I am guessing that anyone who has had young children or has been around them knows that they are noisy. They own the world that they live in and take command of that space anytime they feel the urge. Laughter and screams fill my home along with the train whistle sounds that my 5-year-old son makes. We also live on the corner of a main two lane road and a country side road where our house is really to close to the road so it is a noisy location.We own three TV’s and it seems that someone is always watching one of the them, they provide a constant stream of back ground noise. So in all of this chaos I have discovered my desperate need for quite.
quietly floating on a boat at the base of this bridge
While taking care of my mother in law, who is still recovering from a major surgery and throat cancer I have discovered our need for quite is more than most. She needs peace and quite to fight off secondary infections, to combat the cancer and to process the emotions that go along with healing. No wonder why hospitals try very hard to keep things quite.
quietly looking at the ground
I have always been able to escape into the quite and now I need it more than ever. I would say that in general I am an extrovert and love people and social activities, talking on the phone,my book club, family dinners, parties are always activities that I love. But I have discovered that with my reduced time in the garden, on the porch reading, and time to just rest,I have lost myself and my happiness.
So over the last week I have made an effort to reduce the noise and stress I am feeling. My home should feel like a place of rest and recovery. I have even read a few articles about the importance of quite in hospitals and in our homes. This article talks more about the problem of “Noise, Health and Wellness” and suggests we all need more quite time. This article is just one observation that links noise to longer recovery times in hospitals.
quietly walking through a Poplar grove.
So how do you remind children that a house is a quite place? How do I reduce the amount of traffic going by my house all day? How do I find more quite time? How do I turn the day-to-day noise into a peaceful, restful place? I know there are limits to what I can do but I can remember that when no one is watching TV to turn it OFF. I can remember to take the kids outside to play. I can ask that Grandma only have a few guests a day instead of a large group where no one can hear her( she is still having some speaking issues do to the cancer and has a very quite voice). I can take her for time on the porch in the sun shine to watch the birds and feel the breeze. I can go to bed earlier making a nice quite routine happen every night so that we all fall peacefully asleep with out a rush or fight from the children. I can take time everyday to read and pray.
quietly feeding the geese on the pond
It is wonderful with age that you start to understand the real importance and restorative power of Peace and Quite. My mother always tried to teach me about rest and quite. That everyone in the world would be so much better off if they could only find a few minutes everyday where they had peace and quite. I hear her voice now and understand that healing the body and the mind sometimes just needs some quite time.
quietly reading a book
Maybe with a little effort on my part over the next few weeks I will feel like I am getting enough quite time and will be able to take on the challenges of this life a little better and will find some more peace at the same time….. wish me luck!
West Virginia Mountain Mama 
Good luck
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Our posts are in a weird kind of sync today. My wife enjoys quiet time and she learned to find it early in thd morning. I hope you find yours and I hope your mother in law recovers well.
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Thank you as always Dan… grandma is doing better!
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Your post struck a chord with me, Jolynn, and I wanted to share a few thoughts about harnessing peace and quiet in a home.
When my youngest child was only 2 (20 years ago!), we were watching the evening news with his two sisters, both young as well. I was aghast that the ads during the 7:00 broadcast were so inappropriate for family viewing that I made a decision that has had a lasting effect on our family to this day. I pulled the plug on the TV, stored it in the basement, and cancelled our cable TV service.
I’d considered this move for some time. For months, I’d watched as great board games, building blocks, Lego bricks, books, and wonderful toys provided for my children sit untouched while my they stared at the television screen. Pulling the plug and cancelling cable TV was long overdue.
After an initial shock (no longer than a week), I smiled at the result of this drastic move. My children were using their imaginations and playing with their trove of toys! Loved it! The three of them played board games together, built all sorts of forts with boxes and pillows, and read voraciously. Each week, we’d haul home a large stack of library books and enjoy lengthy read alouds. The children started writing their own stories and illustrating them, too.
