Hippiemommy

Category: Parenting and Family Books

  • From Frazzled to Focused

    I’m not sure what initially motivated me to pick up this book when I saw that it was available for review. I wouldn’t self-identify as “frazzled,” but I am always interested in being more focused. I am an organizational junkie (and sometimes I wonder if I prefer the theory to the actual doing.) Something about the description led me to believe that this book would be one I’d like.

    In From Frazzled to Focused, Rivka Caroline leads the reader through exercises to organize and “systemize” his or her life. She focuses on areas in the house (broken down by room) and activities (like meal planning and scheduling.) The book is aimed at mothers with young children, although many of the ideas could apply to anyone. Rivka is witty, and even though we obviously live very different lifestyles (she’s in Miami Beach), I appreciated her self-deprecating humor.

    Although I cringed at all of her systems and plans at first, I realized as I went through the book that I already do a lot of what she recommends. I read the book slowly over a few weeks, and noticed that by the end I’d naturally adopted many of her techniques.

    If you’re looking for a quick, fairly light read on organizing your home and your time, this book could fit the bill. 🙂

  • Time Spent Together

    The National Family Institute reported that the average American child spends 12.5 minutes each day communicating with her parents. Of that time, 8.5 minutes are spent on corrections, criticisms, or arguments. A University of Iowa study revealed that on average, a child hears 432 negative comments daily, compared to 32 positive ones (Hochschild, 1997.)

    Isn’t that a scary number?

    Here’s another one:

    If you concentrate on playing with young children for at least five minutes a day, you may reduce power struggles by as much as fifty percent.

    Amen! I completely agree!

    I’ve been reading Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline by Becky Bailey for the past few weeks, and it has been wonderful. It has really been the perfect timing for me. As with almost all parenting books we read, Joe and I have been using the techniques primarily on ourselves, lol. It is humbling to see all of the ways that we can improve. What I really love about this book is the focus on your own thought patterns and how they impact your relationships with others.

    I hope to come back and discuss it more… Hopefully in the next week! I am insanely busy between the kids, midwifery school, finishing my doula certification, working on my herbalism class, and taking a few web design jobs. Hopefully it’ll slow down soon… I have a big assignment to turn in for my midwifery school and I expect to have a little more blogging time once it is submitted. 🙂 (Well, except then it’ll be time to work on the next big assignment, LOL!)

  • Really good in the end…

    My rating:

    I must admit that I was initially very skeptical of this book. I thought it might be punitive, guilt-based parenting in disguise, and I wrote about that in the past. The fact that the authors appeared on Family Life Today made me even more skeptical, haha. Mr. Turansky graciously responded to my criticisms, and I must humbly admit that I was wrong. I think I misjudged some of his words. I think that I can accept the things that I disagreed with once I look at them in the context of the entire book.

    I would absolutely recommend this book to parents on either side of the parenting spectrum. I sincerely believe that my friends who are into punitive parenting would enjoy and learn from this book without being immediately turned off, and I think that my AP/GBD friends would love it just as much. I think it is fully in line with AP philosophy. I especially appreciated the final chapter. It focuses on how our children are not just our children, but also our brothers and sisters in Christ. I wish that more parents thought about this fact. I know that I am guilty of forgetting it very often. I was so impressed to see a mainstream Christian book that tackled this subject.

    Overall, I would happily recommend this book to any parent. I even listed (and immediately sent out) my copy on paperbackswap, so that another parent could have access to this excellent resource. I am very strict about what I paperbackswap, because I would never want to send something on that I felt was not encouraging or uplifting for the family who will receive it. That is why I have a horrific copy of “Withhold Not Correction” sitting on my shelf that my mother-in-law gave me years ago. I do NOT want any other family to see someone suggest that you switch your children with a tree branch from your own yard!

    Back on topic though… You can read my previous entries about Say Goodbye… on this page. If you end up reading the book, please post and let me know what you thought! I’d love to discuss it 🙂

    Oh, and Merry Christmas!!!

  • Tolerance levels

    I’m in a mad whirlwind while trying to finish up the 50 or so books that I have started but not finished in the past few years, so my posts will probably be quite a hodge-podge.  I am working on a big, long entry about Church History in Plain Language, but I shall save that for another night because I am nursing at the keyboard right now  😛

    Tonight’s lesson for myself is on tolerance and comes from Turansky and Miller’s Say Goodbye…

    People have an alarm in their heads that is set to a specific tolerance level.  When they’re irritated or annoyed, the alarm goes off.  Each person’s alarm is set differently…  The good news is that tolerance levels aren’t permanently set.

