Easy Homeschool Starting Points: Simply Be Quiet

By Linda Dobson

If you needed to wrestle with life’s greatest problems right now, would you run to Grand Central Station to figure them out? Not likely. You would probably seek out a comfortable, quiet place where enough time and space exist to put your thoughts and feelings in order.

Your child needs this type of quiet time, too, maybe even more than you do. (Think of how much he has yet to figure out!) Yet society’s intense concentration on false success and the constant motion necessary to “arrive” there makes it increasingly difficult to find this necessary stillness.

Simply Be Quiet

Quiet time offers the very best opportunity for your child to discover this is joy in tranquility. His nervous system receives a well-deserved break from the typical state of arousal and alertness constant activity requires. This pause permits him to maintain a balance of activity/rest necessary for good mental, physical, and spiritual strength.

Quiet time provides a chance to dream, to stretch toward possibilities unlimited in his youthful imagination.

Quiet time furnished opportunity for introspection, a most effective way for your child to understand Self. Through introspection he achieves a comfort zone in the inner world. He knows he is an important aspect of the outer world.

Quiet time encourages thinking. During peaceful moments free inquiry dives deeper and rises higher because stress does not block energy or movement. Quiet time also allows your child to put the new pieces into place when new ideas, discoveries, and sensory input fill the day.

Simply Be Quiet Slowly

If your child is used to lots of activity, start off slowly, maybe fifteen minutes before bedtime (remember, the TV isn’t on). The two of you will discover when and how gradually increase and change should occur. Don’t be afraid to experiment. And don’t be surprised when your child claims additional time as his own – it means he knows he’s found a treasure.

Simply be quiet.

“Simply Be Quiet” is part of “A Dozen Simple Starting Points” from Linda Dobson’s The Art of Education: Reclaiming Your Family, Community and Self.

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