Aware Parenting Stories with Joss Goulden

In this episode of the podcast, I talk about how to support our children when they are being aggressive or hurtful. I acknowledge how hard it is when our children behave in these ways, biting, hitting, grabbin, hurting or shouting. I explain why children are sometimes aggressive and hurtful and what it tells us about what our children are feeling and needing. I explain the many ways that aggressive behaviour is misunderstood in our culture and how trauma and accumulated feelings push our children into hyperarousal which then can cause them to be aggressive. I describe in detail how Aware Parenting shows us how to support our children at these times by having a compassionate understanding of why they are aggressive, creating the emotional safety they need to heal, by listening to feelings, by offering attachment play, by having non-punitive discipline and by offering loving limits. I talk about how vital it is for us to get support too, to explore our beliefs, to receive listening to our feelings about the present and from our unhealed trauma from the past and to get our needs met. If you would like support to help your child with aggression, I offer 1 to 1 sessions where we can dive deep into all this. I highly recommend reading Aletha Solter’s books, particularly Healing your Traumatised Child and Attachment Play.

In this episode of the podcast, I really enjoyed talking to Megan Clinton. Megan is a relational Gestalt Psychotherapist, Energy Psychologist, Gestalt Play Therapist and Aware Parenting Instructor. She offers healing, integration and transformation to women seeking to change the world, be that through parenting, business practice or relationships of any kind. She offers one to one sessions, workshops, programmes and memberships to guide individuals and groups to feel and heal life experiences. Megan shares how she came across Aware Parenting and how it immediately made sense to her in light of her understanding about psychotherapy for adults. She describes how unhealed trauma repeats and comes up again and again in our life to be healed, how our children touch many of the unhealed parts of us and how painful and difficult it therefore is to practise Aware Parenting. We talk about the need for self-compassion in parenting because it is overwhelming and exhausting at times for us all and how we all need support and listening to process our trauma. Megan explains what trauma is and how to start processing it, as well as the profound impact on the world of us parenting in this way. She shares how attachment play supported her daughter to heal from school trauma and we talk about offering loving limits and how to support ourselves in that process. To learn more about Megan Clinton please follow her on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn at Megan Clinton. To learn more about my Aware Parenting Teenagers course, please visit https://awareparenting.com.au/aware-parenting-teenagers/ or to pay in instalments please use the link for the payment plan here https://awareparenting.com.au/register/awp-teenagers-instalment/

In this episode of the podcast, I have the pleasure of talking to Laura Shaz. Laura is mother to two children aged 7 and 4. She is currently studying to be a midwife and is passionate about sharing the AwP philosophy with new mothers and fathers and with birth workers. She is a certified yoga teacher, Aware Parenting instructor and massage therapist who has been working in the birth world as a pregnancy yoga and mums & bubs yoga instructor for the past 7 years. She holds a master’s degree in Conflict Resolution and Mediation, which she delved into the field while living in Israel and facilitating youth groups in high schools. She is passionate about physical and emotional healing for families and about making mothers’ and families lives more joyful. Laura currently lives in the northern rivers of Australia with her family. Laura shares how she came to Aware Parenting and how she has found receiving empathy and support herself so transformative in her parenting. We talk about how helpful learning to offer loving limits has been in our families. She shares how she learnt to listen to feelings and allow her baby to release and cry when she needed to. We talk about the magic of attachment play to support healing and closeness. She shares lots of examples of how she has used aware parenting to support her family and we talk about how powerfully healing it is for us all to receive empathy. To learn more about Laura, please visit https://www.ljspeace.com and follow her on Facebook at Laura Shaz. To learn more about my Aware Parenting Teenagers course, please visit https://awareparenting.com.au/aware-parenting-teenagers/ or to pay in instalments please use the link for the payment plan here https://awareparenting.com.au/register/awp-teenagers-instalment/

In this episode of the podcast I have the pleasure of talking to Janie Spencer. Janie is a level 2 Aware Parenting instructor in France and the regional coordinator for France and French speaking Switzerland. She has been an instructor for over 20 years and has a 33 year old daughter, whom she raised with Aware Parenting. She has a Masters in Sociology of Emotions and, together with her colleague Gwenaëlle Ruella, she runs Place Des Emotions – an association providing individual and group trainings on the Aware Parenting approach. In this episode Janie shares how she discovered Aware Parenting from Aletha Solter’s mother and how she started practising this in her own family. She shares the vital importance of us receiving listening as parents and the powerful role that Re-evaluation Co-counselling has played in supporting her to heal from the trauma of her childhood. Janie shares about the impact Aware Parenting can have for people coming to this approach from both an authoritarian style or a more permissive attachment style parenting. She also shares about her association and how that is supporting parents to learn how to bring Aware Parenting to their families. To learn more about Janie, please visit www.placedesemotions.org or follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/placedesemotions/ or Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/janie-spencer-4937b18/

