We are looking at the last chapter of the book Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne.  If you are intrigued to read the whole book, you can take it from our lending library. This chapter is entitled: Filtering Out the Adult World.

This last chapter is actually very beautiful. It shows us in concrete terms the struggles we go through as parents currently and how to troubleshoot them.

Worry is the star word that starts this chapter. A mother whose prime emotion to parenting is worrying. While worrying is part and parcel of parenting it shouldn’t be our experience of parenting as the author rightly says.

Screens – whether televisions, mobile phone, laptops, tablets and so on- are what takes from us a big chunk of our days. Society, pressures us subtlety that we need them. That at this time and age, the technological age, we can not live without them or we will be left behind.

It can be hard to decide to go without, though I would say it is harder limiting! Yet, limiting and simplifying EVEN screen time helps in more ways then one can imagine. First we must remember that especially the television – which the author is discussing mostly here, is a devise to entertain and sell. Selling, works counterfeit to what we are trying to do at home.

From screen time we move into involvement. How too much involvement can bring more anxiety and worry to both parents and children. We can truly let go. We can let our children grow solidly toward independence.

Here we get into ‘base camp’; because if we give them a solid foundation – the security they need to grow, it will help them to navigate the world at large by tapping into base camp whenever they need. And one concrete way to create a base camp is by filtering their world when they are young.

We move on into helicopter parenting. An epidemic that has hit the world. The author asks us, has the world truly become more dangerous? Or is it that we have too much social media unfiltered filling us with worry and anxiety? For our children to relax, we need to relax because no matter how hard we try to not show our worry, our children can sense it. Our worry and anxiety gets transmitted to our kids and it makes them more prone to be anxious children and adults later on. As the author points out it is not the media’s fault alone we are so involved and hyper as parents. Many other factors come into play.

Backing off and talking less is next up. Reminding us that the less we talk, the better. Single word commands normally work better then a deluge of words. A single word if any, means you are listening more. We expect children to listen to us but we tend not to listen enough ourselves!

Adult topics…now this is something big I think. We have seemed to forget children process things differently. They watch what we watch on TV, have games full of violence, listen in to the news, they hear us talking to friends and family on any subject imaginable…… We need to remember the sanctity of the different worlds – the adult world and the children world as the author says. Kim tells us that we need to remember to feel safe and secure children need boundaries. They need to see us restrain ourselves and keep the boundaries.

Do we love the times we are living? That is a difficult question. An important one for us to make as we help our children blossom.

It continues by reminding us to choose our words before speaking are they kind? true? necessary?

Lastly we arrive at the epilogue of this wonderfully insightful book. It gives us the simplicity concept applied to real life situations. It tells us that simplicity is not just a matter of having less clutter. Its the filtering out, the rhythm….which make a big difference to our children.

It is not easy. A lot of time and energy are spent making up the balance needed to nurture our children. Yet the benefits are so great, that it is worth completely the hard work involved.