****!!!!!!BEAR!!!!!!**** (was that gentle enough?) :)
earthmothergypsy
Well, I used the "bear in the yard" example yesterday and while my
kids were out playing badmitten last evening, the bear came lumbering
down the driveway like he was coming to play along too!!!!!! Dh was
outside too (though he can't run due to his hip injury) along with
our 6yr old, 2 yr old (that they couldn't find straigh way), our 15
yr old, our 18 yr old and her boyfriend. The older kids grabbed the
little ones and RAN for the house while dh stood there with a RACKET
to fend off the bear. lol!!!!!
The bear headed off into the woods not to be seen again last night,
but the big kids and dh were all hyped up after that. lol! Dh did
go borrow a weapon from a neighbor in case we would have to stop an
attack, but we prefer to leave nature as it is. See, WE choose to
live here and this is where the animals live, so we are the
intruders, not them. :)
Just had to share.
~Amanda
kids were out playing badmitten last evening, the bear came lumbering
down the driveway like he was coming to play along too!!!!!! Dh was
outside too (though he can't run due to his hip injury) along with
our 6yr old, 2 yr old (that they couldn't find straigh way), our 15
yr old, our 18 yr old and her boyfriend. The older kids grabbed the
little ones and RAN for the house while dh stood there with a RACKET
to fend off the bear. lol!!!!!
The bear headed off into the woods not to be seen again last night,
but the big kids and dh were all hyped up after that. lol! Dh did
go borrow a weapon from a neighbor in case we would have to stop an
attack, but we prefer to leave nature as it is. See, WE choose to
live here and this is where the animals live, so we are the
intruders, not them. :)
Just had to share.
~Amanda
Joan Labbe & Salvatore Genovese
All of these threads about gentle parenting and our children's fears made me
think of a resource that isn't mentioned in many books but has worked
wonders for me with my daughter. It's using storytelling - not reading from
books but your own storytelling - with your children.
I first read about it in Mothering magazine and this lead me to read one of
their suggested resources "Storytelling for Children" by Nancy Mellon which
is a great book to support anyone interested in discovering their inner
storyteller so to speak. Nancy teaches storytelling as a "healing art". It
is great tool for reflecting on and processing what's happened during a
given day, bringing your personal and family stories to life, and - what I
found it most helpful for - dealing with and helping my child with traumas
and fears.
We used it with my daughter most memorably to find a way to talk about her
difficult feelings about acquiring a sibling, to deal with her feelings of
trauma when the local museum she loved changed her absolutely favorite
dinosaur room into a train room (little did they know the effect on her!),
when my husband traumatized this sensitive to sound child with the electric
saw one day resulting in a period of time when she refused to go beyond the
end of the driveway outside the car for 9 months because of fear of noise,
and when she expressed fears about getting bigger.
Most recently one day she completely lost it because she realized all of a
sudden out of the blue that all her cousins on my side of the family that
she plays with and her brother have blonde or light hair while she has black
hair. She sobbed and sobbed and screamed at me to cut all her hair off and
make it blonde. Everything including just being with her silently caused
her to escalate until I told her the story of a little unicorn who decided
to change the color of her mane (then all her other parts) to be just like
her friends ...
I am a sometime writer and have an essay on specifically how storytelling
helped my daughter with her fears - if anyone thinks it would be helpful to
them, just send me an email offlist at salgenovese@... and I'll
send it to you.
Cheers,
Joan
think of a resource that isn't mentioned in many books but has worked
wonders for me with my daughter. It's using storytelling - not reading from
books but your own storytelling - with your children.
I first read about it in Mothering magazine and this lead me to read one of
their suggested resources "Storytelling for Children" by Nancy Mellon which
is a great book to support anyone interested in discovering their inner
storyteller so to speak. Nancy teaches storytelling as a "healing art". It
is great tool for reflecting on and processing what's happened during a
given day, bringing your personal and family stories to life, and - what I
found it most helpful for - dealing with and helping my child with traumas
and fears.
We used it with my daughter most memorably to find a way to talk about her
difficult feelings about acquiring a sibling, to deal with her feelings of
trauma when the local museum she loved changed her absolutely favorite
dinosaur room into a train room (little did they know the effect on her!),
when my husband traumatized this sensitive to sound child with the electric
saw one day resulting in a period of time when she refused to go beyond the
end of the driveway outside the car for 9 months because of fear of noise,
and when she expressed fears about getting bigger.
Most recently one day she completely lost it because she realized all of a
sudden out of the blue that all her cousins on my side of the family that
she plays with and her brother have blonde or light hair while she has black
hair. She sobbed and sobbed and screamed at me to cut all her hair off and
make it blonde. Everything including just being with her silently caused
her to escalate until I told her the story of a little unicorn who decided
to change the color of her mane (then all her other parts) to be just like
her friends ...
I am a sometime writer and have an essay on specifically how storytelling
helped my daughter with her fears - if anyone thinks it would be helpful to
them, just send me an email offlist at salgenovese@... and I'll
send it to you.
Cheers,
Joan