In this episode of the podcast I talk to Vivian Viester about birth and birthdays and how we can support parents to bring more compassion and connection and joy to birthdays for us and our children. Vivian is an Aware Parenting Instructor living in Switzerland and she has a 12 year old son. She supports parents with 1 to 1 consultations, online programs and listening circles. In this episode we talk about the impact of birth on us all and how we often develop themes from our perinatal experiences that continue to affect us into adulthood. We discuss how birthdays were for us as children and how painful feelings and unmet needs for us from those younger years still come up for our attention in adulthood too and how reflecting on these experiences can help us to heal and connect deeply with how we want birthday’s to be, for ourselves and our children. We talk about how important it is for parents to get to de-brief about the birth of their children and to share these stories many times, and with their children too. We discuss how birthdays are often a time of big emotions that come up for everyone in the family and how this awareness can help us to support healing for us all so that birthdays can be more enjoyable. Vivian shares about her offering to support parents to reflect on their birth experiences and tune into what they want now for their birthdays. She also shares about her second offering for parents and children to explore their birth and what we want for their day and for the next year of their life. I share some reflections for parents to support more healing, more connection and more joy for birthdays. To find out more about Vivian’s Birthday Offerings, please visit her Facebook and Instagram, Vivian Viester Aware Parenting.

In this episode of the podcast I talk to Danni Willow again, this time about how to use the tools and strategies of Aware Parenting to heal ourselves. Danni has already been on the podcast twice and is an Aware Parenting Instructor. She is the founder of The Way of the Women which supports families to practice Aware Parenting in their families. She offers one to one sessions, she runs the Exploring Aware Parenting Community with me and she runs women’s circles online and in-person. She is the mother of 2 gorgeous girls. In this episode we discuss why it is necessary for us to do our own healing work if we want to practice Aware Parenting in our families. This comes up so often in our sessions that Aware Parenting is as much about doing our work as it is supporting our children and this episode shares in detail how we support our clients to do this. We share why it is hard to do this healing work and reparent ourselves whilst also raising our children. We give detailed explanations of the tools that we use to support ourselves in these ways and why we all need support to do this work. We outline the different components of Aware Reparenting and we discuss how to bring more compassion to our lives. We both acknowledge the amazing work of Aletha Solter, the founder of Aware Parenting, as well as the extraordinary work of Marion Rose in supporting healing for parents. We also highly recommend Lael Stone and Marion Rose’s new book, Raising Resilient and Compassionate Children. To learn more about Danni, please visit www.thewayofthewomen.com.au and follow her on Instagram and Facebook at Danni Willow. Marion’s courses can be found at www.marionrose.net and the needs inventory from Marshall Rosenberg can be found here www.cnvc.org

In this episode I talk to Marion Rose Ph.D. and Lael Stone about their wonderful new book Raising Resilient and Compassionate Children. This extraordinary book is so incredibly helpful for parents. To purchase this book please visit https://www.booktopia.com.au/search.ep?keywords=raising+resilient+and+compassionate+children&productType=917504

Episode 29: Attuned and Empowering Parenting with Jurgen Peeters by Aware Parenting Stories with Joss Goulden

In this episode I have the pleasure of talking with Lia Wong. Lia has dedicated herself to studying Kinesiology and is a certified Neuro-Energetic Kinesiologist. She is passionate about gentle birth, trauma-informed care and is a certified Aware Parenting Instructor. Lia shares how she learnt to stop distracting her child and instead to welcome his feelings with the crying in arms approach. She describes how she was able to let go of the focus on making the crying stop and instead support her son to express and release feelings. We talk about deconditioning ourselves from strong cultural beliefs that children crying is bad and something we need to fix or make stop. She shares how powerful Aware Parenting has been to tune into children's behaviour and notice signs of accumulated stress and trauma. We discuss the importance of getting listening in this process and learning to honour our needs. To learn more about Lia, please visit www.raisingorion.com She is also on Instagram and Facebook at laiwong and raising Orion.

In this conversation, Naomi Aldort, author of "Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves," shares her insights on homeschooling and natural learning. She discusses the power of trusting children’s intrinsic motivation and the creativity that arises when they learn independently. Naomi contrasts traditional education with her experiences of democratic schooling, highlighting the benefits of self-directed discovery. Listeners will appreciate her anecdotes on fostering exploration, problem-solving skills, and the joy in allowing children to follow their own unique paths.