"Living Joyfully With Children"
By: Win and Bill Sweet

Editor's Note:
I recently had the pleasure of meeting Win and Bill Sweet at the California Home Education Conference in Sacramento. I enjoyed their book "Living Joyfully With Children" very much and thought you might enjoy learning more about their ideas.

This book is available for purchase at Amazon.com

Editor: If you were to put together your own list of the top ten things families can do to live more joyfully with their children, what would be on your list?

Sweet: We have found that living joyfully in a family requires implementing a combination of many ideas, which work together to lift the atmosphere of the
family. We call these "Joy Boosters."

1. Honor and trust the true Self of each child. Children long to be honored and valued for who they are, rather than to ride the "roller coaster" of being judged according to what they do or don't do.

2. Carefully monitor and limit the influence of the culture.   The culture can introduce into children's lives so many negative influences that cause fear, competition, confusion, and stress. Cultural influences can also put children into a position where they are unable to function according to their true nature. For example, when the cultural influence in children's lives is strong, their imagination and creativity simply drain away and become lost. Prime offenders are television, video games, computer games, and "interactive" software.

3. Govern the family by principles instead of arbitrary rules. Family living is much more joyous this way. Our book, Living Joyfully with Children, is full of many principles that families can customize and expand.

4. Look for external influences when children misbehave or are disobedient. Children don't naturally disobey or misbehave. They are naturally cooperative and trustworthy. Adult thoughtlessness, an atmosphere of stress, inappropriate expectations, fatigue, and poor nutrition are just a few possible causes of unacceptable behavior. Get to the basic cause rather than punishing the child.

5. Play with your children on their level, taking their lead. We delight in playing the games that our grandchildren make up and direct. There's never any thought of winning or losing. Keeping score is an adult idea; children wouldn't naturally do this. When our daughter was learning to play ping pong, we never kept score. She learned the skill well because she was not thinking about winning; she was thinking about just having fun getting the ball back to the other side in the best way she could. True free play with children is so much fun.

6. Give children abundant loving and genuine companionship.   Children are usually viewed as little people to simply care for and keep safe. Talk with them; listen to them; find out what is really going on for them as an individual; value their views and ideas. Children long for and thrive on a close, intimate relationship with adults who really love and care about them. It's a special kind of intimacy that is very nourishing for the children.

7. Provide ample touching, holding, and hugging.   Studies have shown that most children in our culture suffer from touch-deprivation. Touch is the first gesture of communication (the basic reason for the traditional handshake when greeting another individual.) One study makes a connection between touch deprivation and the loudness of the music that teens feel they must have surrounding them in order to feel good. One of the families that we mentor actually experienced a marked reduction in the volume level after providing their teenagers, over the course of a few months, with much more touching, holding, and hugging as well as consciously adding other gestures of honoring and loving.

8. Before they ask, give your children some freedom and control of their lives. It is best to begin this when they are very small. Trust them to handle their freedom responsibly. Children thrive and blossom in such an environment.

9. Provide free time in a quiet atmosphere for the children to day-dream. They will explore who they are and their world for themselves, as well as discover their creativity and imagination.

10. Laugh with your children many times every day.

Editor: You mentioned in your book that you tried to govern your family with "principles" rather than "rules." Can you give examples of what you consider
to be "rules" and what you consider to be "principles."

Sweet: Some examples of common family rules and corresponding principles are:
Rule: You must be in bed at a certain time, for instance, 8:00, 9:00, or 10:00.
Principle: Children and adults in the family may go to bed at a time of their choosing, provided responsibilities and obligations are properly attended. Rule: You must eat all of your dinner before you can have dessert or get up
from the table.
Principle: Children and adults in the family can be trusted to eat according to their individual nutritional and quantity of food requirements. It may take awhile for a balance to be attained as far as both bedtime and eating are concerned.
Rule: You must not get your clothes dirty.
Principle: Having fun and being free to explore and discover are far more important than keeping clothes clean.
Rule: After a project or playtime, everything having to do with the activity must be cleaned up and put away immediately by the child engaged in the activity.
Principle: The same privileges regarding cleaning up after projects or playtime that the adults in the family have, the children should also have. Sometimes it is important to leave things out for awhile simply to admire and enjoy them.

Editor: In your book you mentioned that your family celebrated special days called
"Appreciation Days." Can you give some specific examples of these?

Sweet: The idea behind Appreciation Days was to consciously recognize, honor, and acknowledge the intrinsic value of the children, not for what they have or have not done, but because of the magnificence of who they are. In our view, celebrating birthdays does not necessarily do this because it is tied to a calendar and the sense of obligation. Appreciation Days were always a surprise to the honored one and planned to be very special for that person. We did this by having the favorite meal at home or at a favorite restaurant, playing a favorite game or going for a special outing of the honoree's choice. Often we had a treasure hunt, and theyfound several special gifts at the end of it. When the children were older, they planned and carried off Appreciation Days for us.

Editor: Many of our readers homeschool their children. At the Home=Education Conference in Sacramento you mentioned specific ways that parents can make the family's homeschooling experience more joyful. I think our readers would love to hear some of your suggestions.

A: The homeschooling lifestyle provides many advantages based on the freedom of the family to govern the very large portion of their time that is usually taken up with school-related obligations. We encourage parents to thoughtfully maximize the opportunities of this lifestyle, which are often overlooked because of busyness, lack of creativity and imagination, or simply their personal conditioning. Here are a few specific suggestions:

First, homeschooling will be more joyful as parents realize that doing nothing is doing something—something important. Doing nothing is a prime way in which children's natural imagination and creativity are nourished. In addition, significant developmental pieces, invisible to observation, can effortlessly fall into place when children are given plenty of quiet independent time to do nothing.

Second, homeschooling provides precious time to implement the principle stated earlier of touching, hugging, and holding far more than the average family
can, because the family is together more. This certainly adds joy to family living.

Third, the homeschooling lifestyle, with its lack of constant pressure to perform, provides room in the consciousness of the family to really enjoy life together. This extra boost of enjoyment tremendously enhances the quality of homeschooling and life in general.

Fourth, an ideal principle of learning is that it be "by invitation only," which creates an atmosphere in which children can graciously assimilate and accommodate that learning. This can happen far more easily in the freedom of the homeschooling experience. When the children invite their own learning and the parents simply help them find the resources they need to carry out their chosen explorations, homeschooling is more fun.

Fifth, our book explains the natural Rhythm of Readiness that is inherent in each child and is unique to each child. One important thing to remember, however, is that stress can abort this natural developmental process. It is easier to eliminate stress in the freedom of the homeschooling lifestyle. In a stress-free environment the family life together becomes more joyful, and the children's developmental process takes place harmoniously.

Editor: What would you say is the essential point of your book?

Sweet: The essential point is that when rules are replaced by principles and every child is honored and valued for the true Self she or he is, the imprisoned Joy that each family can experience is released.