It's Not Too Late for Slow Parenting

Mountain Montserrat near Barcelona, Spain.

I didn’t even know that I have been raising my 5-years old son according to the contemporary philosophy of slow parenting. I don’t mean that the time is getting frozen in our family. On the contrary: as a modern nomads we’ve moving a lot and and having many events. Slow parenting for me is not to be in a hurry; everything has its time. I believe that kid should go through all the levels of adulthood and make it in his very own tempo.

The title of a best-seller book about early childhood development by Japanese author Masaru Ibuka “Kindergarten Is Too Late” translated to Russian in even more categorical tone — “It’s Too Late Under Three Years”. And is very up to date. Go faster and faster: you must educate your kid all the skills, display his talents and make him an adult as quick as possible. But are you sure that all these stuff is necessary for a natural and happy childhood and then adulthood?

The early childhood development is a complicated theme for modern parents. There are a lot of questions, as methods of teaching in it. The child is just born, but the parents are already deep into the thoughts about their baby’s potential development goals. They do the best to make their’s kid to correspond with the standards of babyhood (or better — pass ahead of them).

A baby just started to hold up his head — parents became so happy. But it’s not enough for them: they are already looking for their baby will learn to sit/crawl/stand without hands/walk/run/say “mummy”/sleep all night long/dress himself/know the alphabet and arithmetic/be always obedient etc. Hurry baby! The time and your mom and dad won’t wait. And don’t even try let the other children outrun you in the acquirement: your parents will loose the sleep and rest.

The secret is that every mom and dad should learn to be easygoing and enjoy the present time. Why are we dreaming our kids will grow up as soon as possible? But when it has happened, we regret about it at once. And there would be no one to sing the silly songs from the cartoons with, to catch the butterflies in the summer, to share the one bed with all family members during the nights or just hugs and kisses whenever you want? Moreover what your full-grown kid would do at school, if you already taught him reading, counting, talking in foreign languages, practicing yoga and kung fu and playing the violin?

Dear parents, let’s forget about our ambitions, pride, and vanity, and any plans for the future. Just look close to your child: he is open-hearted to any knowledge, he want to know everything. Try to answer on a myriad of his questions every single day. These answers would be quite enough for him to grow into a smart and beautiful person.

I am sure, the parents are the best teachers for their’s kid ever! We can discover so many significant things to our little boy or girl. If you go together to the zoo, gather leaves and cones in the parks, feed the pigeons and squirrels — your kid will fall in love with nature and understand the basics of biology. Make with kid some handmade toys with the stones, shells, and sticks you’ve picked during the walks — and your child will learn how to be creative. Travel together for a short and long distant, visit the museums, try different national cuisine, looking careful to the local architecture, learn a minimum set of words and phrases each foreign language the country you have visited — and your child will pass through the lessons of geography, he could be orientated in time and space, be tolerant to any culture and religion, see the beauty in everything. Just spend with your baby together as long time as you can, hug him, kiss him, say that you love him. Be a parent and a best friend for him at the same time. It’s not too late for every kid any ages.