Parenting With Heart

Parenting With Heart

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Parent Infant Classes with a follow on Toddler Class to support you in learning more skills with which to partner your toddler.

Operating as usual

29/08/2024

Here’s another view regarding what our children need in the early years.

The elephants in the room.

There are so many of us that know what children really need. Understand the biology. Attachment, brain development and nervous systems.

Know deep in our heart that the best place for a child is at home with a loving regulated adult to guide and nurture them.

When my son was 3 or there abouts, the 20 free hours came in and a narrative that sending your child to ece centres was appropriate. It even felt, to me, they were saying back then that better than a parent. I remember feeling at the time this didnt feel right.

A subtle narrative that wasn't really built on truth. I remember saying to my husband back then (and I wasn't even an ece teacher back then) we will pay as a society for this and I foretold we would see the effects of this as our children got older.

Would see more dysregulation.

And that wasn't even including our covid days. When everyone was sent home and the stress of work and childcare.

Because the truth is that the best place for a child is with a nurturing adult. And my belief as a teacher is that if a child has to go into care, for whatever reason, then as teachers we should be offering the very best care we can. Its why I went off to learn from The Pikler Institute, because Emmi Pikler had observed children and worked out a choreography if they were in group care, so not to damage them.

The harsh reality was that if I was going to work in an institutional setting I wanted to understand how not to damage the children.

And I’m struggling more and more with this business model of raising children. Struggling where my place is as so much I dont agree with.

As I have travelled my own journey I have developed my own lane. As many of you have read on my journey I was a child that experienced trauma in my first year of life because of my own parents trauma of losing my older sister at 10 months. When I was born, no one supported my mum and she couldnt open her heart to love me until after I had survived 10 months. By then the damage to my brain, nervous system and attachment had already happened. No judgement on my mum, even all those years ago society let her and me down.

So my lane and what I have grown to love doing is supporting those that had missing parts of their own childhood. I create courses to support what I wished I had been given as a baby, parent and teacher. No guilt, shame or judgement ever.

With soft eyes and compassion. Knowing that you can't give what you haven’t had ❤️

And I also know that if we are to highlight the elephants that everyone is ignoring I need to support other people with huge heart in different lanes.

So today I am highlighting Helen Armstrong - Early Childhood Consultant. As she steps into the limelight and in her way that is different and similar to mine and is courageously speaking out.

Helen will reach people I wont and vice versa. I believe we need to be celebrating the different work of others.

There is an illusion of competition
A comparison that one person is better than another.

Another elephant in the room is that there is so much work to be done that we need to learn to work together. To find ways to work together. To support and celebrate each other

Because
This is not good enough for the children

And so many of us know this.

Helen is doing a series and as I read it I know I cant explain better.

So you might want to follow along here💚

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/DuBy3sGedQUtEDoA/?

29/08/2024

An important read - would love to hear your thoughts on this.

You may have seen and heard this week, that Education Review office has reported that 20% of tamariki (children) in Aotearoa (New Zealand) are struggling with oral language.

The report states that vocabulary at the age of two, is directly linked to literacy and numeracy achievement at the age of twelve. Our kiwi babes are behind.

This is no surprise to me. We have known for a long time, with plenty of well researched evidence, that the more words infants (I refer to the scientific age of infancy, the first 1000 days of life) hear in their early formative years, the higher their IQ will be and the better their long term academic outcomes.

Education Review Office also states “Quality ECE makes a difference” and one of the primary strategies of approaching the oral language crisis, is to get more children, particularly those from low socio economic communities, into quality ECE.

But what is quality ECE?

In a suffering sector, in my experience the current norm is teachers under the pump, with less than ideal environments, ratios and conditions. In New Zealand, our ratio of 1:5 for under two year olds and 1:10 for over two year olds, is not exactly conducive to quality outcomes for tamariki. Why?

Let's take a look at the biological reality and design of the infant brain. Babies, simply put are designed for relationship. And not just any relationship, but a secure attachment relationship with primarily one person. This doesn’t mean that they cannot have broader relationships, in fact, they must. But, under the age of three, children are designed to have their primary needs met 1:1.

