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Volume I, No. 7 A TIME FOR REFLECTION “If you let people
know you love them, you will make them happy … That will make you happy too.” The Value of Caring - A Value Tale by Ann Donegan Johnson COUPLES
OF GREATNESS The world is filled with biographies of couples who’ve made great
contributions to civilization. They inspire us with tales of obstacles
overcome and failures turned to triumphs. However admirable these couples may
appear, the efforts of many of them can be summarized in two simple words:
They cared. This kind off greatness is also characteristic off couples who may
never have the same kind of recognition. They make their contributions as
parents, and as a group they shape the values of the whole human race. Their
generous efforts are such a matter of routine, that they’re often taken far
granted. Sometimes their challenges seem so overwhelming that they wish
others "more capable" would take their place. Still they go on.
These are couples of true greatness, dedicated people who care. CUSTOMS IN CHILDREARING What children come to value is learned largely
from people who care for them. All their interactions contribute to their picture
of “what’s important in life,” but family customs have an especially strong
influence on children. So effective are customs in transmitting
values, that some sociologists have stated that the mote positive customs a
culture has, the less the citizens need laws to govern their behavior. FAMILY NIGHT Well-chosen customs have a stabilizing effect
on family life. One way to promote stability in the family is to set aside
one night a week for the family to do something special together. This
assures everyone that there’s at least one night a week which is free of the
typical distractions. When this important time is on the same
day of the week, there are even more benefits to be gained. For instance, if
everyone in the family knows that Sunday evening is always Family Night, no
one will accidentally schedule a conflict. Once friends understand this,
they’ll gear Sunday dinner invitations toward the joining of two families, or
suggest dates on other evenings. The greatest benefit of such a routine is much
more subtle. The value of this as a tradition is in itself worthy of
discussion. TRADITIONS ARE LIKE SEASONS When the first real nip of fall chills our
bodies, memories are stirred. We awaken snuggling for warmth, perhaps asking
for a little more time in bed, perhaps excited and ready for a brisk morning
walk. We remember the golden leaves of falls gone by and soon expect to hear
the crunch of’ dried leaves beneath our feet. Having spent so many years in
school, many of us find a renewed interest in educational pursuits,
self-improvement projects, or even new fall clothing. Every year the approach of the fall season
teases our senses and awakens memories of times when we experienced similar
things. The same sensory experiences happen with
family traditions. Traditions are experiences which we repeat time after time
because they give us pleasure. Through this process of repetition, we
establish symbols for’ these special times. Such symbols call forth memories
of the love and fellowship we’ve experienced from year to year, and the
holidays reflect this best of all. I SMELL CHRISTMAS COMING Remember the smell of turkey and pumpkin pie
baking in the oven? Perhaps a freshly ironed damask cloth appeared on
Grandma’s table. Cranberries were transformed from tart to sweet and the
voices of aunts and uncles tilled the room with a pleasant murmur.
Thanksgiving was here! It was a time for special things; turkey and dressing,
cranberry sauce, more time for the family to be together. Soon we’d be singing Christmas carols, eating
fruit cake and choosing presents for Mom and Dad. It heralded a time when
families made extra efforts to be together; extra efforts to show each other
how much they cared. CHRISTMAS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR Customs such as Family Night may stimulate
these warm feelings throughout the year. Weekly activities can vary, but the
emphasis on the family as a unit is essential. There are times throughout the
week when each family member finds fulfillment as an individual. Family Night
is a time for each member to find fulfillment as part of a group. What
children learn from this kind of interaction goes beyond knowing that their
parents care for them. They learn about the pleasures that come from
cooperating with people for whom they care. When these pleasant experiences are coupled
with special tastes, smells, sounds, textures or sights, they are linked to
symbols which later trigger warm family memories. A generation ago the Sunday pot roast was as
much a symbol of family gatherings as it was a welcomed treat. For today’s
families, cinnamon tea might create an equally pleasurable memory. Customs needn’t be limited to Family Night
