Hello, and welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. I'll be telling you a little more about a little sort of exciting announcement at the end of the podcast today about a care professionals seminar we have coming up very soon in simplicity parenting methods. But today I wanted to talk a little bit about how being a parent who raises their children simply and raises their children with balance in their lives can get lonely.
I've heard this from time to time. And it's not easy, right? When you look around your neighborhood and kids are wicked over scheduled, they're deluged with screens, when there's so little rhythm in their lives when it seems kind of just, just crazy, you know, and, and you're looking at that and you're thinking, okay, I can make the decision to not raise my child in that way. But what about the, you know, when playdates come up? And what what about, you know, like, how do I do this? Do I do I do I just have to be lonely? Do I have to just not relate to anyone else in the world other than a small handful of people? There's a couple of things here.
Although it might not be entirely, you know, great news, but there are an incredibly rapidly growing number of parents who are just thinking, wow, this is just all got too much. And within them, there's a gut instinct that this is just too much. This is crazy.
I didn't have to cope with this when I was a kid. And a bunch of parents have said to me over the years, when they just stay within their lane, you know, stay within their own circle of control, and just raise their kids simply stick to their values. They're often approached by other parents saying, how do you do that? What are you doing with that? And that's where your it's not your circle of control, but it's your circle of influence.
Just by staying in your lane, just by being able to do what you do, raise balanced kids, other people start to notice. It takes a while, but they do start to notice extended family start to notice. The other teachers certainly start to notice.
So one one message that is not, you know, immediate, but my message is hang in there, honestly, hang in there. But more to the present, what can we do when we when there's a play date requested, where you've strongly suspect, there's going to be a screen tsunami go on, there's going to be gaming go on, there's going to be unlimited kind of access to sugar, just to a little there's going to be very probably difficult difficulties around boundaries, the kind of language that is that is used the kind of difficult, aggressive words that are going to be used. And you know it, because you've been through it.
And you've seen it. It's not you're not imagining it, you know, this is going to happen. What can we do? Practically? Well, one of the one of the sort of the more effective steps that parents and you may have already practiced this, but some parents say, you know, it's important to do activity based play dates, not just not just hanging out play dates, not just hanging around.
They're the ones that can really go wrong. But when they're more activity based, when, you know, they involve baking, they involve building, they involve a project, it might be biking or roller skating, or that you organize a play date along an activity, sort of theme of some sort, or another. It seems to help kids because they're looking forward, they're actually doing something together.
And, and much less just hangout time where goofiness and silliness can happen. But they're also not being micromanaged. Either.
Some parents have gone to the extent of getting little boxes that are like shoeboxes together, three kids are coming over. So they'll have three shoeboxes of some of some project and crafting material that they're pretty sure the kids will enjoy. And other parents have even said to me their their place becomes a fairly popular play date space because the kids get to do cool stuff and they get to take it home and be kind of proud of of the project they've made or the or the muffins or the cookies that they've made, and so on and so on.
The other thing I hear a lot is is limiting the time so that the time of the play date doesn't just go on and on and on. Some parents have actually said when they're first getting this together, it's more like a pop-in than it is a longer play date. Some parents have said they prefer play dates not at their home.
They initially, at least, they prefer to meet up at the park and then go biking or meet up at the park and just do something together. And in that way, when it all gets a bit much, you can you can leave. But other parents have said, actually, I prefer to have the kids come over to my home and have it be for a limited time.
And in that way, I can set things up and we can have a really cool time. We can do really great stuff and it goes it goes well. A couple of last little things about this.
Some parents have actually taken up this message in Simplicity Parenting about rhythm and they've made play dates rhythmical. So they'll say something like for little children, if they've got half days at kindergarten or whatever, every Thursday afternoon will be play date afternoon or every Saturday morning will be park morning. And in that way, the children involve play dates in a rhythm.
And they're not always nagging and badgering, wanting play date, wanting play date. That one mom said to me, well, she she often says yes to request for play dates and she would keep a list and she would just write down the play dates and and the child would see but they weren't all that weak. You know, if there were four play dates, then that was the month because on Thursday afternoon, that was play date time.
The other parents and couple of just last hints now have said, this is obvious, right, but limiting numbers and not having too many kids over. Some parents have said it's optimal to have three, not always just two, depending on the kind of temperament of the kids coming over. Others have said no, they're perfectly fine having two.
Very few parents have said they're fine having large numbers. So all these things you might think, well, hang on, isn't that over controlling my my kids play dates? And, you know, I don't think it's it's over controlling one little bit. It's connecting, it's connecting with your child and their friends.
And it's being able to give it does involve giving up your time. It absolutely does. There's no way around that, right? But it means living closer to your values.
And if you do give up that couple of hours a week for a play date, and it's been closer to your values and hasn't just gotten crazy. We've had to pick up the pieces for days afterwards. It's just a really wise investment every which way around.
Okay, so the loneliness of play dates. And also, one last quick point, I'll sneak this in, is that when other parents come to collect their kids, and they see that it's calm-ish, you know, or that it's been fun without going crazy. You're much more likely to have a parent say, you know, how is it that you're doing that you're much more likely as a mom or a dad to make a connection, even a friend, if, if they come and collect the kids, see what is possible.
You can slowly over time, find two, three, four other parents in amongst the big class group, if the children are at school. And it doesn't get quite as lonely. In fact, it's kind of not lonely at all.
I mentioned at the beginning that about the care professionals seminar, it's coming up on February 4th, 5th, if you're a teacher, doctor, nurse, therapist, any kind of person involved in the care professionals will be focusing on the simplicity parenting book and how to bring this right into your practice. We get such great feedback from these courses, we run three or four of them every year, based on my different books. I personally lead these courses as one of my favorite things to do.
And if you're seeing this video or listening to this, after the care professional training, just go right to the website and just sign up on the interest list and we'll let you know when the next one's coming right up. Okay, so that is counterbalancing the loneliness of being a simplicity parent. Okay, hope that's helpful.
Bye-bye for now.
