Hello and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. So glad you could join us again. Last week, I let you know about the new book I'd co-authored, The Waldorf Games Handbook, for the early years.
And a bunch of people looked it up, went right to their local bookstore, ordered it onto an online ordering site. It's been great, actually, to get the feedback already about how fun the games were and how it gave material, all kinds of new ideas of games to play with the kids. So that was excellent to hear.
Okay, so this week, I wanted to talk about rhythm and ritual and the looping between the two, the relationship of rhythm and ritual. Now, anyone who's read the Simplicity Parenting book or my other book called Being At Your Best When Your Kids Are At Their Worst will see a good amount of attention is paid to rhythm and the healing power of rhythm and how for children, knowing what's coming next is something that is so soothing and healing to them in the sense that they can picture what it is. If it's done each day in a very rhythmical way, they can picture what it is that's coming next, and then it comes true.
And then they can picture what comes after that, and then it comes true. It's almost like soul anika. It's like a healing balm to anxieties, to fears, to nervousness, because what it does is that it activates partially the limbic system in a child's brain, which is all about creativity, but it's also, crucially, all about cooperation.
So if you want children to cooperate with you and cooperate with each other, we'll give them rhythm. It's almost like wherever there are hot spots, trouble spots in a family, it's usually telling you more rhythm is needed. If it's predictably something that's not going well, that is where more rhythm is needed.
It'll just tell you right away. However, I wanted to add to this picture that many of you have heard me speak about before, about the real value of rhythm. I wanted to add to this the picture of rituals for children.
Now, in a sense, rhythms are the big things. They're the when do we have our evening meal, when do we clean up, when do we go upstairs. There's a lot of when, quote, unquote, in rhythm.
It's like this rich inner time clock, and it's not empty routine. Empty routine is cold, disconnecting, where you're telling kids harshly to do stuff. Rhythm is when we're doing things alongside a child, when we're just engaged in the way the day goes, and rhythm has a strong connection to time.
But rituals, that's smaller. Rituals are like the little stepping stones to rhythm. Rituals are the little things that you do within the rhythmical event that you've created.
For example, I just mentioned dinner time. Well, there might be the little rituals, might be for little ones to light a candle, and it might be another little ritual is saying thank you to the farmers for the food, or a blessing. Another little ritual some parents follow is just having a little conversation at dinner time about what were the best things about today and what were the hardest things about today, and just sharing and basically unpacking the day a little bit.
That's another little ritual that many parents have every single dinner time. These examples of little rituals can go all the way through to bath time, to bed time. Bath time might be rituals that we lay out, that we run the water.
This is for younger children, but obviously this applies to older ones as well, to 9, 10, 11, 12-year-olds. It's still the same. It's the little rituals that are done.
It could be the laying out of toothbrushes, getting the bath ready, putting the mats down, where are the towels? They go in that place. All the little rituals. If you're struggling to keep rhythms, it usually can be helped to some extent by improving the rituals, by having all the little things in place.
At bedtime, that's a clearer one, isn't it? That you might get into bed, and you might then have a story. There might be just a little back rub. There might be whatever it is that you have all these little steps that you have.
There might be a little hope said for tomorrow. Perhaps if you do this, there could be a prayer, whatever it is. But all the little things that are done are the rituals.
A rhythm really is only as warm as the rituals are. For me, what separates rhythm becoming routine and cold and boring is all the little things that we do together with a child. Because that signals to them that mummy or daddy or the guardian, as a guardian, I am with you.
I am with you over and over. You can rely on this. As you step on that little stepping stone, there's the next one.
We always do it that way. That's right. And there's the next one.
We always do. And you'll notice the word we, not just you. And that's what makes rhythm and the rituals within rhythm, is what makes it connecting.
It's the connective tissue of parenting. It's almost like we're banking ritualistic credits, banking connection, putting away and saving up. Because there'll be times when children don't want to do it.
That we'll push back and they're antsy and so on. And they don't want to get ready for bed and they don't want to come to the dinner table and they don't, and so on. Well, in those moments, rather than just saying, no, no, this is the way we do it, which, you know, you can do maybe a little bit of that, but to have the little stepping stones to say, like for a younger child, oh, come over here, love.
Don't forget, you need to blow the match out. That's a little ritual. You light the candle and the child blows the match out.
You can see where I'm going with this. Whatever it is, it really helps when children are pushing back against rhythms, to not talk about rhythm per se, but to have a little ritual, like break it down into a much smaller doable little thing. And kids will come on board easier because they recognize these little stepping stones.
So rhythm and the large circle of rhythm is largely when, but the rituals is significantly what. Rhythm is the when. Ritual is the what.
In other words, rhythm is when we do it, but the ritual is what we do and how we do it. And those two things combined are the kind of the magic of having children move through the day feeling they can count on things. They can count on what is coming next.
So I hope that's helpful. I sure hope you can think about all the little rituals that you do and then make them orderly. Make them have the same little ritual.
This one comes after this one. This one comes after this one. If you can order your little rituals in this way, things can get a whole lot smoother during those, particularly during those transition times.
Okay. And as I always say, don't hesitate to reach out to me to speak to me personally. Go right on to the Simplicity Parenting website and there you'll see a request, a consult with Kim.
It's just one of the best things. And the thing I look forward to every week is to speak to parents personally all around the world. Okay.
Bye-bye for now.
