Too much stuff leads to too little time and too little depth in the way kids see and explore their worlds.
-Kim John Payne, M.Ed., author of Simplicity Parenting
Providing order and encouraging independence is an important gift to give children.  Here are two ways I have established that in Little Bear’s bedroom: with his shoes and with his coat.

Little Bear’s Shoe Basket.  He knows how to tuck his socks in his shoes and put his shoes away on his own.

I purchased …

Can my child do more with less?
I’m in the process of simplifying our home environment, in hopes that I can give my children more room to develop into the people they were meant to be.
However, to do this means I am fighting against culture.  I’m fighting against a society that wants more faster and easier!  “The pace of our daily lives is increasingly misaligned with the pace of childhood,” writes Kim John Payne in his book Simplicity Parenting.
I want …

So many thoughts are swirling in my mind around how to effectively parent young children that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Then I remember to take a deep breath, step back, and think about applying simplicity.
Isn’t it fascinating that when we feel stressed for a stretch or even for a morning or afternoon any amount of defiance or feisty behavior from the little troops and we find ourselves lecturing from the pulpit of righteousness about good behavior?  …

Sometimes life brings us events that completely derail our normal rhythms and routines. How do we go about reclaiming and restructuring our lives? This is my family’s current question.
At the beginning of December we welcomed a beautiful baby boy into our family, and, as often happens with a major life transition, our routines and rhythms were (albeit happily) interrupted. Now, just over a month later, I’m …

It’s wonderful to hear that so many families had the opportunity to share stories with their children last week.  I hope it will become a daily or weekly ritual for you!
This week we are so lucky that Laina Clugston, one of our trained Simplicity Parenting Group Leaders brought this 20 minute video by Brene Brown, PH.D to our attention.  It is a phenomenal video with a wonderful message for us as parents.  So, this week, your small change is to …

Telling Stories by tracyshaun, some rights reserved

My children are captivated by the stories I tell about my own childhood.  I can’t seem to keep up with the demand of story requests I receive daily.
So what does storytelling have to do with simplicity?  Interestingly, a lot.  We know that daily rhythm provides familiarity and security in the lives of our children and finding ways to decrease the overwhelm of stuff, activities, and stimulation by increasing the downtime and connection is all …

For this challenge, I will sit down with my kids and talk about thinking before talking and acting. I would like to put these 3 questions in a vicinity where everyone can see it and ponder it often.  Luckily, my kids DO get along fairly well. Most likely because we homeschool and we are in each other’s company for large periods of time daily. They work things out themselves and if not, …

I think this week it is essential for me to focus on building in down-time for my three kids.  I will be sticking to our routine as much as possible to try and preserve the sanity of everyone in our house! ~Amy
…focusing on some down time with my kiddo… ~Lisa
I am going to continue to work on simplifying our home environment. ~Clelie
Picture Courtesy of http://inspiredbyscript.com
The above quotes were small changes that our simplicity community committed to …

Picture Courtesy of http://www.keeperofthehome.org
It is the goal of Simplicity Parenting to encourage families to envision and apply one small change at a time.  Often we look around the clutter of our homes and reflect on the busy-ness of our lives and immediately become overwhelmed with what we want to create but  feel we don’t have the time or energy to pursue.
There are 4 layers of simplicity: environment, rhythm, scheduling, and filtering.  Kim Payne addresses each simplicity layer in detail in …