Supporting the Child’s Sense of Wellbeing-The Sense of Life Through Home Rhythm

Imagine if life were a river, rhythm would be its banks. Holding steady the flow. The river doesn’t question where it goes. It flows with ease between the ever-present and consistent banks that run alongside it. A boat floating down the river would do so with ease in direction. Imagine, if your child were the boat, life the river, and you - the rhythm you create, the banks. The boat would float along without questioning the banks. The boat would not ask, “Why are we going this way?”. In the same way that when the rhythm you establish, your child won’t ask, “Why are we doing this?”. There is an innate sense of being able to settle and allow the flow to carry them. 

Now imagine the river itself had no banks. It would stop flowing as a contained stream and disperse across the landscape- into disarray. If there were a boat, it would lose its direction.

We can create these ever-present banks of consistency around our children’s daily experiences with thoughtful planning, allowing us freedom in staying the course we’ve created. It also allows the caretaker relief from overthinking what will happen next as each moment in the day presents itself. Each intentional daily event can be understood through supporting your child’s basic daily needs:

Understanding our child’s needs to support their sense of well-being (simplified)

• Time to sleep

• Time to be nourished and fed 

• Space and time to experience nature

• Time to experience creative play

• Time to connect with their caretaker through learning side-by-side 

Through the understanding of the young child’s simple needs, we can begin to create a rhythm that sustains life’s needs, and in turn creates a day filled with natural flow. A day that breathes, and a pace that can feel comfortable for mother and child alike. A day that breathes values, events that allow us to expand and that ask for us to contract. 

Contraction and Expansion

• Each one of these rhythmic events has a breathing-like quality. A contraction and expansion. A bringing in and letting go. For example: sleeping-the child comes back into themselves. Waking-the child goes back out into the world of outer experiences. Our children have been connected to this rhythm of contraction and expansion since they were forming in the womb. It is already a natural part of their development. 

Creating days that are easy on their growing senses support their sense of well-being. This doesn’t mean that we have to create a day that is so low impact that adults aren’t able to get what they need done in their day-to-day life. But, rather to create a balance in the flow of the day, where we create alternating times for events that are guided by a feeling of expansion and contraction. This creates the quality of a rhythm that breathes. 

In a Waldorf preschool and kindergarten, teachers create the rhythm of each day with this breathing quality as a priority, because of the way it supports the child’s sensory input and well-being. An in-breath (contraction) in the classroom is an activity in which we all come together through a teacher-led activity. There is time for the child and the group to come inward into concentration and calm. The outbreath (expansion) is an outward, expansive activity that encourages freedom to move freely and free imaginative play. 

At home, an in-breath can be related to anything that would constitute a scheduled necessity, such as driving big brother or sister to school, or going to the grocery store. There is less freedom in those activities for the young child. There isn’t much movement in the car seat or in the grocery cart. An out-breath at home would be play time outside, a walk in nature, free play indoors, engaging in a purposeful activity next to or with their caretaker. 

An Imaginative Exercise 

• Think of the first seven years of your child’s life as an extended period of post-birth. Over their first seven years, they are building their physical and etheric bodies– the most rapid times of growth for your child.

• What kind of environment do we want to create for our children during these formative years? In which their physical body, internal systems (nervous, metabolic, proprioceptive, vestibular) are developing, growing, and forming?

• Is it important to create a positive sense of well-being? How could I create a way to do so?

Exercise

• Close your eyes and imagine the environment that surrounded your child in utero for the first 9-10 months; sounds, feeling, nourishment, warmth. How do you think the environment feels to their senses?

• Now picture your child and their day-to-day for the first year: Nourished by mother’s milk in cycles of waking and sleeping, skin to skin, quiet, slow-paced. Perhaps there was more permission for that lifestyle? How does the day have breathing-like qualities?

• Now expand out a bit to the first three years: What is sleeping to waking in the morning, nap rhythm, warmth, sensory experiences: are they loaded sensory experiences through media? Are they intertwined in busy schedules of family life, etc.? Is there less permission for a slower lifestyle, perhaps? How does the pace of the day feel to them?

• Now, imagine the environment you wish. Do you wish to have more intention in your morning to set the tone of the day? Is there a reverent moment to come together and eat a meal? Does your child melt down often and need more sleep? How can we find time to allow for deep and intentional rest in the middle of the day? Now begin envisioning how you can bring the environment you wish for your family into the pace of the day-to-day.

The sense of life or the sense of well-being (or not)

Informs us of our well-being

• Are we well rested? Sick or tired?

• Are we nourished and full? Not enough sustenance, or too much sugar?

• Is it loud or over-stimulating? 

• Too tight of a schedule, rushing, and busyness?

Teaches us how to suffer in the right way

• Fall, bruise, or scrape informs us of our limits

• Not getting a toy they want

• The dessert they wanted, but didn’t get

Children learn how to deal with disappointment. They become more resilient, learn how to move safely, become more patient, and in turn, wiser.

You know the old saying, “Rhythm replaces strength”. Here are some ways to strengthen the ease and flow of your day through rhythm. Create a rhythm with these cornerstones in mind: 

Daily rituals and routines

• Play/ Free-play

• Chores (Purpose and Industry)

• Movement/ walks in nature or in the neighborhood

• Rest

• Nutrition

• Quiet/ Boredom (Opportunity to come to rest/soothing on their own)

Support a healthy body and mind

• Establish one ritual every day/week, stick to it. Add more when you feel comfortable 

• Warmth: Layers for weather

Eliminate Screen Media

• Overwhelms and floods the senses (unnatural pace, movements, sounds)

• Loss of sense of self

• Loss of connection with reality

Sleep

• Read a story (read one, draw it out, a bit slow tempo and rhythm of voice)

• Light a candle

• Between 7 pm-8 pm (no later)

Nutrition: 

• Good fats

• Whole foods

• Limit carbohydrates and sugars

• Protein portions

• Plenty of veggies and fruits– make life a fun and colorful experience!

By Lauren Wheeler
Preschool Lead