Rhythm.
Thursday, August 13, 2009 at 2:55PM Rhythm is one of the cornerstones of Waldorf in early childhood. I'm sure that if you've ever read a book about Waldorf education, or done a tour at a Waldorf school, you've heard about daily, weekly, yearly rhythms. Many different schedules can be found on websites or in books that outline a particular "rhythm", or give sample "rhythms".
When I first encountered all this talk about rhythm I was excited at the prospect, and tried to hold myself and my family to what amounted to a pretty arbitrary schedule (not rhythm, as I'll speak about in a moment). I loved the old-fashioned idea of having set days of the week to do set things: Wash on Monday, Iron on Tuesday, Mend on Wednesday, Churn on Thursday, Clean on Friday, Bake on Saturday, Rest on Sunday (that rhythm is taken straight out of Little House in the Big Woods!). The problem was, I could never stick to it, because I can (and need to!) do laundry, or bake, or clean, more than once a week. I don't, you know, churn. Those old-fashioned rhythms were born of necessity, and they served needs different from mine.
I changed my "days" around, made them correspond to different things. Gardening day? Painting day? Handwork day? I tried writing up a schedule, posting it on the refrigerator to remind myself what "day" it was -- it just never really clicked for me.
Same with the daily rhythm. I tried many different daily schedules I found in a variety of different Waldorf books. Nothing stuck. I felt like every schedule was contrived and meaningless. I wondered if maybe rhythm wasn't for us, after all?
Then I sat back and let our days unfold, and do you know what? A rhythm formed itself naturally. It grew organically out of our real life.
A rhythm is a real, living thing. A rhythm grows and changes and adapts to our families, our families' lives. A rhythm allows for imperfections, for compromises, for the unexpected. A rhythm doesn't make you feel guilty, or like you're not doing it "right".
I was recently re-reading the book Completing the Circle, by Thomas Poplawski (a collection of very modern and accessible writings on Waldorf education) and came across this passage:
"The etheric or life-formative body [the etheric body is the force most at work in the child under seven] can be characterized as warm and as pulsing with a calm, steady rhythm -- something like a large human heart. It is just these qualities that we seek to provide for younger children.... Rhythm in daily life is a factor crucial for the well-being of the etheric body....
Our desire to be somewhere else and to be doing something else and our desire to be spontaneous and undisciplined will often conflict with maintaining a regular schedule for our children. But part of being a parent is sacrificing one's own interests for the sake of one's children. And the vagaries of the adult...do nothing but disrupt the needs of the child's etheric body. The child's rhythms are like those of the moon and tides and, if supported by external rhythms, will hum along quietly and smoothly." (emphasis mine)
Isn't that a wonderful thing to think about? I think about the heart of our home, the heart of our family, beating its own particular beat, the rushing of life in and out, pulsing through our days and weeks and months and years. I'm gladdened to think of my job as holding external rhythms that help to support my children's own natural, internal rhythms so their lives can hum along quietly and smoothly. In fact, I think that when I'm doing my job right, that's exactly what happens: calm, smooth lives that make it easy for them to do their own work of growing.
Next I'd like to share with you what rhythm looks like for our family, if you'd be interested, and perhaps the components of our rhythm that might help your family find its own.
waldorf 
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (20)
I can't wait to see your family's daily rhythm. What you say makes sense. I keep trying schedules, which never work, but we do end up doing the same things over and over. I guess I'll stop feeling guilty about not sticking to things and just call my life rhythmic.
Similar story here. Except that we never came to a rhythm that feels like it's working. I suppose we do have somewhat of a schedule/rhythm. It just changes from external things.
I'd love to hear about your daily rhythm. Like you, I love the idea but have had trouble putting it into practice.
What a great reminder to let the rhythm form by itself instead of forcing it on our family!
I love the quote too. Really timely given the summer attractions and temptation to let our rhythm get out the window!
Oh, I do so want to know about your family's rhythm. I am in the process of trying to work a schedule for our lives and the new homeschool year and would love some suggestions. Summer and my husbands new job and schedule really has us (at least me) feeling so disorganized.
Blessings,
Robin
Oh Kyrie! I love the new site.
So streamlined and succinct.
The pictures are FAB as always, you make me want to hop right into them.
Rhythm is important, and although I am not a Waldorf Mama per-se, I do use similar principals in raising my boy.
I can't wait to read further on your journey.