Attachment is not a luxury for a child of this age, it is a matter of life. It must come first. The infant brain is constantly sending out a question, every few seconds and it needs an immediate answer. The question? Am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? The answer, is not in the actual safety around the child. They don’t have the ability to determine that. The answer, is you. The caregiver. Your answer, is “We are good. We are connected. We are secure. I see you, hear you, understand you. I’m not going anywhere”

This secure base, enables the child, through co-regulation, to remain emotionally regulated and have a sense of security, which enables informational flow, data collection (the sum of the child’s experiences within their environment) and processing.

Connection, is a prerequisite for any kind of learning.

Human connection, makes neural connection possible.

In this 1:1 attachment relationship. Infants study facial expression, intonation, sound relationship to mouth movements of the adult, begin to develop working theories about serve and return communication and hopefully, begin to engage in reciprocity in “conversation” with the adult. All very tricky things to have consistent access to when my caregiver is also responsible for three to four other babies at the same time.

The reality of group care, presents a complexity for both children and adults in order to get this right. By nature, cortisol levels are often heightened in the group care context. Consistenty heightened cortisol is the enemy of brain development. The good news, is that secure attachment relationship is the antidote to this. Most of the above mentioned situations for learning, occur during care moments. This is because in order for information to go in and be processed, the child must be paying attention and be paid attention to.

We call this attunement. In attunement, there is a dance of attention. Serve and return communication and reciprocity of attentiveness, language and attempts at expressing myself. First you, then me, then us together. The foundation for relationship building, socialisation and mental and emotional wellbeing literally exists within the day to day care activities.

Without this being extremely well done, most other educational approaches, strategies and activities are pretty well futile. If we can predict academic outcomes for twelve year olds, at the age of two, we want to make very sure that we are getting care for babies right, under two. Everything else, is like trying to put a cherry on top of an unbaked cake.

Over the next few weeks, lets unpack this with a mini-series focusing on a few key aspects of what “getting it right” looks like. We will wrap this series up with a live session, where we will have discussion and some Q&A. This will be focused on ECE contexts, for professionals, but will be beneficial for parents and families too.

I'd love to hear your thoughts, questions, struggles and experiences!

25/07/2024

Have a listen to this beautiful ‘feelings song’ 🥰

30/03/2024

Children are our greatest teachers - if we let them be.

They can show us the parts of us that need healing. I love this poem that Two Hands Traditional Māori Healing and Bodywork has shared 😊

We are the medicine!

"YOU ARE THE MEDICINE "

This SPEAKS to my heart- Mirimiri for the soul

Living it...loving it..breathing it..hugging it.. kissing it ..basking in it🩷

HEAL YOURSELF WITH THE LIGHT OF THE SUN AND THE RAYS OF THE MOON .With the SOUND OF THE RIVER AND THE WATERFALL. With the swaying of the sea and the fluttering of birds.
Heal yourself with mint, neem, and eucalyptus. Sweeten with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile. HUG YOURSELF WITH THE COCOA BEAN AND A HINT OF CINNAMON. Put LOVE in tea instead of sugar and drink it looking at the stars.
HEAL YOURSELF WITH THE KISSES THAT THE WIND GIVES YOU AND THE HUGS OF THE RAIN.
Stand strong with your bare feet on the ground and with everything that comes from it.
BE SMARTER EVERYDAY BY LISTENING TO YOUR INTUITION, looking at the world with your forehead.
JUMP, DANCE, SING, PLAY, so that you live happier.
Heal yourself, with beautiful love, and always remember ... YOU ARE THE MEDICINE.””

-Maria Sabina
Healer and Poet
1894-1985

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Parenting With Heart

My life changed completely thanks to a conversation I had over breakfast.

I remember the day well. I took a chance and contacted a friend early on a Saturday morning to see if I could visit in about an hour. I hadn't seen this friend in quite some time and the answer was yes!

Over breakfast we chatted about our children, as you do, what we were up to etc etc and then the conversation that instigated the change took place.

After graduating 30 something years earlier as an Early Childhood Educator, having my children, teaching, working in I.H.C and other jobs working alongside children and their families, I now felt the need for something more. Something else and we talked about our thoughts and feelings around this and then my friend said, “I have this book I think you may be interested in.” I had a quick look through and decided to order myself a copy.

Telephone