I am often asked this question by parents in our workshops and teleclasses. I think sometimes they know the answer in their hearts but they want the answer to be laid out in a tangible format that they can absorb with their minds as well.  When they hear this equation I can often see the exhale of relief, as if, they now can slow down with good solid reason.  With this information in hand, body, mind and spirit can come together and do the things necessary to slow down, connect and truly enjoy family life.

This equation comes from our Slow Family Living workbook which you can download for free from our site. We offer a Slow Family teleclass too which serves as a guiding hand to walk you through the process of finding ways to slow down that work for YOU and your family. We’d love for you to join us.

And now, the answer to the question above…

The Benefits of Slowing Down
When you slow family life down you’re able to stay more resourced.
When you are more resourced you are more present.
When you are more present you are more tuned in to your own needs and
the needs of everyone in the family.
When you are more tuned in to the needs of each individual everyone feels seen.
When everyone feels seen everyone feels safe.
When everyone feels safe there is harmony.
When there is harmony there is more love, more connection, more ease,
more fun and more joy.
When there is more love, connection, ease, fun and joy there’s more desire to be
together as a family.

We just finished a 6 week book group around the amazing book, Parenting for a Peaceful World written by Robin Grille. We’ve had over a dozen such groups in the past year and I have been lucky enough to co-facilitate them with my SLow Family Living co-founder, Carrie Contey. The book details the approach to childhood throughout the ages and even delves into some of the dark periods where infanticide and abandonment were the standards. It then brings it up to modern day methods and speaks of the bridge we are on in the evolution of it all. The move from the socialized mode to the helping mode of parenting, the move from authoritarian to authoritative. It speaks of the five “rights” of childhood - the right to exist, need, freedom, want and love. It offers methods for supporting your child’s emotional intelligence and how your own childhood has influenced your emotional makeup. It’s a heady and emotional read and is definitely enhanced by being in a group.

At the end of the final session we asked what things people took away from the class, from the book and from being in the group.Below are just a few of the responses…

*The need to respect our children *The need to enjoy our children and family * The need to build strong community *The need to work on our own emotional wellness  All of these seem so simple and beautiful and elemental and after reading this all the participants seemed heart set on living in this new light.

After you read this book, you will view yourself differently - now and in your own childhood. You will approach your children more empathically and joyfully. You will see your own parents through a new (and forgiving) lens. And, though it sounds simultaneously trite and too triumphant, you will receive all of humanity in a more compassionate way. It is really that powerful.

So, whether you are a parent, or a teacher, or a politician or just interested in finding out what built your own true self, I highly recommend this book.

All week we looked forward to this planned, no-car, Sunday at home, all together. Our big project was to clean out the screened-in porch, but our main goal was to have a day at home to connect.

My 11 year old pointed out that when we have these home days in which nobody goes anywhere and there is no big agenda, time stretches out so slowly and spaciously before us. We all loved the fact that at 1:00 in the afternoon we were feeling delightfully full of home-ness and rejoiced that the day was still fresh with many more hours to go. Of course at 6:00 or so we were reminded that it was daylight savings which meant we lost an hour, but even that news didn’t burst our slow bubble.

We had so much in our day at home and so much also includes time to do nothing at all. We reveled in the doing but we also celebrated the just being and the just being together.

We always remember when we’re in it, how much we all enjoy it, but sometimes, when we’re not in it, we forget just how delightful it can be. We all promised to remind each other in the future to schedule a day at home to slow down, connect and enjoy being a family.

And our screened-in porch is ready for Spring!

We’ve started this great Friday tradition of going to the park for supper. Rather, I should say, we’ve reinstituted an old idea and it feels like a brand new tradition.  We came about it because of our urban hikes during winter break when time was spacious and schedules had no bearing.

When my older 2 were little we spent many hours doing this very same thing - loading up the double stroller and hitting the streets, eventually winding up in the park with friends and some snacks and around evening time a bottle of wine (or two) to share.

As our older 2 went off to school and life included a few more tasks, errands, social obligations, our aimless walks swindled and there were a lot more drives and our younger 2 spent less time in the stroller.

Winter break reminded me of my love of walking the streets and exploring and saying hi and stopping and going when and where we wanted to. Rediscovering a favorite neighborhood park was one of my favorite parts of that reminder - a park covered with live oaks and filled with grackles and kids and families, where we had logged countless hours years past and where there was a minimal playscape but lots of imaginative play to be had.

Since then we’ve been hitting this same park most every Friday afternoon loaded down with scooters and snacks and a bottle of wine or two to share with the friends we meet there. We stay until dark and beyond - building little wood fires in the grill for light and warmth - and when we return home everyone is tired but happy and ready to clean up and crawl right into bed.

It’s slow and connected and each week I am grateful for its return and I can’t imagine anything I’d rather be doing.

That’s often a question that comes up in our house of four children and two adults and was brought to mind by a recent article in the NY Times about spending time together with your kids.It took me a long time to learn that what my kids (and my partner and myself) really want is a feeling of connection and we’ll take it in all its forms.

