Children and Change ~ Posting today at Simple Mom

February 25, 2011

I'm over at Simple Mom today posting about Encouraging Children to Embrace Lifestyle Change. It was actually readers' (and relatives) questions regarding how our children are responding to our move that prompted me to write this article. 

I've had the outline of this post sketched out for almost one year. We've been preparing our children for our upcoming move for many months now. Our whole lives - where we live, how we earn money, the size of our home and quantity of possesions, how and where we spend our days - is all going to change.

We are not just picking up our Maine life and moving it across the border. We're spinning life as we know it on its head and hopefully coming out on the other side walking a path more in line with our family values and mission. 

Not only does this require a lot of planning and hard work is also requires actively engaging our children and having them catch the vision. Our children are not babes-in-arms. They are active, participating members of our family. Their opinions, comfort levels, and challenges in this move matter a great deal to us. They are not just along for the ride in our adult lives, this move is as much about their lives as it is ours. 

This is what I am sharing today at Simple Mom. How we have encouraged our children to anticipate this change over the last year and how we plan to help them embrace our move into the coming months. 

Now I'm going to share a couple personal things. 

1. I am pretty insecure about playing with the big girls over at Simple Mom (no offense to the one or two male writers who occassional contribute). Posting at Simple Homeschool is one thing and I'm fairly comfortable in that venue but Simple Mom is another level. I'd love to hear from you over there. 

You don't even have to agree with me or post wonderful comments but just knowing you're there matters. I hate to be so vulnerable but I am, and I won't bother hiding it from you. 

2. One of the things I share in my post is this:

Your life should be enriched with better family time, deeper relationships and more joyful living because of the changes you're making.

So this week I decided to take my own advice and that is part of what lead to this decision.

Joy, love, peace, understanding - all of these and more need to be dominant players in our home. Children (and all people really) are attracted to joyful living. Letting go of a bunch of mental stress and unrealistic expectations is helping me reclaim these in our home. 

I look forward to chatting with you over at Simple Mom. 

The photos in this post have nothing to do with change but the light and beauty of Celine's sweater in the late afternoon February sun was so inspiring and lovely. I just had to share it.

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