“Slow parenting means allowing our children to work out who they are.”
If mornings are a whirl of toast buttering, lost shoes and teeth brushing and evenings are a race to get everyone fed, bathed and put to bed, it can feel like there’s very little time for hanging out with your kids in the average weekday.
For some parents however, making the decision to be fully present during some of those hectic daily ‘chores’ is revolutionising their relationship with children.
The Slow Parenting movement challenges parents to give the “Hurry up!” a break and make time for children to stop and smell the roses.
Author and Slow Movement champion Carl Honoré describes it as an attempt to save children from the childhood rat race. In his bestselling book, Under Pressure, he lays out his belief that the pressure to give our children the best of everything and make them the best at everything is backfiring on kids, parents and society as a whole.
“Slow parents give their children plenty of time and space to explore the world on their own terms.” he says. “They keep the family schedule under control so that everyone has enough downtime to rest, reflect and just hang out together. They accept that bending over backwards to give children the best of everything may not always be the best policy (because it denies them the much more useful life lesson of how to make the best of what they’ve got.)
“Slow parenting means allowing our children to work out who they are rather than what we want them to be.”
Slow Family Living workshop founder Carrie Contey agrees. Speaking to the Boston Globe, she urged parents to be intentional about making space for family time: “Like all of our other activities, we need to mark it on the calendar.” she said. “You might say, ‘we’re all here on Thursday mornings, so let’s make a leisurely pancake breakfast’; or one night a week take a walk in the dark before bed. Something like that can feel really special and the kids will remember it as they get older.”
Fancy giving Slow Parenting a bash? Here are five tricks to help you:
1. Put down the tea towel. Are you busy filling the dishwasher or wiping up spills while your children eat their dinner? Ignore the mess and sit with them for 15 minutes. Watch them noisily chomp carrots and examine each piece of chicken.
2. Cancel a class: Instead of booking back-to-back extra-curricular activities, leave weekends free for family fairy hunting in the forest or making mud pies in the back garden.
3. Do something out of the ordinary: One night a week, grab some flashlights and hunt bats in the neighbourhood or star gaze in the garden. Transfer dinner to a picnic blanket on the floor. Plug in the blender and make banana milkshakes for dessert.
4. Make bath time chat time: Instead of cleaning the sink or scanning Facebook while your kids are in the bath, sit with them and shoot the breeze. Make a shampoo mohawk or a bubble hat. Drink up their wet little faces and store away the memory for when they’re all grown up.
5. Ask the kids what they want to do (no TV or video games allowed). Whether it’s kicking a football or making a sofa cushion camp, letting children pick the activity is a surefire way to guarantee some serious laughs.
Do you have some Slow Parenting tips you’d like to share? Let us know what they are on Twitter @HerFamilydotie.
