Today's busier, faster, supersized society is waging an undeclared war ... on childhood. As the pace of life accelerates to hyperspeed - with too much stuff, too many choices, and too little time - children feel the pressure. They can become anxious, have trouble with friends and school, or even be diagnosed with behavioral problems. Now, in defense of the extraordinary power of less, internationally renowned family consultant Kim John Payne helps parents reclaim for their children the space and freedom that all kids need, allowing their children's attention to focus and their individuality to flourish.

Based on Payne's twenty year's experience successfully counseling busy families, Simplicity Parenting teaches parents how to worry and hover less - and how to enjoy more. For those who want to slow their children's lives down but don't know where to start, Payne offers both inspiration and a blueprint for change.

• Streamline your home environment. The average child has more than 150 toys. Here are tips for reducing the amount of toys, books, and clutter - as well as the lights, sounds, and general sensory overload that crowd the space young imaginations need in order to grow.

• Establish rhythms and rituals. Predictability (routines) and transparency (knowing the day's plan) are soothing pressure valves for children. Here are ways to ease daily tensions, create battle-free mealtimes and bedtimes, and tell if your child is overwhelmed.

• Schedule a break in the schedule. Too many activities may limit children's ability to motivate and direct themselves. Learn how to establish intervals of calm in your child's daily torrent of constant doing - and familiarize yourself with the pros and cons of organized sports and other "enrichment" activities.

• Scale back on media and parental involvement. Back out of hyperparenting by managing your children's "screen time" to limit the endless and sometimes scary deluge of information and stimulation.

Parental hovering is really about anxiety; by doing less and trusting more, parents can create a sanctuary that nurtures children's identity, well-being, and resiliency as they grow - slowly - into themselves. A manifesto for protecting the grace of childhood, Simplicity Parenting is an eloquent guide to bringing new rhythms to bear on the lifelong art of parenting.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. As you simplify life the laws of the universe will be simpler.

- Henry David Thoreau

As parents, we're the architects of our family's daily lives. We build a structure for those we love by what we choose to do together, and how we do it. We determine the rhythms of our days; set a pace. There are certainly limits to our control. ... Ask any parent of a teenager. And it often feels that our lives are controlling us, caught as we are in a mad rush from one responsibility to another. Yet the unique way that we perform this dance of daily activities says a lot about who we are as a family.

You can see what a family holds dear from the pattern of their everyday lives. I've been trained to do so as a counselor and educator, but children need no such fancy training. They pick up the clues naturally. They see the golden overlay on all of our comings and goings, all of our tasks and busyness. This is what they see: With our time and presence we give love. Simple.

And they're quite right; as parents our motivations and intentions are few, our dreams nearly universal. No matter where, no matter how modestly or grandly we live, most of us want what is best for our loved ones. From these few common motivations - love, and the desire to protect and provide for our children - we build families. Every day.

As parents we carry the blueprints, the dreams of what our family could be. The plans change, the whole tiling goes way over budget, there are unexpected additions, and the work never ends. Still, through the messiness of construction we see one another with such depth and hope. Our five-year-old boy is still so clearly the baby he once was and sometimes - can you see it? - the young man he will one day be. We draw energy and inspiration from our dreams; our simple, common motivations.

In their development, we can see the extent to which our children feel protected. Surrounded by those they love, they make extraordinary leaps, fantastic moments of revelation and mastery. At our urging or prodding? Never. In flashes they show us who they are ... revealing their golden, essential selves. And as parents we live for such moments. But we can't schedule them. We can't ask for, or hurry them.

We want our family to be a container of security- and peace, where we can be our true selves. We want this most urgently for our children, who are engaged in the slow and tricky business of becoming themselves. Will our love and guidance give them the grace they need to grow? Children are so clearly happiest when they have the time and space to explore their worlds, at play. We may be bouncing between the future and the past, yet our children - the little Zen masters - long to stay suspended, fully engaged, in the moment. Our very best hope is that they'll develop their own voices, their own instincts and resiliency, at their own pace. And despite how many times we forget - sometimes in a single day - we absolutely know that this will take time.

Copyright © 2009 by Kim John Payne.

Tags: Child Development, Parenting and Families

About the Author

A consultant and trainer to more than sixty U.S. independent and public schools, Kim John Payne, M.Ed., has been a school counselor for eighteen years and a private family counselor-therapist for fifteen. Payne has worked extensively with the North American and U.K. Waldorf movements. He is currently project director of the Waldorf Collaborative Counseling Program at Antioch University New England, the director of a large research program on a drug-free approach to attention priority issues disorders, and a Partner of the Alliance for Childhood in Washington, D.C. He lives with his wife and two children in Harlemville, New York.

About the Author

Lisa M. Ross has been involved with books for more than twenty years, as an editor and literary agent, and now exclusively as a writer. She lives with her husband and two children in Stuyvesant, New York.