The Pillars of Kith
How the Pillars emerged
After 5 years of nurturing this Kith-babe to life, it seemed like the right time to start putting some of the practices we use on the land down on paper. As the homestead evolves and grows, we’re in a time where new facilitators and guides are joining us and need to be looped into how it all works. Not for the sake of marketing or branding, but for the sake of maintaining the whole homestead and everything it was founded on.
For those who’ve been around a while, you’ll know (maybe) the ethos and core values of Kith are centred around the whole child, and by extension, the family, meeting their needs at a speed which suits them, we call it Natural Pace Learning. For a long time, this was an unwritten feeling, guided by intuitive practices and our own parenting style.
At the end of 2023, I started to collate the types of things we did each day (beyond the serious childs play) and found there were patterns emerging; gardening, handcrafts, new skills, serious crafting, stories, mini-adventures, rituals, homestead maintenance, being together and feeling like a big family. Things which naturally emerged from our days on the homestead. We seemed to be flowing from super practical skills to more holistic inner personal growth depending on the season, who was on the land and the general energy of the day.
Whilst the themes were showing themselves, we really needed to step back to see them clearly. When you’re in the thick of swampy mud play, cooking up a feast over a fire, elbow deep in finger-knitting or on a whirlwind adventure walk with a group of children, it’s hard to think beyond the present moment. Between December and February, the weather really takes a turn on us at Kith, we hunker down and keep our eye on things whilst going into a semi-hibernation state. This “down-time”-though we’re never fully hands-off, gave us a chance to be reflective, to really see what happens at Kith and how we could better harness it.
As we emerged with the seedlings in the spring of 2024, so did the Pillars of Kith;
Earth Connection | Homestead Skills | Community | Creativity | Spirit
Each pillar addressed a different aspect of life on the homestead and together provided a holistic environment in which we thrive. They offered us a wonderful balance, depth and breadth of opportunity and opened up more thoughts about the direction of Kith. The Pillars were always there but with a little focus, their new titles have been a mainstay ever since.
Did you know that children grow ridiculously fast?
I’m sure it’s no big revelation to those reading that children grow at a ridiculously quick pace, both in their physical and cognitive development. I however, naively hadn’t accounted for some huge collective leaps in our son and his friends. Suddenly the conversations seemed to change, the dexterity of their bodies, their stamina and general energy levelled up, not to mention their cognitive processes, social interactions and level of understanding. They had all grown, again, overnight. I found myself turning to hours of research to learn how best to meet the growing children’s needs. Beautifully, I also found solace in that time in the shape of a bubbling of a framework, anchoring us to the values of what Kith was intended for.
The Pillars began to focus the efforts on the land, helping us retain the ethos whilst also, incredibly and quite unexpectedly, giving us an expansive set of opportunities. I’ll side step here to mention that this is a theme which is vitally important in the running of a setting like Kith, the safety of boundaries. I’ll get to this in a future post though.
Breathe and focus
Once we had the Pillars, it meant we weren’t flailing trying to cover too much and be everything to everyone. It’s the old adage of just focusing on one thing and doing that well, obvious to some. In my defence, when you set up a space like Kith, the “one thing” isn’t so obvious at first… or for 5 years, the opportunities are endless. These self-imposed boundaries working with the Pillars gave us safety and allowed us to settle, focus and breathe into the day to day.
And now, as we enter the final quarter of 2024, true to their name the Pillars have given us the strength we needed. We’re working on a substantial framework to support the young people as they move into the next phase of their childhood. Still self-directed, naturally paced but with focus and parameters which will allow them to come away with a portfolio of projects to take beyond Kith. Look out for Pathways, our new offering for young people aged 11+ early in 2025.