either. When children see Mom and Dad kiss each other good-bye in the
morning, they get a daily reminder of how their parents feel about each
other. When they join in monthly dinners with the neighbors, they start to
understand what community really means. Such customs reflect the values in our
families and in our society. In these days of fluctuating family stability,
we all need to make time for reflection. The values we reflect in our
families are the values which color our world. Thus we all have our part in
making history, for our values shape the future of this world. When God thought of Mother, He must have laughed with satisfaction, And framed it quickly. So rich, so deep, so divine, So full of soul, power, and beauty, Was the conception. Henry Ward Beecher Basic Principles ● PART ONE
● THE RELATION BETWEEN DEPENDENCE AND DEVELOPMENT The infant’s first birth culminates a
nine-month process. After it, the baby is dependent on a caretaker to
survive, and dependent on a warm, nurturing, stimulating, constant mothering
presence to thrive. The child’s second, or psychological, birth
occurs throughout the following three years. After it, the child has achieved
a degree of tentative independence. The quality of independence achieved is
largely determined by the quality of dependence the child has experienced. During the history of’ Earth’s cultures, there
has been great diversity in the ways children have been reared. There has also been, woven through the
interesting differences, a thread of similarities—basics shared by many
different peoples. These basics are related to our biology, and
are simple. In a
place that is relatively warm, quiet, and private, a woman gives birth to her
baby. She touches her child. They look at each other. She
feeds her baby at her breast. Then,
for many months afterward, the mother frequently holds, feeds, looks at,
talks to, and plays with her infant, whom she keeps with her and takes
wherever she goes. She
finds delight in her child. She finds delight in the world. The
mother is constant, dependable, interesting; her baby feels secure. Soon the
child learns to creep, walk, and talk, to move away from the mother—though
within her sight or hearing—to explore the nearby world. From
birth, the child’s father has been a supporting presence, a different sound
and touch and smell; loved by the mother; loving to her and the child; a
strong, safe inducement to venture beyond the mother’s orbit. Between
two and six years, the child’s forays into the other-than-mother world grow
greater in distance, longer in time. The mother allows the child to move away
and come back. If the mother is “lost,” she can always be found again. Because
she can always be found, it is safe to leave her, to explore, and to bring
back discoveries from the world that are enhanced by her shared delight in
them. The
mother is a loving, nurturing constant. The father is a loving, dependable
bridge into the world beyond. Therefore the child is safe; the world is
benevolent; its surprises and changes are just another farm of goodness to be
investigated. The
child is at home in the world. That basic process has occurred naturally, in
many cultures, throughout history. In this century it has been studied. We
have learned much about it by observing the development of children for whom
the process has not occurred naturally. In times of war or natural disaster, for
example, infants have lost their parents and been reared in institutions.
They’ve grown up being cared for by a possibly benevolent rotating staff but
no single person whom each can learn to depend on consistently. They’ve had
no one person with whom to form a personal bond. Now we know that children reared from infancy
in such a situation lag drastically in physical and mental development. They
grow up unable to make lasting commitments, form deep attachments, or experience
meaningful intimacy. In her beautifully written Oneness and
Separateness, Louisa Kaplan describes the naturally-occurring process
between parents and children, and adds: “When
this process goes wrong, a human being will have difficulties loving others,
nurturing the young, taming his own aggression, knowing the boundaries of
immediate time and space, mourning the dead and caring about the destiny off
the human species.” She goes on to write of, “The vast number of
today’s patients whose chief symptoms are inadequate selfhood...and emotional
detachment.” She ascribes these sad results to that early, natural, nurturing
process gone wrong. One of the ways it goes wrong is prolonged separation
from the mother (or consistently mothering person) before the child is ready. Striking examples of this unnatural occurrence
can be found in two separate studies. In a now-famous series of experiments,
Dr. Harry H. Harlow, Professor of Psychology at the A similar reality is true for humans.
