Book Review: Simplicity Parenting, using the extraordinary power of less to raise calmer, happier and more secure kids by Kim John Payne & Lisa Ross

This book, is one of the very first books I ever bought on parenting – when I had no idea what Waldorf Education is or that the book was based on such. I loved it and read it so many times. Today, as I started reading it again to review it with you, I look fondly at the yellowed paper. It has been some time since I last read it and I am sure I will learn something new or be reminded of something through this review.

The introduction starts:

As parents we are the architects of our family’s daily lives….we determine the rhythms of our days, set a pace……

As parents we carry the blueprints, the dreams of what our family could be.

It holds such a profound meaning, such a responsibility for us parents. We are the ones who decide how to set the pace, we determine how quick or slow our days will be. How much time we can leave our children to grow quietly and slowly. It reminds us to truly look within us, at what our original intentions for our family were, to check if we are still on track and if not to change and find our pace again.

Later, he says:

We want our family to be a container of security and peace, where we can be our true selves.

Such beautiful words. I feel deep down, that is something we all wish for our family, for our children – to be able and feel comfortable and show their true selves when with us at home. It brings us again to looking deep within – to our hopes and dreams and how we can achieve this.

The introduction continues on the dizzying array of things and choices that overwhelm us adults and leads us to think…how much more will the child feel overwhelmed? It tells us how before, parents had trouble conveying the ‘real world’ to their children but now it is the other way round. With the advent of television and the internet, the world with all its ‘graphic reality’ is available all the time and it is not benefiting our children.

Our responsibility as gatekeepers is becoming exponentially more difficult even as it’s becoming more critical.

It invites us to look at moments of calm. To have pauses in our lives. Pauses where we BUILD relationships; because relationships are not built in a rushing frenzy but in the calmness of togetherness.

The introduction ends with a bit of a round up of what will follow in each chapter – six in total.  Every week we will go through each chapter. If you have the book, feel free to read it with me and pass your own insights here. It would be lovely to know how you parents find this book, what intrigued you and pushed you and what not.

Blessings

xxxx