Blueberries and the Unhurried Child
/Hi folks,
Here's an oldie, but goodie! A little inspiration from the garden, now sleeping and dreaming about next spring!
We have several highbush blueberry shrubs growing here on our lovely two acres in the Catskill Mountains. They are prolific bushes, yielding lots of blueberries in the spring. But, not all at once.
There are many, many ~ hundreds, perhaps ~ of little green fruits on all these plants when the plant starts bearing fruit. Many are green, and some are purpling and bluing. This goes on for several weeks, and we get about a pint of blueberries every day.
I have noticed that the ripe ones are easily picked; the not-so-ripe ones resist a bit. I guess they mostly all ripen, but not at the same rate.
What determines their rate of ripening? I don’t know. I don’t think there is any way I can force them to ripen at a quicker rate while they’re still on the bush. Once they are picked from the bush, they stop ripening, although the ripening process can be forced by using some tricks, like sticking them in a paper bag with a banana or an avocado. The ripe blueberries, just picked, taste incredible! The not-so-ripe ones taste kind of sour. I wonder what nutrients or properties might be missing from the not-so-ripe berries that have been ripened in the paper bag. I don’t know.
That’s all interesting to me, because I think of how this all applies to peaceful parenting. In this society, children are grouped together by an arbitrary number (their chronological age) and are held to certain expectations based on their age. They should be able to do certain things by a particular age, and if they cannot or do not want to, they are seen as different and may even be diagnosed with some disorder or other.
Now, children are not blueberries–-I get that. However, like blueberries, children all “ripen” at different rates. They acquire skills and skill sets differently from kid to kid. Like the clusters of blueberries that ripen at different rates, some kids cut their first tooth at 4 months, others at 8 months. Some kids start walking at 10 months; some kids at 14 months or even 18 months. Some kids start yakking up a storm at 10 months! Others have nothing much to say until 3 years of age. Left to their own processes, some acquire reading at 4 years of age; other kids, 13 years of age.
There is nothing wrong with what some may call the “outliers.” They simply deviate from the norm, which is often an arbitrary set of expectations based on what is most convenient or expedient for institutionalization.
And, this only becomes a problem when children are separated into groups according to an arbitrary small piece of data that is used to define them: their age. If this same standard were held to blueberries, folks might say there was something wrong with the blueberries that stayed green while the other ones turned blue. And, they might say that the early blue-turning blueberries were “gifted.” Nah. They’re just blueberries being blueberries. Ripening at their own rate for their own reasons. And, they are ALL delicious when they have been allowed to fully ripen in their own time.
To learn more about making gaining great tools for making great peaceful parenting choices, you could get in on one of the Making the Switch to Peaceful Parenting teleclasses that are being often offered. It doesn't matter where you live (in fact, there are local call-in numbers for more than 55 countries!). Visit the Upcoming Events page to find a class that is starting soon at a time that works for your schedule.
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Be well, and be kind,
Marji
www.peacefulparentwhisperer.com
845.657.3111