Respecting personal space
Lou Davis
Hi, i'm new here, first post but been reading for a while.
We started moving towards Unschooling about 9 months ago and little by little we're getting there.
We have 2 girls aged 4 & 6 who have never been to school or nursery.
My latest 'breakthrough' is that I realise we don't really respect the girls personal space as we should.
For example - we pick them up when they don't want us to, or physically move them out the way. They obviously get quite cross and can be quite physical back (hitting, pushing etc).
Can anyone point me to some discussions/pages/sites to read that might help us move towards respecting personal space better.
Thanks in advance.
We started moving towards Unschooling about 9 months ago and little by little we're getting there.
We have 2 girls aged 4 & 6 who have never been to school or nursery.
My latest 'breakthrough' is that I realise we don't really respect the girls personal space as we should.
For example - we pick them up when they don't want us to, or physically move them out the way. They obviously get quite cross and can be quite physical back (hitting, pushing etc).
Can anyone point me to some discussions/pages/sites to read that might help us move towards respecting personal space better.
Thanks in advance.
Scott & Marygrace Sorensen
Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect, Your Self-Confident Baby and
The RIE Manual both by Magda Gerber. They steer towards Infants, but work
with children as well, you just have to age up.
Good luck.
Mg
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lou Davis
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2011 6:33 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Respecting personal space
Hi, i'm new here, first post but been reading for a while.
We started moving towards Unschooling about 9 months ago and little by
little we're getting there.
We have 2 girls aged 4 & 6 who have never been to school or nursery.
My latest 'breakthrough' is that I realise we don't really respect the girls
personal space as we should.
For example - we pick them up when they don't want us to, or physically move
them out the way. They obviously get quite cross and can be quite physical
back (hitting, pushing etc).
Can anyone point me to some discussions/pages/sites to read that might help
us move towards respecting personal space better.
Thanks in advance.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
The RIE Manual both by Magda Gerber. They steer towards Infants, but work
with children as well, you just have to age up.
Good luck.
Mg
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lou Davis
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2011 6:33 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] Respecting personal space
Hi, i'm new here, first post but been reading for a while.
We started moving towards Unschooling about 9 months ago and little by
little we're getting there.
We have 2 girls aged 4 & 6 who have never been to school or nursery.
My latest 'breakthrough' is that I realise we don't really respect the girls
personal space as we should.
For example - we pick them up when they don't want us to, or physically move
them out the way. They obviously get quite cross and can be quite physical
back (hitting, pushing etc).
Can anyone point me to some discussions/pages/sites to read that might help
us move towards respecting personal space better.
Thanks in advance.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
plaidpanties666
"Lou Davis" <louloukitty81@...> wrote:
Some of this may be helpful:
http://sandradodd.com/toddlers
But really it sounds like you know what direction you want to be going wrt your parenting. So the main thing is to focus on looking for ways to do that. Something that I've found helpful is breaking big ideas like "respect" down into smaller, or at least more specific (to me) ideas. So "respect" can mean a lot of different things. It seems like you want you kids to have a sense of bodily integrity, or personal sovereignty - they decide when they want to be touched, when they need help, when they need space. So what can you do to remind yourself of those principles?
It can help to start questioning yourself - why do I want my child to do this right now? What's the rush? But in order to give yourself some time to think about those questions you may need to look for ways to slow down, to build more time into your days so that you're not snatching up a child to do x because there's no time to think. Do you see what I mean? Part of making this kind of "respect" possible is thinking about what the needs of the day are ahead of time - become proactive, rather than reactive.
That's probably the biggest "skillset" of unschooling, right there - learning to be proactive. A whoooooole lot of other things follow from that. If you know, for instance, that your 4yo likes to dress herself, but takes half an hour to do so, then plan your days so she has plenty of time to get dressed on her own terms. If you're racing to get things done, its awfully convenient to stuff a little one into a set of clothes and be done with it - make INconvenience a non-issue. Little kids take time.
---Meredith
>> Can anyone point me to some discussions/pages/sites to read that might help us move towards respecting personal space better.****************
Some of this may be helpful:
http://sandradodd.com/toddlers
But really it sounds like you know what direction you want to be going wrt your parenting. So the main thing is to focus on looking for ways to do that. Something that I've found helpful is breaking big ideas like "respect" down into smaller, or at least more specific (to me) ideas. So "respect" can mean a lot of different things. It seems like you want you kids to have a sense of bodily integrity, or personal sovereignty - they decide when they want to be touched, when they need help, when they need space. So what can you do to remind yourself of those principles?
It can help to start questioning yourself - why do I want my child to do this right now? What's the rush? But in order to give yourself some time to think about those questions you may need to look for ways to slow down, to build more time into your days so that you're not snatching up a child to do x because there's no time to think. Do you see what I mean? Part of making this kind of "respect" possible is thinking about what the needs of the day are ahead of time - become proactive, rather than reactive.
That's probably the biggest "skillset" of unschooling, right there - learning to be proactive. A whoooooole lot of other things follow from that. If you know, for instance, that your 4yo likes to dress herself, but takes half an hour to do so, then plan your days so she has plenty of time to get dressed on her own terms. If you're racing to get things done, its awfully convenient to stuff a little one into a set of clothes and be done with it - make INconvenience a non-issue. Little kids take time.
---Meredith
BRIAN POLIKOWSKY
"Dear Parent: Caring for Infants with Respect, Your Self-Confident Baby and
The RIE Manual both by Magda Gerber. They steer towards Infants, but work
with children as well, you just have to age up."
-=-=-=-=-=-=
Since I had never heard about Gerver and this group I took a look at it on
Amazon and on the RIE
Website and I do not think this book will be something unschoolers would
recomend to parents.
I could be wrong.
Can you talk about it a little bit more
I would recomend reading, full of great articles:
http://naturalchild.org/
-=-
Alex Polikowsky
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
The RIE Manual both by Magda Gerber. They steer towards Infants, but work
with children as well, you just have to age up."
-=-=-=-=-=-=
Since I had never heard about Gerver and this group I took a look at it on
Amazon and on the RIE
Website and I do not think this book will be something unschoolers would
recomend to parents.
I could be wrong.
Can you talk about it a little bit more
I would recomend reading, full of great articles:
http://naturalchild.org/
-=-
Alex Polikowsky
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
BRIAN POLIKOWSKY
Here are some more good links:
http://sandradodd.com/toddlers
http://sandradodd.com/respect/dodd
Alex Polikowsky
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
http://sandradodd.com/toddlers
http://sandradodd.com/respect/dodd
Alex Polikowsky
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]