A while after I started studying paganism, I introduced it to my children. I mainly explained to them that I was on a different spiritual journey and I wanted to explain the term paganism to them and how it differed from Christianity. As a child, Christianity was shoved down my throat. This was taught to me to be the only religion in the world and anything else was a deceitful act by the devil. Once I started doubting Christianity, I knew that I didn’t want my children to be sheltered when it came to their own beliefs. I really wanted them to understand the term Freedom of Religion. Therefore, even today as I practice witchcraft and read all the many books I possess, I do this openly in front of my children. I explain to them what I am doing and why. I allow them to ask any questions they may have. One thing I don’t do is have them participate with me. I let them get involved if they show interest.

At first, I wasn’t sure if this was the right approach to take. However, I see now that this was the best option. If I had always been pagan and then had children, I have no doubt that they would have been raised as pagans. But, since this was clearly not the case, all I knew to do was to leave a door open and a window cracked. They would enter on their own or they would pass it by altogether. On that note, I have seen great interest from both of my sons. My 14 year old has had endless discussions with me on various pagan topics. He is trying to figure out where he stands on his beliefs. He has even danced around the idea of atheism, but came back to me with more questions showing a bit of uncertainty on this idea. He is always curious as to what I am studying and enjoys the discussions triggered from my current insights. As for my 8 year old, he doesn’t discuss spiritual topics too often, but when he does, it makes me stop in my tracks because it is often out of the blue that he brings things up. He has informed me that he believes there are many deities and he enjoys talking one on one with his natural environment. He also has found a strong liking to my set of runes. He tells me he doesn’t understand why he likes them but he feels good when he holds them in his hands. I find that I enjoy seeing my children explore their spiritual side. I am glad I have provided them an opportunity to do so.

Now I would like to hear from other pagan parents. Share with me how you have approached paganism or any other spiritual belief with your children. If you currently do not have children, share with us your plans on how you will handle this in the future. Feel free to share how you share paganism with any children.

Thank you all for all the wonderful comments left for last month’s article. I have enjoyed reading the comments left and appreciate you taking the time to share your opinions with me and the other readers.

An Introduction to Attachment Parenting

Did you carry your son around in a sling during his fussy times as a baby with the sense that it would help him?  Do you bend down and look in your daughter’s eyes when trying to discipline her?  Do you treat your teenager with respect and listen to their desires before you give them an answer?  Then you are practicing Attachment Parenting and you may have not even known it.

Attachment Parenting is a term that was coined by Dr. William Sears.  His life’s work as a father and pediatrician along with the insight and mothering of his wife Nancy and the raising of 8 children led to instincts that many parents use routinely being given a terminology.

Before you start to worry about not having time to read about how to parent or think that your child is a pre-teen and as such will not benefit from these ideas please don’t worry.  These theories are based on what so many parents already do.  Also you may think these are for the more “granola style” pagans who choose to breastfeed, co-sleep or wear colorful slings but it goes way beyond political leanings or lifestyle trends.   The fundamental goal of attachment parenting is to: “raise children who will become adults with a highly developed capacity for empathy and connection.”  Regardless of political leanings or whether you work for a corporation or a non-profit we all strive to raise children who will have empathy for others and seek out positive connections with their fellow human beings.  So this method is a win/win for society in general.

As the title suggests this is an introduction to this method.  There are many great resources that you can look to for further guidance on this topic.  I merely endeavor today to peak your interest and to relate how important I feel this style is to the pagan community.  There isn’t a “pagan way” to parent but to me this back to basics philosophy is as close as humanity as a whole can get to a real and respectful way to bring up children.

Attachment Parenting has eight main principals of parenting.  These are a base line that you can build on and develop to fit your family’s needs and goals.

• Prepare for Pregnancy, Birth and Parenting
• Feed with Love and Respect
• Respond with Sensitivity
• Use Nurturing Touch
• Ensure Safe Sleep, Physically and Emotionally
• Provide Consistent and Loving Care
• Practice Positive Discipline
• Strive for Balance in your Personal and Family Life

There is no way for us to be like this every moment of every day but we can let these principals guide us as we move through the struggles and triumphs of parenting.  What these points say to me is that parenting needs to be simple and come from a place that is genuine.  What I mean by that is that yes, there are only so many hours in a day.  So today I choose to make a healthy meal for my child, to read a few books, take a walk in nature, and tell lots of silly jokes.  Today I will not worry that the floor hasn’t been washed yet, I won’t yell because the milk spilled all over the table at dinner and I will say thanks but no thanks when my buddy wants to play golf again this week.

