th week of class for this session. We will have no class next week for Thanksgiving and the day after with 3 weeks of classes in December. There are also a number of special events at the school in December, many of which you may wish to attend. In the coming weeks I will provide more information about upcoming events so you can decide whether it would be appropriate for your family or not.



This Thursday at 11 is an elementary school assembly at Thomas Berry Hall at the Whidbey Institute. Continue down Old Pietila Road. At 10:45am or so, the elementary classes walk down the road to the Institute and cars will not be able to drive. It is probably best to park at school and walk down or drive down very early. Grades 1 to 8 will each present music, verse, or movement for about 5 minutes. The assembly will last for about 45 minutes. While the material is not designed for young children, parents may be interested to come to an assembly to receive a glimpse of what occurs in the elementary grades. Some infants and toddlers will be quite content to keep you company; others would much prefer to be moving freely inside or outside.



The Holiday Workshop on Saturday, December 6 from 10 to 4, will have activities intended to delight very young children. There will be lots of live music (including a caroling vocal quartet of the two kindergarten teachers, the first grade teacher, and me--and perhaps an instrumental trio in which I'll be playing) and cheer. Some crafts and activities may be more suited for older children, but the organizers do want the day to be inclusive and festive for children of all ages.

As a follow-up to the article "Genuine Encounter" and our exploration of the time given for unique growing by Corkille Briggs, Gerber, Pikler, and Waldorf educators, I wanted to share this "Open Letter to the Mother of a 'Stuttering' Child" that I share with my nursery families as they prepare for parent & teacher conferences. This is an old article. It may not even reflect current research by speech experts. It was given to me by a professor at the University of Maryland when I was training to become a public school nursery or kindergarten teacher; she found it to be one of the most helpful articles she had ever read about the importance of allowing children time to develop before fixing them with a label. As you will read in the article, the author and other researchers found that the most potent cause of stuttering was the diagnosis of stuttering. All children stumble over words and repeat from time to time; it was only once a parent or teacher regarded this normal disfluency as a problem that speech became more difficult.I find many analogies with my work with children birth to 5. Children do not begin as miniature models of perfect adults (if there were such a thing) but develop in their own way and in their own pace. Some children may learn to ride a bike at 3, others much later. Some will be ready to solve conflicts with the words of Nelson Mandela or Gandhi from toddlerhood; most will use less beautiful forms of physical or verbal force as they learn how to be an individual in a group. Some children will pronounce all consonants at an early age. For some children, it is still normal for some consonants, especially blends, to wait until age 6 or beyond.

I am not advocating we ignore all medical professionals or other experts. There will be children for whom an early intervention provides tremendous benefits. For most children, even children with profound special needs, what we offer in Waldorf early childhood education and home life--real, meaningful work done artistically by a present adult in a nourishing enviroment that invites imitation and free movement and inspires the imagination, all within a strong rhythm that provides structure and predictabilty, while providing a life free from the over/understimulation of media, overscheduling, judgment, and rushing--already provides developmental help for all children. I was at a Sophia's Hearth workshop in Keene, NH, where this point was brought strongly to parent & child teachers. Rather than causing problems by expressing concerns to parents about what may be normal (though frustrating) toddler or infant development, we as teachers should strive to create such health-giving programs that all children benefit. We would be ready to answer questions or give unprofessional hunches if a parent sought one out.

The suggestions at the end of this article seem so close to what Corkille Briggs recommends in "Genuine Encounter," and I thought this would be a good research piece to go along with last week's selection.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde

Genuine Encounter, Your Child's Self-Esteem

Dear Families,

      Outside the classroom is a printed copy and here is a electronic copy of the chapter "Genuine Encounter" from Your Child's Self-Esteem by Dorothy Corkille Briggs.  Three copies of this book are newly available in the Kathrine Dickerson Memorial Library.

It took many years for Magda Gerber to consent to (co)write a book.  She preferred to work in the present and presence of other teachers and parents.  When asked what books she would recommend, Your Child's Self-Esteem was one of the few books Gerber recommended.

The concept of self-esteem receives a great deal of somewhat justified criticism.  Followers of Professor Carol Dweck (such as Kim Payne)  bash a sort of self-esteem curriculum or style of parenting in which every action a child does is responded to with, "Good job!"  "You're such a good boy!"  "You're such a good girl!"  "You're so smart!"  As Dweck and others show, this sort of global praise actually interferes with a child's motivation to challenge her or himself, learn, try new things, and be willing to solve problems mentally and socially.  But, self-esteem in and of itself is very helpful, and Corkille Briggs (along with Gerber, Pikler, and numerous Waldorf educators) give us tools to help children develop their self-esteem without being paralyzed by praise or criticism.  Indeed, in the chapter, "The Safety of Nonjudgment," Corkille Briggs clarifies the perils of praise and criticism.  

"Genuine Encounter" encourages parents and teachers to free themselves from the buzz and busyness of life to provide moments of focussed attention to their children.  It is quality rather than quantity that Corkille Briggs encourages us to seek.  Although she does not work out the foundational pictures of human development that inspire Waldorf education, what Corkille Briggs describes for parents is very much the process that Waldorf teachers go through with their students, either alone in their meditative life or in concert with their colleagues.  Rather than forcing a curriculum upon children, Waldorf teachers strive to become so attentive and observant (very much again like the sympathetic stream of RIE and Gerber and Pikler) that the proper activity to help the situation and child will become manifest.  This ability to attend with focus is one of two, as it were, essential elements of Waldorf early childhood education.  The other is the ability to provide an example for children of real, meaningful, beautiful, physical work such as kneading bread, ironing, washing, chopping wood, sawing, sweeping, raking, cleaning, building, folding, sewing, knitting, and soforth.  Children take up this work with their whole being and imitate it either exactly or are inspired by the focus as they take up their own work and play.

