One Small, Doable Change

After several years of incorporating the ideals of Simplicity Parenting (SP) into my family life -- being instructed by them and seeing the way they went hand-in-hand with the parenting wisdom I had been learning at the feet (literally, while she walked around the room doing her magic, I would sit on the floor with my children) of my mentor at my childrens' Waldorf School -- last summer I decided to become a Simplicity Parenting Coach.

During the training, I learned about an idea which is one of the keys to teaching SP classes: the small, doable change. For it is one thing to have lofty and sweeping ideas about how one is going to change one's family rhythm, schedule and environment and quite another (more realistic) thing to have a specific thing you plan to change-- to identify a place of struggle, imagine how you would like it to be and finding a concrete way to transform the current reality into that imagined place.

As I was training to teach people about small, doable changes, it seemed only fair that I try the process out firsthand. The source of dissatisfaction I identified was the daily conflict over what I would make my boys for breakfast -- I would come into the kitchen with a few ideas and would ask the boys which one they would like; inevitably, they would choose different things and then whichever food I decided to make would be a source of upset for the "loser". One of them would be upset, I would feel frustrated and breakfast time would be colored by this daily morning drama.

The culprits here? Giving too many choices and Mama not being in charge! In the "Rhythms" chapter of Simplicity Parenting, Kim Payne recommends a dinner schedule, such as Mondays are chicken, Tuesdays are beans, and so on. This is also how Waldorf early childhood teachers structure their snacks; for a long time, in our home, Monday was "Rice Day", Tuesday was "Bread Day" and Wednesday was "Millet Day." So, in learning from these sources, the small doable change I came home from my training with was to implement a breakfast schedule.

Yes, I procrastinated; I don't think I actually introduced this schedule for two weeks after I came home. And, predictably, I was met with resistance when I first introduced this idea -- and I totally got it, because I, too, had had the same resistance (isn't is "boring" to have an eating schedule? what if we just don't "feel like" eating X on this particular morning? where's the fun?). But, I toed the line: "I hear that you don't like oatmeal, but it's Monday and that's what we have." And now, five months in, this small piece of paper with the colorful writing has completely eliminated the daily breakfast conflict and transformed the tone of our mornings. I won't say that we don't have other conflicts that happen sometimes in the mornings (let's keep it real - this is family life with young children), but the daily one over what we would eat is gone, and breakfast, on the whole, is much more enjoyable.

This change was: simple, small, doable and, also, completely powerful. It has had many ripple effects: more politeness at the table, my boys learning how to cook each breakfast because they watch me do it week after week the same way, less complaining about food at other meals and knowing that what mama says, mama means. This experience sold me on the idea of the small, doable change and I have been making more and more of them ever since.

Interested in Simplicity Parenting? "like" my SP page on Facebook, Handmade Parenting.