We Nurture: Waldorf Inspired Parenting

The importance of play for the healthy development of a child cannot be overstated.⠀Research shows that play is essential for physical and emotional health,⠀promoting relationship-building skills, stimulation of the imagination,⠀and the overall wellbeing of a developing child. 

In this episode, we cover the different types of play and their benefits. We explore some great outdoor play activity ideas and talk about the importance of the outdoors for both parents and children. Meagan has a wealth of valuable information to share and we hope you can put her knowledge into practice in your own homes!

IN THIS EPISODE WE COVER:

• The four main different types of play, and the benefits of each one.
• The value of open-ended toys
• How to transition from indoor to outdoor activities with ease
• Strategies for creating toys without spending too much money

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Meagan Rose Wilson on Instagram

Whole Family Rhythms

Rudolf Steiner Centre

Sydney Rudolf Steiner College

We Nurture Collective

We Nurture on Instagram

We Nurture on Facebook

Website

Instagram

Whether it’s nap time in the afternoon or bedtime at night, getting your child to sleep at any age can be a challenge. Today, we continue in our series of conversations that focus on the foundation of a Waldorf-inspired home life with Meagan Rose Wilson .

Listen to learn about the importance of establishing a rhythm or routine with your children, even when they're really young. Meagan gives a breakdown of how much sleep a child needs based on their age and we discuss how to adapt your routine for the different phases of your child’s life. To find out how to help your child fall asleep with greater ease, how to teach a child to fall asleep without you there, why you shouldn’t give up on nap time too soon, and how to handle a child getting up multiple times in the night, tune in today!

In this Episode We Cover:

How to adjust the bedtime rhythm as your infant becomes a toddler.

How parents can balance the bedtime rituals of children in different age groups.

How to handle a child getting up multiple times in the night.

A breakdown of how much sleep a child needs based on their age.

Meagan Rose Wilson

Meagan Rose Wilson on Instagram

Whole Family Rhythms

National Sleep Foundation

We Nurture Collective

We Nurture on Instagram

We Nurture on Facebook

Website

Instagram

Susie loved collecting little treasures all summer long. Everywhere she went she found lovely treasures to collect and bring home. One thing kept happening and that was she sometimes would loose a treasure and this made her very sad. One day Susie’s mama came up with a wonderful plan to keep all her treasures safe.

Ages 2.5 to 7

About the author

Rhiannon Silver-Gilmore is the author of this very lovely summer story. You can find Rhiannon on instagram at my____fable where she creates gorgeous seasonal magic making kits for children and their families. This beautiful story about The Treasure Pocket is available in written form in her current summer craft box. You can also find her at www.myfable.co.uk/shop/summer-days-box/

In today’s episode, we continue our series with Meagan Rose Wilson, a parent

educator, author, and mother of four. Meagan has supported hundreds of parents to create a

strong family rhythm unique to their own values and culture and, today, she applies her expertise to the subject of mealtimes. We discuss how to make mealtimes calmer and how

to instill more intention into the experience to help it become the most treasured part of the day. You’ll find out how to cultivate and enrich your relationship and your children’s relationship with food and how to nurture this through gardening, and Meagan explains the value of meal planning to save time and reduce stress, providing a number of helpful meal and snack ideas. Listen in to learn how to model the type of behavior you expect, teach table manners, keep small children seated at the table for the duration of the meal, and stimulate and encourage the types of conversation you want to have at the dinner table. Establishing mealtime rituals can create a sense of calm and reverence, so make sure to tune in to discover some of the rituals that work for us!

Key Points From This Episode:

• An introduction to the series with Meagan and how it ties into the Waldorf philosophy.

• Today’s topic: instilling family mealtimes with calmness, intention, ritual, and reverence.

• How to nurture a child's relationship with food through gardening.

• Why Meagan doesn’t believe in demonizing or banning any one specific ingredient.

• The value of meal planning to save time and reduce stress.

• Meagan provides a number of meal and snack ideas.

• How we can bring greater mindfulness to mealtimes and create more calm at the dinner table.

• Tips for creating rituals to set the tone for the meal.

• How to stimulate and encourage appropriate conversation in small children.

• How to model the type of behavior you expect at the dinner table.

• Some ideas for some other mealtime rituals you can create.

• Advice for teaching table manners; the importance of modeling.

• Methods for keeping children seated at the table for the meal, such as the candle ritual.

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Instagram

Rhythm and routine aren’t quite the same thing. Both can be valuable to your home life, but rhythm offers a flexibility and a flow which routine does not. Our guest today, Meagan Rose Wilson, is Waldorf trained and an expert on all things rhythm. She joins us on the show to share her thoughts about why establishing daily, weekly and seasonal rhythms is so beneficial for families. Meagan offers examples of ways to incorporate rhythm into your life, and we discuss a practice which is helpful for maintaining that rhythm. We explore the restorative daily rhythm in more depth through delving into the concept of in-breaths and out-breaths, and we also delve into how to manage multiple rhythms at once when you have children of different ages. Rhythm is not set in stone, and you will need to change and adapt it as your children grow, and that is where the beauty lies!

Key Points From This Episode:

• An introduction to the Waldorf Movement, today’s guest, and the focus of today’s episode.

• Rhythm; how Meagan defines it.