It took me a long time to realize that what my 6 year old was seeking when she was whining about me going out the door or about her little brother getting more (of whatever) or not getting to go to the store as all her other siblings get to do, all the time, everyday and then some - what she was really seeking was a little connection. I have a new game with her and I play it often when I see her spiraling into this place of “not enough”. I pause. Settle myself. I sit down on the floor, criss-cross style, and I put her in front of me, face to face, and I hold her shoulders and stare into her eyes. Really and truly. I make goofy faces or blank faces or loving faces or whatever face seems to be matching her energy at the time, and we stare into each other’s eyes. Sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for 2. And when she is full, she hops up and runs away back to whatever she was doing before or onto whatever new game she wants to enter.

It took me a long time to learn that what she was seeking was my attention - full on, undeterred, loving gaze and attention and relaxed, present connection. And when she gets it she feels fully sated.

It took me a long time to learn too that a full on crazy weekend of plans and errands and parties and all of us together doing it all, definitely does not fill us up. At all. Any of us. Instead at the end of that we feel crazed and a bit cranky and oddly underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the same time.

If we have a day of that however, and then a day or an afternoon even of slow connection, we can return to the world on Monday morning feeling full up and completely sated.

I like the parties. My kids do too. I like the hanging out all together getting everything done that needs to get done. But I’ve got to mix that up with a little slow, relaxed time too because if I don’t, everyone feels cheated. Myself included.

What’s your take on the matter? I’d love to know.

So many people were asking us for tools on how to live their own slow family life. Others were asking us “what is slow living?” What we realized was that slow for one was different than slow for another. What was slow one month might not feel slow the next month. It all has to be balanced and measured and constantly reconfigured for each and every family and family member. The big question being, “Is this working for us?”

From those inquiries and many more we’ve come up with two workbooks for helping folks slow life down and figure out methods that work for their own families. The first one is the Slow Family Living Workbook and it’s free from our site http://www.slowfamilyliving.com . It’s full of questions, suggestions and thoughts to ponder on living your own Slow Family life.

The other is a Family Mission Statement workbook that is chock full of questions and ideas to lead families toward the creation of their own Family Mission Statement from which all else can flow. We are super, super excited and grateful too for all the families that helped us get this work out on the table.

I am a fan of sleeping. As a kid I could sleep all hours, sleep in, sleep through any noise or mayhem including sometimes an alarm going off near my head,  and sleep anywhere - and it has followed me through all the days of my life. Perhaps it is because I was 8th of 9 children that I learned to sleep so well - survival in a way and tolerance too.

My kids, all four of them, are pretty remarkable sleepers too and always have been. Sure there were the standard early years but even those were never so bad and, to this day, my kids can sleep anywhere, with any noise and as long as their little bodies need to.

With the school schedule I have sometimes had difficulty waking up at the required 6:15. That is 30 minutes before I wake the kids and gives me the time I need to check in with myself before meeting everyone else’s needs. I love that time but honestly, I had a hard time not pressing the snooze alarm, once, twice, sometimes even three times giving me 10, 20 or 30 more minutes of precious sleep. Not that the extra time made getting up any easier but it was a tease of the sleep I so loved.

About 2 weeks ago we received our first order of linen bound copies of a book that my partner in Slow Family Living and I created a few months prior. It’s called My Book. It is a journal of sorts. It’s the one you check when you’re figuring out your day and how you want it to go, and to flow. It’s a place for you to put your gratitudes, intentions, ideas, to-dos, insights, feelings, and your wishes, wants and dreams. All in a completely succinct and welcoming format. When the prompts are given and the space is there for you to fill in, it is easy to make My Book a habit you will love and look forward to. Really.

And of course that’s coming from me, the one who created it and is selling it but I am also swearing to it because I’ve realized that it is working for me, mother of four, woman who loves to sleep in. Not to sound ridiculous or hokey or salesy, but I am here to tell you that I am no longer hitting the snooze alarm because I so look forward to filling out these simple and clear pages. When the alarm rings now I leap up and really, truly, without a doubt think, “Ooh, get up so I can fill out my pages.”

There are others who agree and there not even related to me. So, if you’re a person who maybe had a hard time waking up or keeping up with a daily routine of writing out your thoughts and gratitudes, you might want to check out My Book. I’m here to tell you it’s really that good.  In over two weeks of having My Book, I have not hit the snooze alarm once. I kid you not. And let me tell you, for me, that is really big news.

On this winter holiday of ours, what I’ve realized is that walking is slow and when I get the chance to walk with my family,  I love it. On this break from school we have had plenty of time to linger in all we need to do and all the places we need to be and with  18 days and really no plans and no visitors and no places we need to be, we have had plenty of time to walk to the places we need and want to go. Though I often want to walk where we need to go, when we are crunched with time and schedules, we don’t always make that choice.

From this break I’m hoping to take the lessons learned  - and walking where we need to be is a big one. We can walk to return our dvds. We can walk home from school (we can’t always walk to school because at 7:40 we don’t always allow ourselves the time). We can walk to the grocery store and bank and post office and park and friend’s houses and when we have the big stroller we can carry all the things we need to carry and then some.

