More Room for the Self to Emerge

A new stack of books await me, an exciting bundle of information ready to shape my thinking and I am excited!  So many books, so little time.  I will have to learn to read faster, skim and comprehend the pages so that I can extract the main ideas and understand the facts and move onto to another.  Ah, the joy of growing with my children!  I realize that though my college coursework laid a great foundation for the basis of my intellectual self, I know that I must learn more so that I have a current inventory of information to share with my children.  So I read.  No time for television.  I have to gain a solid perspective on what the future may look like.  Must keep abreast of the changes so that I can stay on a positive trajectory that will gracefully land us on our feet, ready to live independent lives in the 21st century.

One of the books I have in my possession is Hold on to Your Kids, by Neufeld, Ph.d & Mate', M.D.  I have not yet read this book, however, I randomly opened the book to read a page to see how it may or may not grab my interest.  It did catch my attention as I read, "In our urgency for our children to socialize, we leave little time for our kids to be with us or to engage in solitary, creative play I've called emergent play.  We fill up their free time with play dates-or with videos, television, electronic games.  We need to leave much more room for the self to emerge."  Well, this really hit home for me as I not only struggle to be sure my kids have enough 'social' time but also, I need to get a handle on the TV addiction.  I can't tell you how many times I threaten to cancel cable!  Yes, many mom-friends tell me, just don't allow TV during the week.  Seems easy enough, right?  Okay, I am working on this.  Somehow I feel that they deserve a break, time to be mindless, especially for B who is enrolled in public school 3rd grade- a very intense place to be, he comes home stressed out.  He enjoys TV but on the other hand, the quiet time would be healthy (despite the complaints and adversity), and the creativity that would emerge is a far greater good. 

I look forward to reading this book, it seems promising as it addresses 'peer orientation' issues which is especially important for those who have children in larger education institutions - like me.