As a single mom, making this decision was relatively easy. My kids were intelligent and I wanted to nurture that as well as fan the flames of creativity I’d included my three children in household chores as soon as they could help; this made the workload lighter for me, taught them responsibility, and let them know how much I valued their input to our family. Our time together was no longer restricted by the television schedule. One day, we hauled home an old picnic table and benches and together we repaired them and stained them to use in our yard. That project lasted most of a day. Brenden loved helping me spread mulch – he even had his own little pair of work gloves – and thought returning the empty wheelbarrow to the mulch pile was a very grown-up task, one his muscles were up to. No chore was beyond my kids. All four of us sponge-painted the dining room walls below the chair rail molding. The kids were really great at taping off windows and trim. And the two girls (second grade and fourth grade) even helped me hang a short piece of wallpaper below the crown molding. The taller of my daughters and I used tall stools and a ladder to place the wallpaper correctly. The shorter of the two was in charge of bringing around unused stools and positioning them in front of us so all we had to do was step to the next stool. It was also her suggestion that saved the day; the wallpaper was about a half inch longer than the soffit covering an air duct. Rebecca thought it would look better if we simply folded the last bit of paper so that it covered a small part of the soffit. We did – and the optical illusion created made everyone think that the wallpaper was just like that on any other wall. It looked great! Had we cut off that extra piece, it would have been too obvious.
Without television (or even videos to watch), we did all sorts of projects. When she was in fourth grade, Megan helped me can over thirty quart jars of peaches one summer! I never would have been able to get through those peaches without her! One winter evening, I heard a sound like rain coming from the basement. I discovered the hot water hose to the washing machine had burst, creating a shallow lake in one corner of the basement. All hands on deck! We took off our shoes and splashed in our new “indoor pool” while toting the contents of shelves to a dry area. We truly made lemonade from lemons that night!
Eliminating the television was one of the best things we ever did. When my kids were in college, I asked them if they’d missed television. Each child quickly said, “No!” They said there were so many things to do around the house, they’d all become avid book lovers (one of my friends asked if they ever bumped into a wall while reading a book!), and would rather play cards or a board game than watch TV. They also commented on other homes, where the televisions were ever-present noisemakers in the family rooms. “Mom, as soon as you go into their house, you hear the TV. It’s made me realize how much quieter our home is. I like it better.”
So, Jolynn, I encourage you to eliminate television from your home; if getting rid of all three is too drastic, try keeping one on in a central location or in a spot that is uncomfortable for folks to enjoy watching. Replace it with calming music that you enjoy, Or simply listen in the stillness for God to speak to you. You’ll find that turning away from the cacaphony of unwanted ads, overly-dramatic newscasts, and violent shows will add to the calm to your home. I can get the news I want elsewhere, in a more focused format. The days I spend with my children, my family, my friends, or even alone are made better without TV.
If the sound of traffic is impeding your quiet, maybe an outdoor water feature could help when you’re outside. When you’re inside, perhaps the “white noise” of a gentle stream of ocean beach could mask the noise. You can get CD’s with all sorts of nature sounds – I love those!
And if you really feel that nothing is working, perhaps a move to a quieter home is in your family’s best interests. I moved to Seneca Rocks from a suburb of Washington, D.C. in January. I brought only those things I dearly loved, sold over half of my belongings, and have never regretted doing so. The peace and happiness I feel here is tangible. Everyone who’s visited understands why I made the move! Brenden said, “In northern Virginia, people don’t have the beauty of the outdoors to make them happy, so they have things in their homes. Here in Seneca Rocks, people don’t need to make a big deal out of their homes – they have all this beauty around them!” I smiled at that – he understands!
Oh, one more thing and then I promise to stop! Things and clutter can create disharmony in a home. You may find, as I did, that cleaning out and eliminating what I no longer need or use brings a great sense of satisfaction and peace. I chose to drastically downsize and the burden of storing so many objects was relieved – I should have done this years ago!
Good luck!
Sincerely,
Sandra
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Sandra thank you for you lovely response to my need to find a little quiet time in my home. I find that I am not in control of much of what is happening in my home these days. I am the primary care taker of a cancer patient who has a nurse here everyday, a physical therapist, and a home health aid three times a week and a 5 year old and a husband all in a two bed room cottage house. I would love to unplug the TV’s in our house but with grandma needing to spend a lot of time in bed that is not going to happen any time soon. At some point she will take the one she uses with her when things with her health improve. I also cant just say to family and friends that they are not welcome to visit her…we do set time limits and day limits but I think I am just over whelmed with people being in my home all day long. It will get better but for now I just try to rest when I can along side of her.
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I love your blog! It is so nice to come across a fellow WV blogger!
I can’t wait to read more!
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