    Recently I’ve been more tired (go figure… with a baby and all…) and I’ve noticed that my tolerance levels have gone down considerably.  At the same time I’ve noticed that my children’s tolerance levels with each other have gone down.  This is most certainly related.  I needed this little reminder tonight to let me know that I need to work on reseting my tolerance levels and not being so testy.  😛

    This passage also prompted me to think about how each of my children respond to different circumstances.  For example, my son is incredibly tolerant when it comes to waiting for his turn, but he is not so tolerant when it comes to his personal space. My daughter, on the other hand, is comfortable with people being quite close to her, but she has a tough time waiting for her turn.  My children can learn a lot from each other, and I can learn from each of them.  It is easy to forget that what may not bother you may be very annoying to someone else.

  • Dream houses and fantasies

    This is my new favorite book!  There are so many great sections, but I want to focus today on her chapter on the fantasy of housekeeping and “dream houses”.  There are all sorts of high-end gadgets that are marketed to people who don’t even clean their own households. People want to dream and fantasize about their perfect house, and yet the time that women spend on average cleaning has dropped by 50% since my Grandmother’s day. During that same time, no other members of the household have started spending more time on housekeeping. That’s not good.

    Clothes and toys lie strewn from one side of the house to the other, there seems to be nowhere to put anything, and we find ourselves wondering whether the whole family is likely to come down with typhoid if the bathroom is left uncleaned for yet another day or week or month.  And in the midst of it all, there too often sits someone who is reading a magazine or watching a TV show about the dream house rather than tidying up the house he or she is in.

    Our culture completely encourages this kind of fantasy life and house-porn over the real day to day, unglamorous (but worthwhile) act of keeping house.

    There has surely always been a gap between the way people keep their houses and the way they would like ideally to keep them. But many of us, I suspect, are demoralized by the task of keeping house in part because we know that our houses, no matter how well kept, will never look like the palaces in the dream house publications. And so we give up, preferring unattainable ideals to less than perfect realities.

    It is so easy to get caught in this trap. We moved about 6 months ago from a house that had become my “dream home” by the time we left. It had the floors I always wanted, the perfect layout, a great yard, and it was painted in my favorite colors. We moved to a great new home, but it has carpeting in the main living areas, a red wall in the living room, and a smaller kitchen. Our furniture was bought to fit in our old house, and doesn’t match properly in our new house. This house has some great new features, like we now live on an open space (a preserved nature area) and we have a full guest living area in the basement, but I found myself having such a hard time being motivated because I didn’t *love* it the way that I loved my old house. I made a few changes – first in my attitude, and then in the rooms, and it has become much easier to take care of the house. I am finally enjoying it again. I never realized how important my attitude was until we moved.

    The other thing that I’ve recently learned, and that this book reinforced, is that my goal as a stay at home mom is not to have a perfect house. My goal is to take care of everyone and help them to feel comfortable. This includes a clean house, but not one with the finest furnishings or artwork. It just needs to be clean and welcoming.

    I think we will realize that elaborate, spotless perfection is really not the point. The point is the continual re-creation of welcome and nurturance, not in some theoretical or disembodied sense but in simple, practical provision for the needs of the body: food, clothing, a place to sit, a place to sleep.

    Ironically, perhaps (given what is often called the materialism of modern society), these basic needs are too often met with neglect (no one makes any effort to provide clean clothes or meals) or resentment (whoever is providing the clean clothes and meals sees that work, and is encouraged by others to see it, as “drudgery”). The result is that those needs become something to indulge in fits of commercialized excess (“treating oneself” to a day at a spa or a weekend at a hotel, for example) rather than through happy daily routines of baths and meals and clean sheets.

    Yeah, why do we do that?!

    The rest of the book goes on to talk about the simple details of sheltering, clothing, feeding, and keeping a household. It is both simple and profound at the same time. It is not the kind of book that makes you feel like you need to start working yourself into a frenzy. It is a simple encouragement to bless your family and those outside of your family by making your house into a place that will nurture souls. I really recommend this book.

