Welcome to We Do Waldorf

Hello, I’m Robyn! I’m a Canadian (and now, Australian dual citizen!), a lifelong vegetarian, natural living enthusiast and a stay at home mother to two sweet, intelligent, boisterous little boys – Master C, aged 4, and Little Man J, aged 2.  Together with my truly awesome husband (henceforth referred to as “Big Daddy”), we have set up home in Melbourne, Australia after meeting abroad while working on a cruise ship in Tahiti in 2005.  Our parenting philosophy is consistent with our personal philosophies in life: go gently, keep it simple, respect the earth and all living things, give love and create beauty in all that we do. These values and priorities are reflected in the educational philosophies of Rudolph Steiner, and this is why we have chosen to educate our children in the Waldorf tradition.

How our journey began…

Upon falling pregnant with my second son in August of 2013, my parenting ideals began to slip with my (then) 19 month old firstborn, Master C.  He was watching TV, and lots of it, while I lay prone on the floor with debilitating morning sickness, day after day, week after week. He’d never watched telly before then but it didn’t take long at all to cast its magic spell.  Even once the morning sickness passed, the telly remained on that little bit longer each day, so that I could have a shower in peace in the morning, or so that I could make dinner without distraction in the afternoon. My husband and I became lax in our attitude toward technology and soon Master C was skillfully navigating around my husband’s iPad to play a game or watch a video.  I found this disturbing.  I felt uneasy with these influences but felt powerless to stop using these tactics to keep my toddler occupied while I tended to the necessities of home life. Once Little Man J was born, the telly continued to feature prominently in the daily rhythm of our home.  When I needed quiet to nurse the baby, the telly was on for my toddler.  It seemed like the only way to keep him from banging on the door of the nursery and calling out for me just as the baby went off to sleep, or opening the fridge and spilling milk all over the floor while I was occuplied in the other room, was to distract him with the television. Of course, after watching this much TV, we started to notice his behaviour changing subtly; for example, he would try out words or phrases that were sarcastic or mean-sounding coming from his sweet, tiny voice.  Phrases my husband and I knew he had not picked up from us because they were words we didn’t use. He began to have an obsession with particular television characters and his play spoke of the very real influence these shows were having on him.  He would rarely play independently anymore, and seemed to struggle to come up with imaginative play ideas on his own.

Time for a change

Once Little Man J was 8 months old I decided enough was enough.  I shook off the cobwebs of those newborn days and dug in.  Big Daddy was on leave for 6 weeks so we decided to quit the telly cold turkey during that time and instead filled that time with family activity.  We attended a local Steiner School Spring Fair and I spent a great deal of time in the classrooms, speaking to the teachers and students, my heart bursting with the promise of this beautiful place.  I searched for and discovered a Waldorf Homeschool online resource based in the US called Christoperus Homeschool, and ordered some of their materials and decided to shake up our family life something huge (for more on this decision and our early days of deciding to head down this path click here).  I drafted out a sketch of what a weekly rhythm could look like: what activities, arts & crafts, stories and gestures could be made each week to begin to cultivate a more meaningful home life with my kids.  This blog is a documentation of that journey, including all our mistakes, stumbles and false starts. The Waldorf approach to education resonates with me because it brings things back to basics.  The emphasis in early childhood education is on a rhythm, a slower pace, learning through imitation, connection to nature, bringing reverence into the home, expressing gratitude and acknowledging the magic in the everyday.  There is a beauty in the literal rhythm of song and verse, of speaking less and doing more.  Many days I fail miserably at bringing this kind of wonder into our home, but it is what I am striving for and what I hope to embody more consistently as this journey progresses.

While this blog is entitled “We Do Waldorf”, a lot of what we “do” isn’t very Waldorf at all.  I am inspired by other educational approaches as well including those developed by Maria Montessori and Emilia Reggio. I’m not all that rigid with our Waldorf-y-ness and I hope you don’t mind a bit of deviation from the strictly Steiner endorsed style of play from time to time on this blog.

So, welcome. I hope you’ll stick around for awhile and see what we’re getting up to. 🙂

With love,

Robyn, Big Daddy, Master C & Little Man J