Here are other chapters in Your Child's Self-Esteem I recommend.

The Safety of Nonjudgment

The Safety of "Owning" Feelings (rather than saying "You're OK" to our children to mollify them, we can describe what we see: "I saw you trip and now you are crying.  I want to help you feel better.  I wonder if a hug would help.")

The Safety of Unique Growing (normal child development is one step forward, two steps back, two steps forward, two steps back, and soforth.  Once a child walks, it is reasonable and developmentally appropriate for the child to want to crawl.  If a 5 year old is driving us crazy with baby talk, it may be by accepting our child is seeking permission to act younger we will empower our 5 year old to speak in many more and more beautiful ways).

Lifting the Mask of Jealousy (makes the helpful point that some jealousy--struggles over toys in an early childhood classroom, for example--and rivalry is helpful for children's development.  They learn to solve problems, to cope.  Too much jealousy, however, shuts down the children's ability to respond and solve problems:  Pokemon cards, fancy toys from home coming into the classroom, for example.  Some children fare much better on a play date during which favorite toys are taking a nap, or where the play date is somewhere other than home.  We need not condemn a child in this phase, but realize that we need to adjust the stimuli to make the possibility of jealousy manageable).

With warmth and light,

William Dolde

Lantern Walk Invitation, books by Magda Gerber

Dear Dewdrop and Rosebud Families,

You are invited to join our nursery and kindergarten families at our 5:30pm lantern walk this Friday, November 7. The puppet show that the kindergarten teachers and I will present seems to be a reasonable length for our infants and toddlers and is full of peaceful music and movement without a great deal of tension; this is to say that it is a good one to bring your child to--as long as you are prepared to step in the hall gracefully if sitting in the big group is too much. When my boys were younger, they found the lantern walk magical; I carried them in an ergo, backpack, or stroller. Some of our older toddlers could walk as long as they are willing to hold a parent's hand. I recommend having a carrier just in case if it still seems appropriate for your child.

Please read the following description from Children's Garden Chair, Kim Dunkley. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU PLAN TO ATTEND: wdolde@gmail.com, in person, or by phone 341-4124. The nursery children and I have been working to make extra lanterns for parent & child families; it will be important to know if I need 3 extra or 20 extra lanterns or something in the middle.

Dear Children's Garden Families,
As winter approaches we will kindle the light within us all at our upcoming Lantern Walk this Friday November 7th. We will gather our courage for the dark days ahead as we walk into the night with our shining lanterns guiding us. The lanterns are a symbol of our inner light that must be kindled during the long winter months ahead.

There will be two lantern walks, one at 5:30pm (we encourage parent & child families to come to this one) and one at 6:30pm. Please check the end of this letter to see which lantern walk your family is scheduled to attend. Siblings are welcome if they are able to support a reverent mood and if this will be the only lantern walk they will participate in this year. They can bring their own lanterns if they have one.

Please arrive on time and walk quietly to the playground where we will have hot apple cider.

Please do not arrive early or late. (This is very important). Park in the lower parking lot just off Campbell Rd (you turn immediately right as you come into the main driveway on Old Pietila Road).

After a few minutes we will go inside to the Butterfly classroom to watch a puppet play. The teachers will then lead us on the lantern walk. After the lantern walk we will lead you back to your cars and say goodbye.

This is a quiet and reverent festival and we ask that you help support this mood by quietly guiding your children through the experience.

Blessings
Kim, Dyanne and William

Here is a companion piece I wrote for "planning ahead." It gives ideas about how to weather the storm of tantrums when they arise no matter how well we structure our child's day. It combines wisdom from 1, 2, 3 . . . The Toddler Years with that of Magda Gerber and Waldorf early childhood practice.

We have added two books by Magda Gerber in the Kathrine Dickerson library. Dear Parent: Treating Infants With Respect and Your Self-Confident Baby were published at almost the same time and cover much the same material. They differ in style. Dear Parent features short chapters with titles such as "feeding," "crying," "in their own way," "diapering," "thumb or pacifier," "tantrums," and more. It can give excellent and caring advice and is easy to dip in and out of. The brevity of the chapters can be offputting for some. Your Self-Confident Baby has longer chapters, more theoretical depth, and more apparent substance. It seems particularly good at describing the value of observing your baby and honoring where your child is rather than trying to push her or him to the next developmental milestone. At the same time, I know some caring Waldorf teachers prefer Dear Parent because they find Your Self-Confident Baby too dogmatic at points. As long as I am willing to keep an open mind and accept that not everything will speak to me or harmonize with what I do, I find both books very helpful. I do recommend seeing a video of Magda Gerber or of Loczy or of Changing the World, One Diaper at a Time. There are elements of the caring love that Gerber's method includes that are hard to share in print. The enrollment office and I are working to arrange a video night at a venue away from school, and we will let you know when this occurs.

With warmth and light,

William Geoffrey Dolde