My goal is to take this lesson learned and walk all the places we need to go - and even walk when we don’t have anywhere to go at all. I love the conversations with my kids when we allow ourselves time to walk. I love the thoughts that run through my head when I am walking on my own. I love seeing my neighbors and the shop owners and taking in all that we can take in when we are moving slowly through the world in which we live.

If you live in a place where you can walk where you need to go I encourage you to take the time to do just that. Leave the keys. Put on some good shoes. And walk. Walk. Walk. Just doing so will make you feel connected to all that you are doing and all the places you need to go.

We feel lucky to have nearly 3 weeks off from our sometimes grueling school schedule. I use the word grueling because the hours of operation often feel that way in the lives of my 6, 9, and 11 year old school kids. Getting up at 6:45 never feels natural. Going to a structured setting for 7.5 hours can sometimes feel like too much - especially for that kindergartener. Having to do it 5 days a week feels crazy - it feels crazier still when we get little tastes here and there of the three day weekend. And having to do all this and then tack a little bit of homework on the end feels just completely over the top.  Hence my use of the term grueling. Not an overstatement at all.

To get 18 glorious days off from that crazy schedule feels like a little bit of nirvana. And to make that time feel more spacious still, we intentionally made no plans to go anywhere or have anyone visit us. Rather a decision to lay low, the six of us, and spend a little time in what I like to call “familial incubation”.

Just a little bit over a week into it, though we are starting to get a little antsy. We overdosed on old holiday movie classics. We ate plenty of good food. We have taken lots of great walks. We have read endless books - of both the picture and chapter variety. We have done endless drawing and crafts. We have even cooked hotdogs over an open fire in the park. (okay, an open fire in a barbecue grill but an open fire nonetheless) We have loved our time together and our very freeform spacious days.

In the past day or two however I have noticed a definite crankiness creeping in. We are being a little short with each other. There are hints of sarcasm in some conversation and there’s a level of sass starting to infiltrate my dealings with my older two. Time for action!

At bedtime last night we all talked about the crankiness and everyone agreed - too much and no good. Everyone felt it and nobody wanted it to continue. We came up with a plan for a good old fashioned yard day. Right after breakfast the plan was to take what you needed and get outside. We were instantly rewarded by a brilliant blue and sunny sky which beckoned us all outside. Baby dolls and calico critters, buckets of trucks and blankets were carried outside. The hammock was hung in the trees. The imaginations were released and all our slow family systems were back on track.

We love our holiday time. We love the freedom of movement and the sort of aimlessness of our days. But we also realize it is important to stay intentional even in that aimlessness. When too many plan-less days are spread out before us, the kids spiral a little bit into wondering what is next. The unknown can make us all feel a little bit on edge. When we are clear with our plans however and mindful of our intentions we can enter into slow days together - with love and kindness and tolerance for each other and the connection we seek in our slow family life.

And the lessons just keep coming and coming.

There is much talk in a mother’s world about the ability to multi-task. For many years I was quite proud of it myself and wore it like a band of my mothering prowess. "See me? I can sweep, nurse a baby, read a book to my 5 year old and meet my magazine deadline - all at the same time." I laughed with other mothers I knew about how much we were able to get done compared to our multi-tasking challenged mates who slowly (but seemingly joyfully) muddled through one task at a time.

When my youngest and fourth child was born, he was quick to point out in all his infant wisdom that my multi-tasking just wasn’t going to fly. I nursed him but he didn’t gain weight. I sat in bed even, for the first 2 weeks of his life, and still he didn’t seem to be getting what he needed.

My midwife came over one afternoon while I "did nothing but sat in bed nursing," and she laughed at the craziness that ensued. While I "sat" and nursed, I also went over multiplication tables with my 9 year old and did sewing cards with my 5 year old and manuevered the robot’s screws for my 7 year old. I wasn’t actually just sitting. I wasn’t actually just nursing. In fact I wasn’t actually "just" doing any of the things I was doing and the end result was that nobody, including myself, was sated or satisfied. Instead, everyone felt short-shifted, nobody was full and it left everyone wanting more, including my 2 week old boy.

Through my midwife’s eyes I was able to see the insanity of it all and from then on made a conscious effort at my new method of "uni-tasking". I looked in my baby’s eyes when I nursed him. I focused on the sewing and reading and recitations and writing. I told them of my new plan and to them it made perfect sense as in a sort of, "duh Mom" kind of way.

There is scientific evidence that true multi-tasking is fairly impossible. I didn’t need a scientist to tell me that though, I needed a 2 week old baby who only needed me to do nothing else but look into his eyes for a few minutes, a few times a day. Of course my children sometimes get aggravated that I can’t give them the attention they want right away, and I sometimes get frustrated at having to wait my own turn, but in the big picture everyone appreciates the energy and focus they do get when it’s their turn. And oddly enough, it doesn’t really take any MORE time, it just takes focused time.

So, to new moms and old moms everywhere I say, MULTI-TASKING IS A MYTH!!! Uni-tasking is what fills us; body, mind and soul.