Parenting is a marathon, the longest one in life and the balance of personal and family and I would even add work life into that equation as well is tough.  But we decide what type of parent we will be in each moment.  I see Attachment Parenting as a reminder and a resource when situations arise that leave me wondering what to do.  Right now I am learning about positive discipline and how to create structure and rules while being mindful of the developmental stage that my child is in.  Some behaviors are about being 8 years old more than about being difficult or disrespectful.  Navigating the waters of what those may be alone seems like taking too much of a chance with a very important job.  Pagans are good at searching out information and informing ourselves about our spiritual matters and we should approach parenting with that same enthusiasm.

If you search for books on Attachment Parenting you will find many.  I recommend Dr. William Sears as his books have helped me.  I would also encourage you to visit Attachment Parenting International’s site and have a look around.  There you will find the principals in more depth.  Happy parenting!

Pulling Up Roots: Home Transitions with Pagan Children

It is human nature to put down roots.  Our community, our home, they are not just where our hearts are but where our roots can push into the earth and bring us grounding.  As pagans we tend to set down roots or acknowledge them in a concrete way.  A hedgewitch may be intimate with every square foot of woods behind her house, a city dwelling druid may have deep conversation with the oak tree that shades his apartment balcony, and the Wiccan family can make a sacred space in their sunroom where each member can rejuvenate in times of stress.  All of these situations and the many millions more that arise in the small moments of our lives can create a strong bond with where we live.  The place that holds our living is full of routine, schedules, meals, laughter, tears and rest.  We rely on home to bring us a sense of peace, shelter and familiarity.

Children need a sense of security and bond to place more than adults do.  They are not as capable of finding anchors for security within their bodies until they are much older, so they rely on their caregivers and their home for their grounding.  When faced with moving to a new house it is very important to prepare children, even more so than the logistical aspects like packing and cleaning.  Depending on what age and stage your child is at they can participate and comprehend the moving of the family abode in different ways and personality will definitely determine how they are affected as well.

For babies and toddlers as long as you are there they will probably transition the easiest.  Your smell, warmth and voice are all they need to be at home.   But from pre-school age on you may want to be more proactive and give your child time to adjust and time to let go.  For some this is the only home they have ever known and taking away the familiarity of these walls will send them into a frenzy that can alter their otherwise happy disposition into one of frustration or fear.   Try and keep your own feelings about your current home to yourself (like this kitchen is cramped, our neighbours are rude or even, I love my garden and I hate to leave it) unless you are sharing them as a way to connect with your child about their own feelings.  Let them share how they view this home,  asking them how they feel about the view from their bedroom window could open up a new way of looking at this house that you never even thought of.  Most importantly when preparing your child and even yourself for the transition of houses, towns or countries you should try and give your kids some tools to help the process and let their spiritual selves move through the change with the least amount of upheaval as possible.

One way to aide is through visualization.  A popular pagan visualization and grounding tool is the tree of life grounding exercise that many use to balance their energy before ritual.  I have adapted a version that one can use with their child to begin the letting go process.  I recommend starting this as early as possible before the moving date and going over it together once a day or so, perhaps before bedtime or at any quiet moment in the day. The comments in brackets are for helping you adapt the visualization to your child and circumstances.  Be creative and really personalize this so that your child can get the most out of it.

Unfurling the Roots of Home

Close your eyes and take a deep breath

Feel the breath go in through your nose and out through your mouth

Let your body relax with each breath and let all the stress in your body go

(continue breathing for 3 or 4 more breath cycles)

Now, imagine a cord is coming out of your tailbone

It goes all the way down to the floor and ties you to this room and this house

(name some specific places or things that the child is fond of for example, your root is around the tree you love to climb in the backyard or in the bathtub where you love to play in the water)

This is your home, your safe place.  These roots connect you to memories, good times (name some), sad times, these are coming with us when we leave this house

The memories will stay inside you ( I would also recommend taking photos or using drawing or journaling to help record memories that a child may have anxiety about leaving)

Now your cord, your root is starting to unfurl

Slowly the root is letting go of this place, the walls of your room and the stove in the kitchen where we make dinner together

Your root is leaving this home that we have loved so much

Your connection to this place is special and will stay with you

You are safe to let go of this home and soon we will put our roots down in a new place and make it special and our own too just like we did here.

