slow parenting
Life at a child’s pace
A child’s pace is that of our bodies moving through water. Instinctively, they know that if they rush, they meet more resistance. The forces of the world hold them at bay and put stress on their bodies and their being in the same way we feel the weight of the water pushing back at us when we wade too quickly in a deep pool. We can’t rush children through the day, we can’t rush them into movement, and we can’t rush them into learning until they are ready. Then, the obstacles seem to move out of the way and make space for them to unfold. The most pleasurable moments in our lives and those of our children are the ones where we slow down, moving peacefully through the water, creating ripples, making progress, allowing the water to make space for US so that we can move through with ease and grace. All the while, we take the time to engage our senses, to feel the air above and the calm water below—looking down, through its stillness, right down to our feet and take stock of our whole selves.
Most of us spend life trying to rush ourselves through the deep, drawing our children in with us despite their nature. We expect them to manage our pace rather than being inspired by theirs. Many of us were forced to slow down during the pandemic. Some of us became reacquainted with time itself–learning that what makes it go by so fast is that we have become so accustomed to filling it up or not paying attention to it or not being present enough to note its every moment. Suddenly, being at home more often, with nowhere to rush to, we regained lost moments that get shuffled away between errands, in transit, between meetings, between the dozens of tasks that ordinarily make up our day. The traffic-laden drives, the hurried meals, the multi-tasking lifestyle that our children have observed us build around them suddenly shifted when we were forced to be home. That picture was replaced for a time by slower days, more home-cooked meals, walking, talking, gardening, home making, and even boredom–glorious boredom. And finally, presence—even with all the worry, stress and concern that accompanied those circumstances. For our youngest children, life finally slowed down to their pace. Moving at snail speed was suddenly ok.
Developing a slow and healthy daily rhythm is helpful and provides good structure within which we can do and be and toodle about. There is no hurry in such a rhythm–just flow. With a deliberately gentle pace, the moments in our day that build up charge and tension because they interfere with our busy schedule or our need to move quickly between tasks, are no longer. At first, we might have to work ourselves out of parenting habits that we have built up out of desperation when working with our children under the pressure of time, but once we do, we can approach each obstacle with presence and patience because we have nowhere else to be. Suddenly a tantrum is an opportunity to really be present, to listen and to observe your child—to learn something new about how they interact with the world, about what soothes them, about what makes them feel seen. It could be an opportunity to find some inner tools and strategies to diffuse a tantrum in the future before it even starts.
Finding the placid pace and self-assurance of a snail is not all easy in these times. Many of us are still working from home and still dealing with the deadlines and pressures of our workplace— even for us, this is a true opportunity because, since the pandemic and with the rise of virtual platforms like Zoom, the boundaries between work and home are blurred more than ever. We can use this time transformatively if we search for stolen time during the day to be more present with our families and if we call upon our inner discipline to make sure that we leave work when the day is done. To truly seize the stolen minutes, we can make time in the day to slow down and share meals, to help our children, and to participate in home life. For some extra encouragement and inspiration for our slow parenting, we need only to turn to nature wherever we can find it. The outdoors is replete with organisms and processes that take time and require waiting and build our capacity for observation, empathy, and artistry–three hallmarks of slow parenting and slow living. Leaves turning color with the brushstrokes of autumn, a ripening harvest, creatures going about their business with skill, purpose and rhythm–business so fascinating in its mundaneness that no matter the destination, a child never hesitates to stop in their tracks to wonder at a dew drop quivering on a gossamer spider’s web, to examine a small insect make its long journey across a path or to muse at a snail bucolically sliding across the sidewalk leaving trail of shimmering slime—declaring: I was here and I took my time. From these steadfast creatures and the creative and infinitesimal processes of nature, we learn that it isn’t how fast you get there, but how you get there that makes a life fulfilling and healthy. So making the effort to go into nature, to walk in the woods, to hike a trail, to visit the ocean, to sit in your garden, to stop when your child takes a wistful detour to observe, with genuine love and presence, a dandelion growing from a crack in the cement on a city sidewalk, is a necessity of parenting these days.
Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste.
― Theodore Roethke
In the tradition of nature, the great artist, we can be further inspired to slow our pace by becoming artists ourselves. Preparing and crafting a home cooked meal, painting, drawing, singing, playing and instrument, dancing, moving, tidying our homes with grace and joy are all ways of surrounding our children with beauty. They bring rhythm to our children’s breathing, purpose to their hands and hearts, and inspire reverence. Reverence requires us to slow down and make space for something bigger or even something smaller. It requires us to increase the pauses in our rhythm to allow for the possibility of growth, insight, inspiration, and connection. Taking the time to create a culture of beauty in our homes heals the breathlessness and anxiety that builds up over time and allows us the opportunity to build depth, dimension, and meaning into our family lives.
It might be that amongst all creatures, humans are the most in a hurry. We’ve spent the last few decades moving with a force and speed that often creates a wake that unsettles our children and disrupts the stability that they need for a healthy childhood. The rush is of our own creation and the undoing of it also our choice. When moving through the deep of life, we should be inspired by our children—move slowly, observe everything with wonder, savor every moment and draw it out. Move forward and make ripples but let the deep make space for us. Or, stand still—gaze, reflect, renew, reorient, reassure, and know that though this may be a brief moment in our lives, it could be just the thing that we needed to gain back the time that seemed so filled up before.