• Meagan explains how rhythm differs from routine and gives a practical example which makes it clear how rhythm can be incorporated into your daily life.

• Three main cornerstones that Meagan encourages parents to focus on with their children.

• Benefits that rhythm offers you and your children.

• Different types of rhythm, defined temporally.

• What the in-breaths and out-breaths within a restorative daily rhythm can look like.

• Examples of how Meagan manages in-breaths and out-breaths for her children of different

ages.

• A simple practice which can help you with maintaining your rhythm.

• The flowing nature of rhythm means that it is not set in stone and will change depending on a number of factors.

Website

Instagram

Welcome back to We Nurture everybody, and today we will be looking at the vitally important topic of rhythm and how to implement it in simple and foundational ways into your home and family life. As with many things, a great place to start lies in your breath and through the mindful observation of what is happening. In order to create a useful roadmap of routine and schedule, we need to start from where we are, and this means a certain level of observation. Simple breathing exercises are so useful in order to calm and center yourself and a child, and the more of this type of energy that you can facilitate the more balanced the rhythm you will be able to achieve will be. When we look at the example of young children and newborn babies, the breath is the focal point for gauging their health and mood, and these steps of learning are their first.

They take their cues from us and setting the right rhythmic example for this elemental part of human life should be the building block of all things to come. This then branches out into the other rhythms of the body and its organs; looking at the need for rest and sustenance can help us anchor the day according to what is most important. Listeners can expect to hear all about these steps and how they shift and evolve with growing children, as well as some helpful actionable methods for setting things in the right kind of motion. Tune in to get it all!

In this Episode we cover

- The starting point for creating and strengthening your home rhythms

- Mindfulness and scheduling; looking at daily and weekly planning with calm energy.

- Where to shift and adjust as your child grows and changes

- Letting go of difficulty and guilt associated with an over-cluttered routine.

Website

Instagram

In this episode, I had the great honor to sit with Ashley J. May of the Grassroots Morning Garden Project for an enlightening conversation about Ramadan, Eid al Fitr, Dhul Hijjah, and Eid al Adha.

The religious or spiritual traditions that we are brought up with are often the only ones that we celebrate or have any knowledge of, for our entire lives. However, there is such value in learning about the traditions, and the meanings behind the traditions, of the cultural groups that differ from our own. Ashley's work focuses on nature-immersive parent-child groups, community-engaged research, and collective care. In our conversation, Ashley talks about how she and her family prepare for Ramadan, as well as how they celebrate the festival of Eid when Ramadan is over. We also spend time discussing the inspiration behind Ashley’s book, Thirty Sunsets and a Moon, and what she hopes this volume brings to people. Ashley gives a number of other resources which will help those of us who are new to this topic, but she also highlights the fact that there are so many different voices within the Muslim faith and the best way to learn about other people is by engaging with them directly. We should all learn from Islamic practices and be open to bringing others into our fold.

Ashley J. May is a mother and ethnographer living on the unceded Tongva lands commonly known as Los Angeles, CA. She is the Founder and Project Director of The Grassroots Morning Garden Project that aims to liberate families and organize parents and their children around spaces of freedom through a co-constructed model for holistic, nature immersive parent and child groups, community-engaged research, public scholarship, and collective care.   

Her graduate training is in research and evaluation--specifically in early childhood and community care contexts.  She has over 20 years of experience in education and holds a Child Development Site Supervisor Permit from the California Department of Education.  She is a member of the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America, the American Anthropological Association, and the Society for the History of Children and Youth.

Ashley infuses the beauty of Waldorf philosophy, feminist pedagogy, and culturally sustaining, place-based informal educational practices into her work and home life while interrogating places of expansion and opportunities for transformation in order that we are in right relationship with the families and communities we serve.
You can discover more about Ashley and her work on Instagram   @mayashleyj

SHOW NOTES

Book Mentions:

The Islamic Year by Noorah Al-Gailanic & Chris Smith published by Hawthorn Press
Muhammad by Demi  (recommended for ages 7 to 10)
Painting Heaven: Polishing the Mirror of the Heart by Demi Hunt & Coleman Barks

Other resources:
Mamanushka.com

SoulFood FM: Episode 4.1 Ramadan on Apple Podcasts  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/soulfood-fm/id1001264567?i=1000386106717

Habits of Head  A Guide to Feminist Pedagogy https://myvanderbilt.edu/femped/habits-of-head/

The Grassroots Morning Garden Project

Thirty Sunsets and a Moon

Toni Morrison

Wild Little Seekers Cooperative

The Islamic Year

MAMANUSHKA

Mules and Me

Bessie Jones

Long, long ago in a land far, far away the sky lived very close to the earth. It stayed close to the earth for many, many years until one year the people of the land upset the sky, so the sky moved.

A Nigerian Folktale retold. 

We recommend this story for ages 4 - 7

To discover more about please visit wenurturecollective.com/stories-for-children

This story was written by Susan Perrow and is a therapeutic story. Children will enjoy it whether it is used for therapeutic reasons or not. A "story for 'separation anxiety', (it was) written for a four-year-old boy who was having difficulty parting from his mother at pre-school."

An A-Z Collection of Behaviour Tales by Susan Perrow

Published by Hawthorn Press

We recommend this story for ages 4 - 7

To discover more about please visit wenurturecollective.com/stories-for-children