After the move you may want to help your kids adjust by creating a similar visualization around putting roots down.  Start small if you’ve had a big move to a new city, state or province.   Start in the actual house and move out slowly into the community.  Give your child the space to create new roots at their own pace especially if they seem to be experiencing difficulty letting go of your previous home.

Here’s to a smooth and happy move for the whole family.

Family Values: Creativity

A family value that is high on my priority list is creativity.  It is not a traditional family value but many would argue that a pagan family is not traditional in the first place, so in my opinion it fits.

Creativity is fundamental to humanity as a whole, without it we would not have made the discoveries and advances that we have as a culture.  Pagans honour the sacredness of creation, the earth in her splendour creates on a scale that is baffling.  Volcanic eruptions spew out what will become new ground; dead trees in the forest shelter the sprouts of new seedlings that will take their place and stand tall one day.   Creation cycles throughout the seasons moving from birth to death and back again.   In terms of culture Pagans are not only called on to observe or revere creativity but also to manifest it.  Theatre, music, literature, visual art, clothing design….you would be hard pressed to find a coven or Pagan festival that does not honour the creative in some fashion.   Even those who protest that they are not artistic use creativity to manoeuvre through life.   Throwing a meal together from leftovers in the fridge, coming up with a solution to an issue at work, adding an essential oil to your cleaning water,  all come from a sense of creating something and all come from a spark within.  That spark needs to be nurtured and respected by yourself for yourself but also for your children.

Creativity and Kids

Children are born with their creative spark unhampered.  They are full of possibility and freshness.  All is new to them and so every new situation or thing calls on them to be creative in their approach.  Is this ball for chewing, squeezing or throwing?  Maybe it is for all of those things, I’ll have to try it.  Witnessing these moments is a joy to many parents as long as these explorations are not dangerous, which of course they often are.  There is a fine line that parents have to walk between keeping situations safe and not butting in.  Kids use their imaginations at a record pace and need to be nurtured in this respect.  For many adults who feel cut off from their creative spark the source of that disconnect can be found sometime in their childhood when an adult decided to belittle or control their inborn desire to create.  Part of raising a well-rounded child is to allow him or her to be the leader in play whenever possible.  If they colour outside the lines or mix the blue and yellow paint so be it.  This is a time for play, not perfection.   If the princess wants to be driving a dump truck or the cowboy wants to have a tea party who are we to hamper that desire?  It is all part of the art of discovery and a manifestation of the soul’s desire to move through ideas in freedom.  All too soon time and age will make play more realistic and force kids to “grow up.”   Allowing them to explore in childhood will help them to keep their creativity as a tool and comfort as they age.

Creativity and Parents

Out of all of the skills that I have had to grab so far in my two years of parenting creativity has been the biggest help.  If you are lucky enough to have two heads working creatively rather than one it can be an even more helpful asset.  At three o’clock in the morning when a crying baby just cannot be comforted in the dozen ways you’ve got in your arsenal a eureka moment can hit you and you figure it out, for now.  Parents are creative by necessity.  Let’s make a funny face rather than stick our finger in the electrical socket, let’s have some carrots instead of eating the Play doh, let’s make up a superhero rather than emulate the one on TV. who just jumped through a window.  If you have any desire to parent from a place of love and compassion rather than one of fear and dominion then creativity is in your corner.  Sleep deprivation and stress can have a negative effect on our ability to tap into that spark, so we must try and remember to charge our batteries now and then.  The clichéd idea of taking some “me time” is great advice but is not very practical for most parents.  I can count on one hand the “me time” I’ve had in two years, but I try and take small snippets of time to dream, read, listen to some music or connect with nature.  My connection to the earth is a constant recharge for me.  Seeing flower sprouts in the spring or the discarded shell of a bird is a great reminder that nature is in constant change and it fills me with hope.  As Pagans we are privileged to have a tradition of creative people who have come before not only creating the traditions or rituals that we may practice today but also raising children in a new way of thinking.  A way that honours the ground we walk on, hears the wind coming off the sea, tastes the water of life and marvels at the hypnotic power of fire.

The spark of creation is fragile and yet so powerful.  It can abandon us at times when we need it, but if we try and keep ourselves open to its voice and mindful of when it is manifesting in our children and ourselves it can be an infinite source of renewal and connection for our family.

Letting it Flow

I attempted to force out a Family Values article this month but in the interest of practicing what I was preaching I decided to try again next month.  The flow was not happening.