  • “The criminalization of natural play”

    I just started reading Last Child in the Woods, and I am finding it enjoyable so far. I’m not sure if it is going to make it on my “favorites” list, but I think he makes some really good points about the way that childhood has changed in the past few generations. My mom has stories of spending the whole day on homemade boats in the canal systems in Miami. My dad has stories about going shrimping at night and building tree houses all day. My brother and I are a step further removed. We have stories of treehouses made of treated lumber and playing in the woods, but they were torn down during our elementary school years. When we moved we no longer had access to any woods, and most outdoor games were not allowed by the homeowners association. Now my children experience the woods through our backyard open space and hiking, but it is not the same as it was when my brother and I explored. Each generation is getting further away from the creative play in nature and more into outdoors activities that are more rigid in scope. Obviously my kids don’t get to explore too much on our hikes because much of the land is protected.

    Richard Louv talks about the many reasons for our change, but I wanted to write about his discussion of private (homeowners association) laws that have changed the way that kids play. I think I find it particularly interesting because the same thing happened to my family when we moved.

    A few years after moving to Scripps Ranch, Rick started reading articles in the community’s newsletter about the “illegal use” of open space. “Unlike where we had lived before, kids were actually out there running around in the trees, building forts, and playing with their imaginations,” he recalls. “They were putting up bike ramps to make jumps. They were damming up trickles of water to float boats. In other words, they were doing all the things we used to do as kids. They were creating for themselves all those memories that we cherish so fondly.” And now it had to stop. “Somehow,” says Rick, “that tree house was now a fire hazard. Or the ‘dam’ might cause severe flooding.”

    I wonder when this happened, because I remember a similar dynamic in the late-80s and mid-90s in our neighborhoods. All of the sudden you needed a permit for everything.

    Authoritative adults from the Scripps Ranch Community Association chased kids away from a little pond near the public library, where children had fished for bluegills since Scripps Ranch had been a working cattle spread many decades earlier. In response to the tightened regulations, families erected basketball hoops. Young people moved the skateboard ramps to the foot of their driveways. But the community association reminded the residents that such activities violated the covenants they had signed when they bought their houses.

    Down came the ramps and poles; and indoors went the kids.

    I find this funny because my parents were ticketed for our basketball court in the mid-90s. My dad had to take it down. It sucked. My dad and I used to play at night before bedtime, and the community association fined and ticketed us for our hoop. There was no legal way to have a hoop, so my parents had to take it down. That was such a bummer.

    I was thinking about this the other day because my kids were interested in the native grasses that grow in the canal behind our house. They wanted to pick them and investigate them, and I realized that it was probably illegal for them to pick the grasses. I’m pretty sure that when I read our open space laws that there was a clause that said that you can’t pick or cut any of the vegetation. Its a little sad because that is how my brother and I learned so much about the world around us. I understand why these small areas of remaining nature have to be protected, and it is because there is so little other nature around most neighborhoods that even a few grass pickings here and there can be a big deal if every kid at the thousand or so houses nearby did it.

    Similarly we have forced wild animals to live very close to our houses since they don’t have much land left. At night we often hear coyotes right behind our house. I’m sure that if they had thousands of acres to choose from then they wouldn’t want to be in our backyard, but there aren’t many other options for them here. That means that playing in these spaces is less safe for my kids because the wildlife is much more dense. Louv talks about this as well, but I’ll save that for some other time.

    So anyways, I’m finding the book interesting. I think that we are far better off than the majority of Americans when it comes to nature because Colorado is known for its great open spaces and nature. My kids are able to do a lot more than most children their age. At the same time, it is a little sad to realize how different childhood has become in the past 50 years.

  • Comfort foods

    Today I was reading in Mindless Eating about comfort foods and the differences between what women choose and what men choose.

    What’s the big difference between men and women? When asked why they preferred pizza, pasta, and soup over cakes and cookies, men generally talked about how good they tasted and how filling they were. But when we probed a bit deeper, many also said that when they ate these foods they felt “spoiled,” “pampered,” “taken care of,” or “waited on.” Generally they associated these foods with being the focus of attention from either the mother or wife.

    And women? Although they liked hot-meal comfort foods just fine, these foods did not carry the associations of being “spoiled,” “taken care of,” or “waited on.” In fact, quite the opposite. When women thought of these foods, they were reminded of the work they or their mothers had to do to produce them. These foods didn’t represent comfort, they represented preparation and cleanup.

