Creating Boundaries to Protect Your Child
I have been studying anthroposophy for many years, both in its application to education, as well as spirituality and human nature as a whole.
In “Gratitude, Love, and Duty,” Steiner mentions:
"Every education is self-education, and as teachers we can only provide the environment for children’s self-education. We have to provide the most favorable conditions where, through our agency, children can educate themselves according to their own destinies.”
Steiner, is very clear about us providing the favorable conditions. These are young children we are talking about. Many parents, even some on the Waldorf path have a fairly mainstream protocol when it comes to friends and neighbors… kids are playing, seem to be having fun, they are leaving me alone, all must be well. This is a very common attitude and is easy to fall into. I have always held the practice that neighborhood children should play at my home, this allows me to keep a watchful eye on the other child and if I don't know the other parents well, it also gives me an opportunity to have them in my home so they can understand how we operate. We must be mindful, allowing a child to navigate this without the adult experience needed goes against many things Steiner says about protecting childhood.
“Foundations of Human Experience” comes to mind…
“What is localized as a sense in adult ears, however is spread out through the entire organism of a young child. For that reason, children do not differentiate between spirit, soul, and body. Everything that affects a child from outside is recreated within. Children imitatively recreate their entire environment within themselves.”
That is HUGE…give me chills each time I think about it. It keeps me from sending my children into situations that I don’t know for CERTAIN they can handle.
In lecture two of “Kingdom of Childhood” Steiner gives us another bit that we should take to heart:
“…it is what you are that matters; if you are good this goodness will appear in your gestures; and if you are bad-tempered this also will appear in your gestures – in short, everything that you do yourself passes over into the children and makes its way within them…The health of children for their whole life depends on how you conduct yourself in their presence. The inclinations that children develop depend on how you behave in their presence.”
It is TRUE… I have a testimony of the work that we do… we continue the spiritual work that was begun on the other side AND I also have a testimony that we make spiritual contracts with people, whether they be for our learning and pruning or for theirs… these are adult realizations and adult strivings. These children have been entrusted to us and we must remember that they will take in everything… thought, word and deed.
I want to be clear on how Steiner viewed this early childhood time and how protective we must be, even within our own circles of friends and family. It can be tricky and there are times when we must be flexible. Listening to that still, small voice will always keep us on the path.
Allowing the Spirit to guide us is the best method… when we are deeply connected to the Divine through everyday interaction then we can see the fruits of our striving and these situations don’t come up as often.
More blog posts on Parenting
here.
