I was asked today by a friend with two children: “Your house is so quiet and tranquil compared to mine, yet you have four children and I have only two! What is your secret?” I don’t have a secret! In fact, I think my children are a bit too rambunctious. Still, I have been working on keeping a quiet home for some time, so maybe these strategies are working:
1. Going to church–weekly training in sitting quietly and paying attention. Hard with babies, but if you go each week without fail they learn to sit quietly through church by the age of three.
2. Enforced “quiet time” in the home–I get headaches if I hear nonstop noise, so we have about an hour or two where all children are expected to read or color quietly in order to keep mom healthy and sane.
3. Enforced noisy time outside the home–even if it is freezing outside, we bundle them up and let the kids go out to play every day. Sanctioned playtime is necessary to release all that pent-up childhood energy so they can be calm and still inside the home.
4. House rules–after visiting the silent, tranquil home of a friend of mine and asking her “how do you do it?” she told me that at her house, respectful silence was a rule. Her children knew that home was a special place, a sanctuary from the outside world, and they treated it as such. Once outdoors, however, they could cry out and thunder about all they wanted. I have been trying to train my children to have the same attitude. We’re not quite there yet . . . . .
Paul Woodruff, a professor of Ethics and American Society at the University of Texas is the author of a fabulous book called Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue (Oxford, 2001). To sample a bit of what he teaches and how it can help YOU enjoy a quieter, more tranquil home, click here
"La donna è mobile" means "woman is fickle" in Italian. This is the blog of one very fickle, super-busy gradschooling mother of five. I blog to share what I'm glad I learned and want others to know.
I'm just thrilled with the way this series of books ended! Call me old-fashioned, but pro-family values and pro-abstinence (before marriage) in teen fiction always make for a pleasant and delightful read!
4 Comments
December 6, 2007 at 5:01 pm
I get the same comment to. “Your kids are home? I can’t even hear them.” But I attribute that more to there being a basement and Spongbob. Seriously though, I agree that the steps you’ve talked about work. I also think that, because we homeschool, our kids are forced to be good friends so there is less fighting. Also, we don’t have video games for them to fight over, and they have learned that when they get too loud mommy gets loud or chores are assigned. No one likes either of those.
December 6, 2007 at 6:56 pm
We’re not quite there either, I have a 3-year-old who’s just discovered these blood-curdling squeals lately, but I completely agree with #1. People at church are amazed that I sit by myself with 3 boys every Sunday, but that’s the key, we do it EVERY Sunday. I need to be better about #3. We don’t have much of a yard to send them out in though.
December 7, 2007 at 7:13 am
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December 10, 2007 at 10:45 pm
I think I will try a few of your quiet tactics. I can never decide how loud I should let the kids be, but I guess when I start to get a headache, that means they’re too loud.
Interesting blog! Thanks for stopping by.