The Wild and Free Family - Ainsley Arment

Ainsley Arment spends this book encouraging you to drop your family out of much of the rat-race of modern life to live a calm life that prioritizes your children having time to run free and play without structure. She also strongly emphasizes you dropping out of the rat-race so that you have more time to spend connecting with your kids.

While the first half of the book felt strong, she delved into what I call magic "universe juice" ideas. This is when the author starts presenting ideas about dreaming big because magic rain will then come along and your dreams will happen.

If you read this, go for the beginning and once it gets to the dreaming part...put the book down.

Read my review of The Wild and Free Family.

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**Purpose**
- to help you create the life for your family that you dream of

### 1 - Te Create Family Culture

- family culture is a result of all the things you do. Are you being intentional with the culture you are creating. Page 13

- I feel like our family culture has me rushing all the time with little time for connection. Even the work around the house leaves my weekends rushed between moving house projects forward that I don't really care about so I can maybe have a moment fgor the type of life I want to be living.

### 2 - To Preserve Childhood

- [[Magical Child - Joseph Chilton Pearce]] Page 24

- we fast-track the development of our children to ensure they conform to whatever the latest fad says our child should be doing. Page 24
- their development is more about what we need, than what they need or what society needs

### 3 - To Connect with Our Kids

- [[Connection Parenting - Pam Leo]] Page 34

- our children crave connection with us but don't know how to ask for it. They act out this need in rude words and tempers. They don't know that the connection is what they're missing though. Page 35
- so is Eden's attitude, at least in part, a result of her feeling disconnected from the family?

- so she sits with her kids when they have "big" emotions so they can work through it in a safe spot. Do I have 30-minutes a few times a day to work through the feelings of my kids? Do I need to engineer better calm in life for this to happen? What steps can I take to have the time my kids need without giving up all of myself? Page 40

- you don't have to parent or discipline every behaviour out of your child. Sometimes they need space to feel so they can talk about it. Page 43
- does Eden keep coming up at night because she needs connection but doesn't know how to ask for it?
- Does the frenetic pace of life that society pushes on us as ideal show that we don't truly care about our kids because it leaves them no space to be children and we have little time to connect with them?

- [[Unconditional Parenting - Alfie Kohn]] Page 47

- watching this mother ask questions of her teen makse me ache for Cynthia to show any interest in me. She doesn't ask questions, she waits for me to take a breath and then launches into talking about what interests her.

### 4 - To Understand Your Child

- [[NurtureShock - Po Bronson Ashley Merryman]] Page 61

- the point of listening to someone isn't to have your opinion changed, it's to seek understanding and to let the person know they are valuable and worth the effort of being listened to.

- [[Awakening Genius in the Classroom - Thomas Armstrong]] Page 64

### 5 - To Create a Safe Haven

- all the social ranking that matters to kids means nothing in adulthood. The "popular" kids are growing bald spots and pushing papers in a boring job they don't like. Page 73
- so the question is, how do we work to help our kids stop caring about the social ranking and simply play a different game?

- [[For the Family's Sake - Susan Schaeffer Macaulay]] Page 74

- to be good parents we need to lay down the hurts we recieved in our childhood and put away the weapons that have come as a result of those hurts. Instead we need to choose love and patience. We need to have time for our kids to have love and patience instead of running between everything all the time. Page 81
- it's hard to be patient when you're overbooked and feel rushed.

### 6 - To Redeem What's Broken

- [[Peaceful Parent Happy Kids - Laura Markham]] Page 88

- every negative interaction with our kids uses up relationship capital. Like taking a drop from their bucket. Page 88

- is the present I see looking like the future I dream of? I'd say no. There isn't enough adventure in our lives. Not enough connection with our kids. So how do I get this without giving up all of me? Page 95

### 7 - To Chase Wonder

- if we want curious kids we need to make time for their wonder. We need to be able to step aside and lay in the grass with them because it's what they feel like doing. That means we need to put the dishes aside and maybe not be [[productivity|productive]]. Modern society and productivity make it hard to have this time. Much of society also leaves no room for kids to roam freely outside adult supervision. Page 103 ^2eade7

- don't mistake cries of [[boredom]] as something you need to rescue a child from. They are pangs of discovery about to happen. The only way out of boredom is through it. Page 109
- see [[device to ensure we are never bored]]

- [[In Praise of Idleness 211020210925]] Page 108

### 8 - To Adventure Together

- [[The Wild and Free Family - Ainsley Arment]] Page 116

- kids don't have a problem learning, they struggle to sit still all the time to do their learning. Instead they should be learning by adventuring into the things they find interesting. Page 121
- sounds great, but how is a teacher supposed to facilitate that?

- if you're unhappy with where your family is going, then rewrite the future. Change the trajectory of your family. Page 126

### 9 - To Unleash Their Gifts

- when we label our kids as "the athletic one" we can mak it harder for them to even feel like they can step into some other state of being. We also make it feel like the other kids can never be "the athletic one" because the label is already applied. Page 127

- when we focus on our kids being "useful/[[productivity|productive]]" we eliminate so much of their imagination that doesn't care about being useful and just wants adventure. Let them break the rules. Useful is [[Puritan Work Ethic]] invading childhood. Page 130 ^640ee7

- [[Simplicity Parenting]] Page 132
- [[Permission to Feel - Marc Brackett]] Page 133
- [[Do Nothing - Celeste Headlee]] Page 136
- [[The Shallows]] Page 137

- The busier you are the more downtime you need. Page 138
- but we don't ever allow that as we'll "get behind"
- this is [[capitalist|capitalism]] and [[consumerism]] at work

- [[fixed mindset]] Page 140

- [[Limitless Mind - Jo Boaler]] Page 140

### 10 - To Unlock Their Potential

- [[The Whole-Brain Child - Daniel J Siegel Tina Payne Bryson]] Page 153
- I think i used to own this and read it

- eh this chapter was telling us about how movement therapy helped her kid. Glad it worked, but there is little depth here she's just sharing what worked for her

### 11 - To Pursue a Vision

- sigh, this is about dreaming big and [[universe juice]]

## 12 - To Become Together

- we are in the process of "becoming" the parents we need to be. Our children are "becoming" themselves and we need to give grace to each other
- again not much substance

### 13 - To Not Grow Weary

- what if we stopped striving for perfection in every aspect of life. Would we have more time to do some things well, and let the other stuff be passable. Would we have more time to rest? Page 192

### 14 - To Set Them Free

- parenting has moved away from giving kids a safe life, so that animals didn't eat them, to giving kids the "best" life. This has left us listening to experts about everything and chasing the next big whim of society as it tries to tell us what is best for our children. We are in a [[comparison trap]] with other people, as we only see their highlights ^236c57
- how much time do we spend pushing our children to conform to our wishes for their lives? Instead, we should be helping them find themselves.