Lovemaking, pregnancy, birthing, breastfeeding, touching, and eye contact all
trigger body-mind responses that support the early mother-child bond. And
that bond generates the mature ability for richly experiencing lovemaking,
pregnancy, birthing, breastfeeding, touching and eye contact—so perpetuating
the cycle. That period of safe, loving dependence frees one for
fully-functioning independence. Yet even more startling evidence has come from
other work with monkeys. In a televised “Nova” feature on touching, young
monkeys displayed strong grieving behaviors when separated from their
mothers, but were able to resume apparently normal functioning some time
after being reunited. It was found later, however, that they had incurred
permanent brain damage as a result of the separation! Many studies have documented the marked
withdrawal and passivity young children experience when apart from their
mother for any length of’ time. Might young children, also, experience brain
damage after sustained periods of such grieving? And might this damage lessen
their mental functioning so that they are still within the range now called
normal, but well below what they could have achieved? We may be wise to relax into the nurturing of
our children, involve them deeply in our lives, settle into enjoying their
dependence while it lasts, and let them decide when the tines for
separations come. TO MOTHER IS TO TEACH THE JANUARY SYNDROME Let’s take a break this month and focus on ourselves
for a change—on our own developmental process in becoming teaching mothers. OLD PATTERNS Probably most of us had mothers who did a
pretty good job of mothering—diapered and fed and sang and rocked, dressed
and talked, taught habits and manners, kissed away hurts, explained and
advised. Learning to do all that, All day long every day, may be new to us, but
we do have images to fall back on. That regular, basic mothering can be a lot
harder in practice than it looks, but at least it seems normal. Most of us, though, didn’t experience being
taught at home, daily, regularly by our mothers. Most of us learned to read
and multiply from teachers in schools, not from parents at home. And because
that’s true, most of us don’t have images to fall back on for the teaching
part of our mothering. That leaves us free, of course, free to invent
our own style of teaching without first having to overcome old patterns; free
to make up our own identities as teaching mothers. Yes, but then there’s the rub! APPRENTICE TEACHERS Several of us from Stelle attended MMTTC ( She can usually tell by noticing what happens
to them around January. Interns who probably won’t be effective later
generally get through thhe year fairly easily. They do what they’re supposed
to do, enjoy the work fairly well, and January is no different for them than
any other month. Interns who probably will be effective
Montessorians may begin their classroom training with enthusiasm in the fall,
but around January they usually become very discouraged, dissatisfied with
their own ability, afraid they’ll never become really competent. They’re
tempted to give up; some do. INTERNALIZING The ones who persevere are doing what Virginia
Fleege calls “internalizing.” They’re discouraged because they’ve found that
becoming a good directress requires changing themselves. Some old habits have
to wither and new ones grow. They’re able to allow themselves to experience
both the pain of growth and its attendant changes. They have the courage to
let something new become part of who they are. Their January syndrome can be instructive to
many of us who are still internalizing the teaching part of our mothering.
Many of us who experience the joy also experience those January days—the
times when we feel we’ll never be good enough at this, Sometimes it helps just to know how many of
the rest of us who are teaching mothers have put ourselves through similar
times. Perhaps it helps most, though, to understand that those times may be
an important step toward the very goal we’re feeling discouraged about
reaching. Incorporating being a teacher into our identity may require inner
changes. The discomfort and doubt may be just the results of a shifting
that’s going on inside of us. They may well mean we’re “getting it.” HOLIDAYS HONOR HISTORY When the Indians taught the Pilgrims how to
grow corn, they demonstrated the highest form of charity. Not only did they
supply the Pilgrims with food, they taught them how to produce it. Instead of
feeding the Pilgrims for a day, in essence, they fed them for a lifetime. Such historical stories are a priceless tool
in teaching children about values. In selecting them, find ones which tell
the story without an emphasis on the death and disease of the times. Little
ones don’t need that. A favorite Thanksgiving story may be reread so
many times that the children can tell you what’s going to happen before you
even turn the page. When the story is known in such detail, it’s only a step
away from dramatization. Add a pair of creatively decorated socks, and you
have two characters for an at-home puppet play. Help the children imagine how the characters
felt. As you read the story, point out the perseverance required of the
Pilgrims in building their homes. Mention the kindliness of the Indians in
offering to help the Pilgrims. Talk about the gratitude the Pilgrims must
have felt at such an offer. History can come to life when children see
that characters of the past had feelings just as they do. Then the traditions
of the Thanksgiving holiday go beyond the family. They touch on the heart of
a nation, and the roots of American life. PARENTING FOR EXCELLENCE — Volume I, No. 7 —
October 1981 Parenting
for Excellence is published ten times per year by The Stelle
Group. Subscriptions are sold by the volume, with volumes beginning in
January. Subscription rates are $15 for one year, and queries about
subscriptions and delivery should be sent to The Stelle Group, ____________________________________________________________________________________________ |
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