Chris on Caring for Children

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Question: What spiritual practices do you incorporate into your day care and what can you recommend in the way of spiritual support for parents?

Answer:   The word spiritual means something different to each of us.   For me, spirituality means the philosophy which guides my life, so everything I do with children is spiritual when I act in a mindful manner.   As we grow and mature, our philosophy also grows and matures.   Practices I embrace today aren't the same as those I would have recommended ten years ago, and ten years from now when I look back at how I've answered this question it may look very naive to me.   But I'm happy to risk looking naive to expound on spirituality in child care because I feel the two are inseparable. This is the marrow of raising a wholly healthy human being!

My own personal philosophies have had innumerable influences, the largest being my own parents.   They have been and will always be a torch to guide my path and inspiration as I care for children.   They are an example of one of the most important spiritual practices Steiner charges us with: to be a person worthy of imitation.   This is not to say we must be a perfect, unattainable Barbie or Ken doll for our children.   In fact, more the opposite; we need to be fully human, with all our human smells, noises, struggles, joys and sorrows.   We must be the best, richest, most real humans we can be, striving to grow, to learn, atoning for our mistakes, helping each other along the way, falling, crying, laughing and getting back up again.

Steiner tells us that it's not what we do, it's who we are and this may go contrary to what we've learned in other places.   We judge people by their actions and words and we expect to be judged the same way, even if as we do good deeds and mouth kind words we grumble to ourselves or harden our hearts.   Our judgments tend to be materialistic, surface and social, but Steiner's admonition goes straight to our intentions, in the same sense as the zen saying, "intention is karma."   Only within our own heart do we know "who we are."   To stay in touch with that self, to make that self worthy of imitation is a lifetime challenge!   But around children, this is key.   They have an uncanny ability to see right into us and are little sponges to soak up whatever they find there.

Steiner has pages and pages of spiritual exercises to strengthen minds and hearts, but primarily he encourages us to find our own path by being mindful human beings.   Even of his own teachings he cautions us to only adopt those we can fully embrace with our hearts, which involves first becoming familiar with those hearts!   So one of the most vital spiritual practices I can recommend for parents is mindfulness.   To be mindful means to be as aware as we can of our intentions and to act intentionally, as opposed to thoughtlessly, impulsively or rashly.   Often, when we take the time to truly examine our hearts with painful honesty about our intentions, they are nothing to be proud of.   We sometimes act from selfishness, greed, materialism or even hate and envy.   To be mindful often means we are horribly aware of what flawed humans we are and how we will always be a work in progress.   Still, to me, it's more desirable than being unaware!   As children see us striving to know our hearts, to change and to improve, we give them an example of how to struggle, which is essential.   It is a poor child indeed who has no strong model of how to battle the dragons of their heart and soul, even if that battle seems endless.

The zen community has many useful exercises to strengthen our mindfulness muscles but I will give you two most valuable to me.   They are deceptively simple to learn and dauntingly difficult to actually put into practice.   The first is to simply be completely aware of what you are doing when you are doing it.   The zen saying is when you eat, just eat, when you read just read. The story goes of the zen student who came upon his master as he was eating his lunch while reading a book.   The student said "Master, what of the teaching, when you eat, just eat, when you read just read?"   The master looked at him and said, "When you eat and read, just eat and read."   In other words, don't obsessively give up multitasking, especially if this is all new to you.   But do pay attention.   When you are driving, fully drive.   When you are reading to your child, be fully present in the activity; the smells, the sounds, the touch.   When you're washing the dishes, think about the dishes and all the feelings you have about this chore and the heart you bring to it.

The second exercise is even harder than the first, and it is to sit still and pay attention to your breathing.   Every time your mind wanders, just gently guide it back to your breath.   I don't mean deep breathing or slow breathing or some kind of fancy yoga breathing.   Simply pay attention to your breathing as it is.   Do this as long as you can, even if it's only for one minute.   If you think about it, you have many opportunities to practice this with children, for how often do you find yourself waiting?   Waiting for them to get their shoes on, waiting for them to get out of ballet or soccer, waiting for them in the bathtub?   Remember, when you're waiting, breathing is highly recommended!   Every minute you can exercise yourself in this way will strengthen your ability to be more mindful in your daily life and your actions with your child.   When asked to describe the secret of enlightenment in three words a zen master responded, "Attention, attention, attention."

Two more exercises from Steiner in my daily practice are the review of the day and holding the children in the light.   The review of the day is the practice of going through the day in your mind, reliving each event and the feelings it evoked in you.   The trick is, you do it backwards!   So, in the evening before bed, think of the last thing you did, then what you did before that, and what you did before that, until you arrive at getting out of bed in the morning.   The purpose of this exercise is to literally 'unwind' you from your day; to release you from it as you go to sleep.   It also gives you some perspective; you'll find things that seemed so important at the time are trivial at day's end, and you'll also see how things that seemed small were quite important.   You'll also discover your own insights from this practice which I can't even begin to know.   It's recommended if you need a little refresher half way through the day to stop and just review the day so far, and see if that doesn't help perk you up a bit.

Holding the children in the light is also done at night, while drifting off to sleep.   I bring a picture of each child in my care to mind and call forth their true essence until I can see that child fully happy, healthy and shining with a beautiful golden light.   I feel how my heart loves this child and how we each have something to give each other.   For teachers, who have many children in their care, they may visualize only a few of their children each night so in the course of a week they will hold all the children up as they go into their dreams.   For parents, of course you'll bring your own children to mind first, but if you have more time then you can also bring up other people in your life.   Often you'll drift off to sleep before you're finished but we are taught that whatever we start before sleep our mind will finish in our sleep, and I like that thought!   This exercise keeps our hearts open and soft toward the children and helps create a deep connection with them.   Often if there's a problem with a child, taking them into our dreams like this will bring some inspiration or strength the next day after we've 'slept on it.'   Anthroposophy teaches that this practice also charges the children's angels with their responsibility to work on the children in their sleep and to help us in our care for them.   But I'll save the subject of angels for another time.

There are many more practices I consider spiritual in my personal daily life and with the children; having to do with honoring nature, the seasons, cultivating an inner life and our citizenship in the world.   I hope to share more of these in a regular spot on the website soon.   If we cultivate our hearts with a practical, common sense attitude, they'll yield a rich spiritual life to sustain us and give us the stamina to uphold our children in this challenging world.