Simplification is about stripping away the distractions and clutter that monopolize our attention and threaten our connection. It's about giving kids the ease to become themselves and giving us the ease to pay attention. 48
"The process of simplification... restore(s) a more natural balance, one where the "everyday" has a place and time expands. Where distractions don't overwhelm connection, and the rituals we share are small promises made and kept, every day." 340
If, as a society, we are embracing speed, it is partially because we are swimming in anxiety. Fed this concern and that worry, we're running as fast as we can to avoid problems and sidestep danger. We address parenting with the same anxious gaze, rushing from this "enrichment opportunity" to that, sensing hidden germs and new hazards, all while doing our level best to provide our own children with every advantage now known or soon to be invented. This book is not about hidden dangers, quick fixes, or limited-time opportunities; it is about the long haul. The big picture: a reverence for childhood." xvii
While your daily life may seem like a radio bandwidth full of static, simplification allows you, with much more regularity and clarity, to tune in to your own true signal as a parent. I think you'll find it very gratifying to feel your inner authenticity develop as you bring more awareness and attention to your relationship with your children. And with this process comes more opportunities to see deeply into who your children are becoming. xx
The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears. 35.
"I'd like to make a recommendation directly to parents, especially those who, like Annmarie, are often fretful: Reduce your exposure to media, and particularly media news. .. I am suggesting, parents consciously say "no thanks" to media overexposure. ..Media that can exploit our deepest, most primal urge to protect our children. We need to live with confidence, to parent with a sense of strength and openness, and, perhaps most of all, with a sense of humor. The primal urge to protect is our cortisol spigot; I'm suggesting we not invite it to be turned on so easily and so often." 244-245
Young children are very busy. Their evolution in the first ten year of life-- neural, social, and physical-- makes what we do as adults look like standing still. 76
Does sleep do something, besides mark the time between periods of wakefulness? Does childhood do something, other than mark the time until adulthood? ... As a society, we seem to be asking the same questions about childhood. What purpose does it serve? Can we speed it up? Can we better prepare our children for adulthood by treating them more like adults? I worry that we'll understand the "purpose" of childhood by seeing, increasingly, what people are like when they've been rushed through theirs. And I don't think that will be a pretty picture. Childhood has its own mysterious processes, its own pace. When we ask children to "keep up" with a speeded-up world, I believe we are unconsciously doing them harm. We are depriving them of exactly what they need to make their way in an increasingly complex world: well-being and resiliency. Quite simply, a protected childhood allows for the slow development of identity, well-being, and resiliency. 16
It's strange how we look for meaning everywhere, as though it will be "new," not something that we already know and constantly have to remember, renew, and reclaim as our own. 20
As parents, we must not become "harmony addicted." It's tempting to hope that every day might be a sort of "rainbow experience" for our children. Wouldn't that be nice? If only we could suspend them in sort of a happiness bubble. But they need conflict. As Helen Keller noted, "Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet." Children need to find ways to cope with difficult situations; they need to learn that they can. 34.
Children love to be busy, and useful. They delight in seeing that there is a place for them in the hum of doing, making, and fixing that surrounds them. 104
A wonderful counterbalance to "entertaining" children is to involve them in a task, in the "work" of family life. Home is the environment a child will know best, and they need to affect their environment through their own efforts. As small beings they can feel like inferior, passive observers of all that happens around them. A sense of industry-- of busyness and purpose-- counteracts feelings of overwhelm. And isn't it easy to feel small and inconsequential in a world so awash in information, so threatened with issues such as global warming? Children who grow up as little doers, making Christmas breakfast and participating in the chores of daily life, will already have an inner gesture, a posture toward competency, activity, and autonomy. 105
When your child seems to deserve affection least, that's when they need it most. 61.
Isn't it tempting to jump in with a solution? Absolutely tempting to quiet their quivering little chins and dry their eyes, with a fail-safe, can't miss solution. But to do so consistently says "I'm in control of your life" and "I know how you feel." We aren't. And we don't, really. And while it may seem a comforting thought to "know how they feel," it also denies them their own feelings. 146
"Do you love the time you live in? We project a general sense of optimism to children when we talk less (with them) about things they may not understand, and definitely have no power to affect." 259
Before you say something, ask yourself these three questions: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? And I would add: Will it help the child feel secure? 251
"Quite simply, don't talk too much to children aged nine or younger about their feelings. ..
Emotional intelligence can't be bought or rushed. It develops with the slow emergence of identity and the gradual accumulation of life experiences. When we push a young child toward an awareness they don't yet have, we transpose our own emotions, and our own voice, on to theirs. We overwhelm them. For the first nine or ten years, children learn mainly through imitation. Your emotions, and the way that you manage them, is the model they "imprint," more than what you say or instruct about emotions. 268, 270
Children are such tactile beings. They live so fully by their senses that if they see something, they will also want to touch it, smell it, possibly eat it, maybe throw it, feel what it feels like on their heads, listen to it, sort it, and probably submerge it in water. This is entirely natural. Strap on their pith helmets; they're exploring the world. But imagine the sensory overload that can happen when every surface, every drawer and closet is filled with stuff? So many choices and so much stimuli rob them of time and attention. Too much stuff deprives kids of leisure and the ability to explore their worlds deeply. 28-29.
An overemphasis on toys co-opts and commercializes play, making it no longer a child's natural world but rather one that's dependent on adults, and the things they provide, to exist. Our generous impulses can also go awry.. ..What started as a generous desire to please and provide can assume its own life. It can become addictive, feeding our own needs rather than our children's. Overworked and under-nurtured, we parents sometimes use toys, or stuff, as a stand-in for relationship. Our kids' joy fills an empty space within ourselves. We may be feeling disconnected, tied up in our many responsibilities, distracted by all that we have to do. A fast way to "connect" with our kids-- and surely "fast" is better than "not at all"?-- is to give the something new. We buy toys with a degree of compulsiveness, that children pick up on. What does it say to them? As the mountain of toys in their room grows, it also speaks. It speaks as loudly as advertisements, and its messages are the same, I believe, as the ones Mary Pipher identifies. What comes through to our children, loud and clear, is "Happiness can be bought!" and "You are the center of the universe! 78-79
You have to step up and believe in what you are doing and do a little bit of it every day. 308
REVIEW: Obviously, I could not choose just five quotes. I LOVED this book! It was a revelation for me, at a time in my life when I needed it most. It greatly calmed me, invited me to step fully into motherhood, and has given me a clear vision on to what I want to strive for as a parent in our family life. 10/10!
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