Help with Painting

Posted by Donna Simmons

At the bottom of this post you can see that I wrote it more than 10 years ago. At that time the Third Grade Syllabus was new—it has since been joined by grades 4, 5 and, summer 2019, 6. In…

Understanding the Temperaments

Posted by Donna Simmons

 I am full of the temperaments at the moment because in writing our Christopherus second and third grade curriculum, I decided to include several sections on the temperaments. So in the second grade curriculum people will find an essay by Steiner…

When A Child Kills A Pet

Posted by Donna Simmons

By Donna Simmons (2008) (this is a post from our discussion forum. The thread was from a distressed forum member whose 3 year old son killed their pet rabbit. She was concerned that he did not seem to show any…

Daddy Central

Posted by Donna Simmons

Here’s a post from my old yahoo group on a popular question : how to cope with the chaos that Daddy’s daily arrival home wrecks on the peaceful pre-bedtime routine?! How to honor Dad’s need to see his children -…

A Question of Control

Posted by Donna Simmons

Here’s a somewhat reworked piece that I wrote on my forum in response to a member wondering whether she was being too controlling of her children. She has three little girls – a pair of twins and another child, all…

Helping Little Ones with Manners

Posted by Donna Simmons

Here’s another reworked post from our Waldorf at Home discussion forum…. If this is a topic which interests you, do consider purchasing my talks on Good Manners and on Talking Pictorially to Young Children for more practical help with this!…

The “S” Question

Posted by Donna Simmons

(This is from a thread from my discussion forum on that great homeschooling nemesis – the Question of Socialization! No matter what form of homeschooling one works with, the spectre of a poorly socialized child will haunt even the most confident…

Caring for a Cat

Posted by Donna Simmons

(I am now starting to put selected posts which I have written on my discussion forum here on my blog… I can’t re-print the whole conversation which we have, but just a few snippets here and there which I think…

A Bit of Benign Neglect

Posted by Donna Simmons

Sometimes parenting can get so intense that one comes to a realization that something has gone wrong, that all is not quite right. One can become aware of feeling suffocated, that one’s sense of autonomy and one’s center has been…

New Year’s Resolutions

Posted by Donna Simmons

Happy New Year to all of you! Let us hope and pray that 2008 will be a decisive year of steps toward healing the often overwhelming pain and darkness in our world. Here at Christopherus, we like to think that one…