Make a corner for kids' creativity
The housewife establishes the environment
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There’s a point, most days, when children like to draw, paint, cut up pieces of paper, glue, tape, and just make. It’s good for their development and it’s fun. It’s a good way for older children to spend quiet time.
They need a certain amount of freedom when inspiration strikes. Your presence is not absolutely required if materials are at hand.
But how to avoid utter chaos? In our minds it’s a curated Montessori wonderland; in reality things get unbelievably messy as soon as the paper, scissors, colored pencils, and paste come out.
To keep little children’s artistic lives going, but also to keep Mom sane, see if there’s a corner in your home for a kid-sized table and stools. Nearby, is there something like a dining-room built-in cupboard with doors that can hide bins? At the end of your run of kitchen cabinets, maybe on the side facing the breakfast nook (where they can work at the table), is there a cupboard you can dedicate to their things? Could you find a second-hand hutch, a small one, where their materials can be stored accessibly? What about a rolling cart with drawers?
If you can use open bins in whatever it is, you will be as orderly as it is possible to be. Keep super messy things in containers up high where they have to be requested.
This way, things will not be very orderly, but enough so that closing the doors or rolling the cart to a corner restores some peace.
Children can be trained, somewhat, to treat things with respect and clean up after themselves to a degree. Show them how things look when they are restored.
A weekly reset (by you) keeps things somewhat tidy.
Tomorrow I’ll give you my best tip for cutting down on what I find most annoying about children’s productions.
Blanche Fisher Wright
Be happy at home! As with everything here at the SFH, the best thing is for you to take my ideas, which come from my experience of escaping feminism to enjoy the gift of 47 years of marriage, seven children, and more than a score of grandchildren, and apply them to your situation with discernment, prudence, and confidence — and a sense of humor!
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For the longer version of this Substack, and much more on such topics:
My 3-volume book on Order and Wonder in Family Life:
I love your posts. Thank you. Also, reading through Summa Domestica, currently on volume 3. I cannot thank you enough for sharing this wisdom with us. And yes, like you say, probably common sense but I needed to hear it from someone!
I’m looking forward to this series! My current difficulty is that the 3.5 year old can be trusted (mostly) with crayons, markers, etc., but the 1.5 year old absolutely cannot be trusted. (And has been known to snatch from his older sibling and draw on the couch…).