    For women, snacklike foods–candy, cookies, ice cream, chocolate–were hassly-free. Part of their comfort was to not have to make or clean up anything. It was both effortless and mindless eating.

    Isn’t that interesting? Men chose foods that made them feel cared for or spoiled. As I think of Joe’s favorite foods, they are all warm and full meals. Mine are not. Last week I made lasagna because he asked for it, and I couldn’t fathom why someone would want lasagna when it is 99 degrees outside. I even talked to some friends at my yoga class about how all I want is a salad or to eat out. I need to keep our different preferences in mind, even if Joe’s tastes sometimes confuse me. I do this for my children, but I don’t always think a ton about Joe’s preferences, especially since he likes a lot of unhealthy comfort foods. Making those foods healthy and serving his comfort foods is another little way of honoring my family 🙂 I hadn’t really considered the deeper “why’s” behind that before.

    In Turansky and Miller’s Say Goodbye to Whining, they point out that the Bible tells us many times to love, honor, serve, and encourage others. I sometimes think of that as being a loftier goal than it is. The fact is that many of my day-to-day decisions can be done in a more honoring way. They say,

    It’s amazing how one family member can behin a chain reaction of change, resulting in a greater sense of honor. Maybe that one family member is you.

    There are so many little ways to show honor and love. I am glad that I am starting to recognize some more ways to do this. It blesses me to bless my family.  Who would’ve thought that a book on subconscious eating preferences would give me more ideas on how to bless my family?

  • You can’t set boundaries on other people

    Back when I was first married – when dinosaurs roamed the earth – someone gave me this book. I think I picked it up for a moment and realized that my problem was not in setting boundaries, but rather in respecting others boundaries ::ducking::  I put the book down and didn’t think about it again.

    I was looking at my bookshelf the other day and decided that I might as well read this book so that I can paperbackswap it. I’m really glad that I picked it up  🙂

    There is a section early in the book where the author is speaking to a client of his who is talking about boundaries she “set on” her husband and said that he could not talk to her “that way” anymore. This is how the author responds

    “What you have done is not boundaries at all,” I replied.

    “What do you mean?”

    “It was your feeble attempt at controlling your husband, and that never works.” I went on to explain that boundaries are not something you “set on” another person. Boundaries are about yourself.

    My client could not say to her husband, “You can’t speak to me that way.” This demand is unenforceable. But she could say what she would or would not do if he spoke to her that way again. She could set a boundary “on herself.” She could say, “If you speak to me that way, I will walk out of the room.” This threat is totally enforceable because it has to do with her. She would be setting a boundary with the only person she could control: herself.

    Hmm, yes. Perhaps I have not been setting boundaries quite as much as I thought I had been. I have told people that they may not speak to me disrespectfully, although I suppose that was just an attempt to control. I’m going to be pondering this for a few days.

  • I first started How Would Jesus Raise a Child back in 2004. Its been a long time. I’m about to go into year 3 with this book, and its only 200 pages long, lol. Sad.

    Its not that the book isn’t good. I really enjoy it. I just seem to get on tangents where I read other stuff instead. I can’t really explain it.

    I just finished chapter 7, and I wanted to talk about some of the concepts in there. Mind if I share? I’m going to share.

    OK, so think of all of the times that the disciples were dense. They didn’t get what Jesus was saying. He’d have to say it over and over. Even the Samaritan woman at the well caught on faster than they did. The disciples were still trying to figure out if someone had brought Jesus some food after the Samaritan woman left. Dr. Whitehurst says,

    …they just couldn’t converse with him at his level. This didn’t mean they weren’t bright; it meant only that they didn’t know how to translate his metaphorical language.

    Still, it must have occasioned more than a few sighs on Jesus’ part. As parents, we can’t be blamed for getting exasperated at times. Children often half listen or, within minutes, forget what we tell them. This is where we can learn from Jesus. When a follower didn’t get his message one way, Jesus didn’t keep hammering him with that same parable over and over again until he understood; rather he changed the form of his message and used it when they next “teachable moment” arose.

    Jesus’ ability to change the form of his message can be seen, for example, in the many ways he tried to teach the concept of servant leadership. In the Sermon on the Mount, he taught that God values the meek and the peacemakers. When later his disciples were arguing over who would get top billing in the kingdom, Jesus didn’t shout, “When will you get this through your heads? I told you, the meek will inherit the earth!”

