23 Jun A Summer Goal: Simplicity Parenting

During the month of June I have been reading through the book of Proverbs and recently came upon this verse, “the ants are a people not strong, yet they provide their food in the summer” (Proverbs 30:25). These little industrious insects aren’t strong but they are diligent in the summer to store up food so that when winter comes their colonies are well-fed. I began to think about the potential applications of this proverb for my own life.

As a homeschooling mother, we go hard at our studies from September through May so that when summer comes, we can dive in completely (and in our family’s case, quite literally) to playing hard. My eldest daughter is on our neighborhood swim team and all our kids are water babies so we spend most of the summer at the pool.

Apart from swim team, our commitments are cut down considerably during summer which frees up more space for me to focus on projects and preparation for the year ahead. Quite simply, summer is a time of rest to be sure but also it is a time when I, like the ant, need to be diligent to prepare for the fall when we will enter into all our regular commitments once again.

Simplicity Parenting

Sometime in May I decided that my goal for the summer (in terms of household preparation/projects) is simplification. Let me explain. Some time ago, a friend sent an email to our homeschool co-op recommending the book “Simplicity Parenting” by Kim John Payne. My friend shared that Payne’s book tackles “four pillars of excess: too much stuff, too much speed, too many choices, and too much information.  The author talks about creating rhythms to our day, how to deal with extracurriculars, what to do with all the stuff, and so much more.” I was sold and checked it out from our local library.

This book focuses in on four major areas to evaluate in your home: Environment, Rhythm, Schedules, and Filtering Out the Adult World. The reason to simplify according to Payne is, well, quite simple. Society today has a problem: our lives are crammed with activities, urgencies and obligations that seem absolute. When we have time to breath, we can be inundated with media and entertainment or simply the clutter of our own homes. Our kids are impacted by the frenetic pace, myriad of choices, unnecessary stimulus, and overwhelm of clutter.

Certain areas of our country do the “simple living” thing much better than where I live in the D.C. area. However, I love where we live and I do believe that we can resist the urge to live at a crazy pace or pack our lives and homes full of “too much” regardless of where we live.

One thought from Payne truly inspired me to take action: when our kids are overloaded and overwhelmed, they develop what Payne coins as “Soul Fever” – they begin to shut down or act out as a result of “too much.” We need to take the cues from our kids and, just like when they have a physical fever, cut back on their activities or stimulus until they can recoup, perhaps re-evaluating their current commitments or play environment to see what is causing them stress.

Simplifying our Child’s Environment

Left: our living room bookshelf, now categorized and simplified. Right: My eldest daughters homeschool cubby organized and de-cluttered

Payne says, “Nothing in the middle of a pile can be truly cherished.” The first thing most parents choose to simplify is their child’s environment because it is most tangible and offers a good starting point. This starts with toys, where the author suggests discarding or giving away a large majority of the toys (he has a very thoughtful process for determining which to hold on to and which to get rid of, which I greatly appreciated) in order to provide the child with fewer choices and the ability to truly engage with and enjoy the toys that remain.

One parent shares a testimony in the book of how they applied Payne’s simplification process to their children’s toys and literally cut out 75% of the toys. They thought that there would be a huge protest afterwards but found that their kids excitedly engaged with the toys their parents had carefully selected for them to keep, even playing better together with less arguing.

Over the last three weeks I have applied this approach to one room at a time and begun to simplify. I realized that the criteria I previously used to determine whether to kept something wasn’t sufficient and I needed to “up my game.” I have begun to ask harder questions, “How many trucks does he really need?” “Does she love this toy and play with it regularly?” “How many books on a particular subject do we need and will we actually read?”

I’ve already given away about 4 large sized trash bags worth of stuff and thrown away about the same amount (containing broken, torn, severely stained or just junky items) and I am excited to think and pray through the other areas of simplification as well. Moms, this is a liberating process!

If this is something that you feel your family could benefit from, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of Simplicity Parenting and slowly begin the simplification process so that when the fall comes, you can  enter in with less clutter, a more manageable pace, and greater peace in your hearts and homes.

Do you have any tips on simplifying? We’d love to hear them in the comments below!