Jules
I am always stressing to parents the importance of consistency in the child's daily life, and you have explained it in a lovely fashion. I love the poetry of the Waldorf writing, and I'm always intrigued about how similar many aspects are to Montessori. I loved what you highlighted, but here's my favorite part: "But part of being a parent is sacrificing one's own interests for the sake of one's children. And the vagaries of the adult...do nothing but disrupt the needs of the child's etheric body." Your children are lucky to have parents who understand this and live it.
thank you for writing this. i have been struggling with our own family's rhythm and frustrated by my inability to really keep it. this has refocused me!
love the idea of daily rhythms, kyrie. thank you so much for writing about it - can't wait to see your next post. although there are no children in our household, my husband and i are fairly recent retirees so still struggling to find our own "new rhythyms" in a very very different daily life. so looking forward to sharing thoughts and ideas.
your words were perfectly beautiful! and so helpful! i love this: "rhythm is a real, living thing."
HI, I love your pix (and your blog). I am always taking pix of my 3 too. Am looking to upgrade my camera, would you mind me asking what do you use?
I love having a rhythm to my days, weeks, seasons. It makes me, as an adult, feel safe. I almost always shop on Sunday morning, early. That's one of the things that's set in my week. We always go apple picking in the fall. I would like to have more ways to establish rhythm in my life. I look forward to hearing what you have to say about it. Hugs, Kyndale
Oh, I so needed to read this post. It seems that we had such a nice family rhythm last year, and then we had some major changes- selling our house, 2 moves and now a brand new baby. I'm looking forward to finding a new rhythm that works for our family!
I'm so happy to hear your view on rhythm -- we've had a really difficult time finding ours, and it truly was a more aggravating experience than necessary. I would be planning and timing the day, and when it didn't work, I would feel so disappointed and frustrated. Now, we have three marked events of each day: morning nap, afternoon nap, bed time. What happens before, during and in-between, changes daily. But if we can make those three highly - needed sleeps happen, I feel like we've accomplished a consistency for Pan that he needs -- and also divide our day into sections where different tasks and goals can be accomplished.
I'm so excited and interested to hear about your daily rhythm Kyrie. I've found it to be an elusive thing in our lives lately, and I think we all feel out of sync because of it. I too, started out thinking that rhythm and schedule were synonymous and quickly discovered that trying to impose an external schedule on my daughter's days made both of us frustrated and unhappy. So I put her in the sling and we discovered our own daily rhythm. Now, four years later we are trying to find a new rhythm that suits her, her little brother and me ... we always work around Rem's nap, and I am firm about grocery shopping on Friday nights so I don't lose any family weekend time, but other than that I am looking for inspiration. I can't wait to hear about your days.
I also love your new site ... just as beautiful as your previous one.
Beautiful, lovely new site! Wonderful words that ring so true in our home as well! I've missed you while I was on vacation, but it was good to *unplug* for awhile! Good to be back and thinking about rthym as change is alway coming.
Thank you for doing this - I know the time you take to blog is time you could be spending doing other things, but from one momma-mommy to another, I appreciate and thank you for this series you're doing on Waldorf and family rhythms :)
J.
I am so happy to have found your blog! For months now I too have been trying to figure out a good routine/schecule/method of implementing learning in our home environment. Crazy thing is, life often gets in the way, and children do need to be okay with adjustment in their daily lives every so often! This past year has been very emotional and exhausting for our family. After moving to a new state for my husband's job 10 months ago, we recently learned that his job is being relocated and we hav eto move once AGAIN! In addition to that, he has been gone for extended business travel for about 80 % of the time over the last year, for a job that was supposed to have little to no travel involved. Needless to say, it's been interesting and quite a challenge to try and maintain any sense of normalcy in my children's lives. But I am continually working at it and striving to maintain a loving, warm, and learning home environment. I feel so guilty a lot of the time however, especially now that I have so much else on my plate with selling a house, managing the relocationg to the new state and also working on a thesis! I am trying to find the balance though, and most importantly, recognize the great necessity for the kids to do so. Thanks again, I look forward to reading more about your daily rhythms!
Kate
Oh, this post made me feel so much better!!!!
"And the vagaries of the adult...do nothing but disrupt the needs of the child's etheric body. The child's rhythms are like those of the moon and tides and, if supported by external rhythms, will hum along quietly and smoothly."
How do I make my "vagaries" be quiet? I have such a struggle with this. I daydream, change my mind, want to be spontaneous, get bored daily. It is so hard to detach from me and give only to her. I should have read this about 5 years ago.... That being said- this is still very helpful to read right now. I am glad that you shared this here.