    Instead, he gathered all of them together (not just the offenders) to discuss the issue in broader terms, describing the kind of behavior, or service, that would make them true leaders.

    I sat and thought about this for a while. I think I need to keep this in mind and work on this concept. I am usually pretty good at being creative when it comes to ways of teaching, but it is easy to wonder if I’m talking to myself sometimes, lol. As a matter of fact, when I first started reading this passage, I was thinking about how I sometimes space out when dh is talking to me! Its terrible! I really need to be more understanding with my kids… after all, they are working with my DNA here.
    So, piggybacking on that idea, she talks about how we need to give our kids permission to try again after they fail

    Jesus predicted failure to inoculate his disciples against disagreement and self-blame when they failed or encountered obstacles… After failures did occur, Jesus didn’t berate his disciples nor did he give up on them. After Peter’s three denials, Jesus didn’t say, “Well, it’s pretty obvious you haven’t got leadership potential,” or “I guess I was wrong about your commitment.”

    Jesus didn’t minimize failure, but neither did he hold on to it. Jesus interacted with people in such a way that if someone gave up on a goal or talent, it would be because he wanted to, not because he’d been made to feel so condemned about failures that he didn’t dare try again. This was Jesus’ secret: The moment the person wished to make another attempt, Jesus was happy to receive him. He continued working with his student from there, as if no failure had ever happened. He knew that Peter already felt bad enough; there was no need to rub it in.

    So these are my two points to work on for this week 🙂 I’m really enjoying this book, despite the fact that my leisurely pace might make you assume otherwise, LOL.

  • Autism… I now realize how little I understood

    ..or maybe I should say I’m starting to realize how little I understood….

    I’ve been reading The Only Boy in the World this week, and it has really made me think about my past actions and feel some serious regret.

    Michael Blastland’s memoir of his autistic son, Joe, has truly struck me. I have several friends with children who have an autistic spectrum disorder, much like Joe, and as I read Michael’s words about all of the unhelpful (and hurtful) things that his friends and fellow parents said to him, I feel ashamed. I have said many of the same things. I was only trying to be helpful. This paragraph hit me hard

    “Bless him!” say those who’ve mostly not experienced his stamina. “Chidlren. They do pester, don’t they?” Friends remark that all children like routine, all children like what they know, all are obsessive at times. Such commonplaces offer reassurance: “Don’t panic, mine do it too. Joe isn’t unusual and anyway, how bad can it be? One shouldn’t fret about a little repetitive behavior in children.”

    I’m grateful for the intended consolation but, truly, they have no idea. For there’s the obsession of normal children and there’s Joe… He knows his priorities. Think drug-crazed, fanatical, murderous desperation, think lawless smack habit; think this without exaggeration; think it seriously. There’s a phrase used of Olympic champions and artists devoted to their craft: single-minded. Imagine this with absurd literality: a mind with one objective only, a single thought driving out all others, the thought of an obsessive lover, a glutton on a fast, a drowning man.

    I have often said that my kids are obsessive too, my kids get a little OCD, my kids love routine too… I was trying to help, but I now realize that I was not helping.
    As Mr. Blastland goes on to talk about Joe’s life and the way his brain (and other autistic brains) function, it is really fascinating. He talks about how adults and children relate to autistic kids, and the phenomenon that seems to follow where humans shy away from crazy, loud people (think of a drunk in a public place), and yet kids and adults are often threatened if someone is quiet and won’t move out of the way, or doesn’t understand personal space. Those quiet social differences are somehow much more upsetting to strangers.

    He also talks about the lack of imaginative play in autistic children. He tells stories from now grown men and women with Aspergers, and how they explain that they didn’t realize that other people reasoned and felt the same way as they did. Somehow their mind didn’t make that connection, and even as adults they must focus and concentrate to remember this fact.

    I really recommend this book to anyone, even if you don’t know any autistic children or adults. If nothing else, it will give you an appreciation for all of the things that your mind does without you even realizing it. You make millions of decisions based on how other people think, feel, and will perceive you. You trust what you’ve been told about dangers and possibilities. You are able to use fictional stories and imaginative mind play to think through different scenarios. The brain really is amazing, and this book has made me appreciate it even more.

    To all of my friends with autistic children, I am very sorry. I only meant to help, but I now realize that I said all of the wrong things. Please forgive me.

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