Keep it Simple.

We always have a choice.

?“Year by year the complexities of this spinning world grow more bewildering and so each year we need all the more to seek peace and comfort in the joyful simplicities.” Woman's Home Companion (1935)

When I was a young child, which was a while ago, but not that long ago, we had no heating in our house apart from open fires, our telephone was a pistachio green solid landline with a rotary dial and a three-digit number and there were three channels to choose from on the telly.

Watching Billie Smart’s Circus on our big black and white telly was a special treat and eating my first avocado pear was not a very nice surprise but an event noted in my daily diary. The one real summer holiday treat was to eat chicken and chips in a Bernie Inn in the nearest town. My father went to work on the train every morning and my mother who may well have been, occasionally bored seemed to have all the time in the world for us.

Village life held a steady rhythm, and the weekly routine was very predictable.

The quote above illustrates how every era brings its unique demands and humans have a remarkable way of evolving to enjoy the challenges that life throws at them.

However, our current unsettled and often frantic world is changing before our eyes with rapid, unpredictable, and at times unsettling change.

In our information age, everything can sometimes be too much.

Unrelenting, too soon, too sexy, too young, at times overwhelming with many of our children experiencing less carefree childhoods. Too much.

Today’s busier, faster society is waging an undeclared war on childhood. With too much stuff, too many choices, and too little time, children can become anxious, have trouble with friends and school, or even be diagnosed with behavioural problems.

Children need space to have a childhood.

They need playtime, family time, and time to connect with nature and themselves.

When we fill their lives with too much the pace can become emotionally overwhelming which triggers problematic behaviour often resulting in anxious, emotionally overwhelmed, edgy, jumpy, and hyper-vigilant children.

In the book ‘Simplicity Parenting’, Kim John Payne describes daily life as a song, with both high and low notes.

The high notes are at school, sports practice, music lessons, birthday parties, play dates, etc.

The low notes are walking the dog, going out somewhere local one-on-one with a parent, playing catch in the garden, cosily reading on the sofa, uninterrupted play, creative activities, going to the park, etc.

We need to remind ourselves to give our children plenty of time to experience the low notes and to give them space to release tension and take breaks from the pressures of full on daily life.

The low notes also give parents time to disconnect from the pressures of their lives and connect with their children, chat, and have fun.

In the same book,” Simplicity Parenting”?one clear message leapt off the page. Normal personality quirks?combined?with the stress of “too much” can propel children into the realm of disorder.

A dreamy child may lose the ability to focus. A systematic child may be pushed into obsessive behaviours.

Payne conducted a study?in which he simplified the lives of children with attention deficit disorder. Within four short months, 68% went from being clinically dysfunctional to clinically functional. The children also displayed a 37% increase in academic and cognitive aptitude, an effect not seen with commonly prescribed drugs like Ritalin.

“Play is the work of the child” Maria Montessori

The last 30 years have dramatically changed our society and the world is so full of choice, speed, and change that we can all find ourselves overstimulated by too much.

Digital connection has an increasingly large part to play in all of this change and challenge. On every level, the Internet has had an enormous impact on our lives in a very short space of time. The Internet has brought us closer together in many brilliant ways yet it is often a distraction and a shield to the reality of face-to-face connection, simple pleasures, and genuine interaction.

The computers we carry in our pockets deliver everything we think we need with an easy touch. They give us instant gratification and respond immediately to our egos as they cleverly react to our likes and dislikes. Our connection with them is highly addictive and can be a huge waste of time.

We need our phones down, review how we intentionally spend our time and our ideas of success, review our expectations, and simplify our lives.

Let's start connecting with those we love in real-time and in the present moment because we might find that right now our lives are full of joy, the joy we are often searching for.

Every day in every way we are responsible for the choices we make. It may not always feel like it but we are fortunate to have the freedom to intentionally choose how we want to live, how we parent, and how we model that to our children.

90%of parenting is modelling! Be the adult you want your child to be.