Going with the flow in parenting is a lesson that is hard to keep up with.   It is a challenge that is constantly facing us and it seems that kids move with natural rhythms with more ease than we do.   If they are tired they sleep, if they are hungry they eat.   When we try and inflict our ideas of schedules and such we can often present a conflict to the very primal emotions they feel.   But at the same time children need routine and predictability to feel secure and to blossom.   So the flow can mean letting natural rhythms coincide with routine and creating a system for your family that is not necessarily typical but fosters a healthy home life.

Parenting from this place requires us to tap into the element of Water.  Water does not think about how to move around a rock or other obstacle in its path it simply moves around it.  It adapts to situations swiftly .  I often find myself cringing when I realize that time has moved more quickly than I had anticipated in a morning and my son has moved from tired to cranky/tired and will soon have a meltdown.  Rather than worrying I would aspire to have faith that he too can adapt as he has proven to me many times.   My job is to try and avoid asking too much of him, making his water energy spin in too many circles of newness.

As parents we are expected to anticipate moods and desires but often our anticipation doesn’t necessarily have to occur, it is just one possibility in many possible outcomes.  The lesson of water is to anticipate but not hold onto the outcome rigidly.   Let yourself be pleasantly surprised at being prepared for the worst but having something not so bad happen.  Be open, be resourceful and most of all enjoy moving with a steady rhythm, like the constant beat of waves on the shoreline.  Your child will feel that fluidity and the rhythm will impart stillness and calmness to them.   And when conflicts occur as is natural and inevitable in day-to-day parenting try reciting a little chant or visualizing cool water gently flowing around you and your child, breathe and try again.

Water Chant for Flow in Parenting

Water, water move and flow

Water, water let it go

Water help calm feelings come

Water renew everyone

The Wintertime Family

The winter months can be very gloomy for us.  We contend with few hours of daylight, cold temperatures and often limited mobility due to snow and ice.  Beach frolicking is a distant memory, the piles of leaves for jumping in have been racked away and the fresh sprouts of spring are not quite stirring under their frozen blanket.  Despite the limitations of the season we crave activities to share that connect us to the quite slumber going on under our feet.  This month we’ll look at some options for sharing this time as a family in terms of activities that connect the family unit and feed our spiritual souls in the dark time of the wheel.

Winter activities tend to require more planning than in the summer months but a great way to keep the winter blues at bay is to plan out a tentative schedule for weekend/vacation activities so that the kids can anticipate them, and parents have time to make them happen.  Brainstorm with the family while you are still home for the holidays having each member include some activities that they would like to do.  Be sure to make an Outdoor and Indoor list.  Here are some examples to get you started.

Outdoors:

• winter sports such as: skating, skiing, sledding, hockey
• snow ball fights
• winter forest hikes
• winter animal search
• snow science experiments

Indoors:

• cooking & baking
• arts & crafts
• journals
• future family plans (like vacations, classes or rituals)
• reading together
• movies together
• at-home-family-spa
• family talent shows/theatre

I would recommend planning one indoor and one outdoor activity each weekend and if the weather is storming or too cold for the outdoor option you have a second option. A key to meeting the spiritual needs of your child and yourself is to let the messages of the season resonate through your home.  One of those lessons in my opinion is rest.  So while keeping the kids and yourself somewhat busy is a good way to ward off winter blues there is also a certain yearning that the body has for more rest during the dark months.  Finding the balance of rest and activity is not an easy task and may be impossible, so instead aim for a healthy home environment that tries to relieve stress rather than create it through too much scheduling.

The moon is particularly beautiful in the winter months with its light reflecting off the snow.  Even if you live in a climate that does not have snow you can still think of creating a special Esbat ritual for the family to celebrate together.  It can be as simple as taking a moonlit walk together or as elaborate as ritual garb and assigned roles but let the planning process be something that each family member contributes to and I’m sure you will make some lasting memories together.

Another key to this time of year is to try and be in the moment.  Yearning for summer or another time period is natural but living in the present keeps us connected to each other and helps us appreciate what we can do now as opposed to later.  And in closing “alone time together” should also be an option for wintertime activities.  A lazy afternoon of one parent having tea and reading, while the other is playing with a child and another child watches a favorite movie is sometimes a more peaceful and needed option than forcing an activity on some members who are not very in to it.  After all we are not looking to create a war zone in the home but a retreat.

Here’s to some fun, active and rejuvenating family memories this winter & many blessings to you and yours this Yule.