A different way of asking your child questions that will change your relationship.
Relationship
The Four Stages of Fatherhood–interview with Bruce Linton
In this conversation Dr Bruce Linton describes the four stages of fatherhood and why dads who regularly share their challenges and celebrations with other men are more comfortable in their parenting. Bruce Linton is a family therapist in California, US, who supports fathers of younger children through a bundle of great resources at Father’s Forum. […]
Parental wonder and a child’s genius
The old understanding of the child, is that from birth she is accompanied by a daimon, a genius in search of a destiny. The maveric psychotherapist James Hillman drew on this understanding of the soul’s vitality in what he called the acorn theory. With respectful and attentive guidance, this seed grows in the communal soil, […]
The sprout and the grown-up
A seed beneath the soil sprouts unseen, sending a tender tendril through the earth, and breaks through the soil into the light of the sun. It’s is in the first stage of growing up, literally. Now mostly in the earth and new to the sky it is pale, yellow perhaps, its seed leaves unlike those […]
Justice at home
Get more than one person in a room and sooner or later there’s a conflict, as all couples and parents well know. But how do we restore peace in the home, and understanding and health? Parenting in the west is parenting within a social system that punishes any individual who transgresses social mores in proportion […]
A child unfolds slowly
Even in these harried and hurried days, a child still unfolds slowly. And so it can take years for a child to know how to become a respectful friend and confidant of fire. There’s the crux of knowing good wood when you find it. The sharp sound of it snapping. The smell of it. The […]
What she does, not who she is
The walls of our home have to be spacious enough to house all of our child’s personality and gifts, while solid enough to mold her behavior. The distinction is not obvious. When we parent the behavior, we’re teaching our child how to be a regenerative human being, someone who comes of age ready to serve […]
It takes a forest to raise a child
It takes a forest to raise a child. The extended family of raven and tawny owl perch expectantly on black boughs, looking for years after the large head and stubby legs coming pink through the brambles. The green woodpecker flashes her red head and tweets the little human’s stumbling arrival and the deer freeze on […]
The strain on consumer families
The strains of sustaining the central family fire in a consumer family are more often signs of these trying times than our inadequacies or inexperience as parents. Until a century ago, and in many places far more recently, the family depended for its health on continuous exchanges with extended family, neighbors and a local community. […]
Overparenting and social monoculture
Parenting implodes in a social monoculture. The social ecology we’ve depended on as parents until recently, is today many times frail and tattered. There is little social cohesion around our homes, few of us have a living community in which to plant our children. In a few generations, the communal life that held our children […]
Breathing through a feeling
Feelings are fleeting. Anger can be over in a flash. Sadness can settle and seem endless. But it’s in the nature of all feelings that they pass. And they pass faster if we don’t do violence to ourselves by supressing or fighting our feelings. Your child can learn how not to be overwhelmed by her […]
Medicine for your child’s soul and spirit
There’s a prophylactic medicine bundle for the disaffected child, homeopathic in its dosage, with a recommendation for daily applications. This time-honored multi-vitamin for your child’s spiritual health and soulful development has five active ingredients. Song: Fill your family days with song. Croon your baby to sleep with a lullabye. Make a family anthem from the […]
Seeing the north star
It’s March, and for a few months longer on the northern hemisphere, until dimmed by the long summer days, the stars will strew the night sky. This is a good time of year to head out with your child after nightfall, to introduce her to the North Star, this fixed axis point on the firmament […]
Where the sun rises
There’s a spruce-covered ridge by our farm, and for much of winter, the sun doesn’t clamber high enough to crest it. Then come February, and one morning, suddenly, there it is. As a family it always surprises us, and delights us to witness its return, the warm herald of early spring. Where does the sun […]
Progress at home
Time comes to us as a straight line, from past to future, along which life progresses, evolves, becomes more refined as we go. There’s little in this now that is as wondrous or developed as its future iteration. That seems to be a fair rendering of time as we understand it in the west. And […]
Patience and the steady fire
It’s no guarded parental secret that a child’s wild fire and love of life doesn’t easily submit to tasks and chores, to the daily demands of keeping house or staying the course. The understandable temptation in the hubbub of modern life is to keep our child otherwise occupied, perhaps hooked up to another channel of […]
Good table manners
As midwinter approaches on the northern hemisphere, it is time to once again gather with our loved ones around a table for a shared meal. It’s a time of great generosity, hospitality, a social ritual of both giving and receiving, feeding and being fed. We welcome our guests, we might cook together, decorate the table, […]
A child’s ability to discern
When our child was a bit older than two, I left him with a new teacher at kindergarden. As soon as he was in her arms, he started to scream. So I waited a while with him until he was calm again, and turned to leave. Outside, I heard him through the door, crying incessantly, […]
Hold on to your child
There inevitably comes an age in our children’s lives when their attention and curiousity is directed more towards others than ourselves. It’s easy then as a father or mother, flush with the business of making ends meet, to let go, understanding their outward gaze as an impending departure, rather than a cautious exploration. Hold on […]
Our children deserve less than we got
I know that my children deserve less than I got. Most likely your child does too. This doesn’t go down easy, if like me you’re a member of the industrial growth society. Here, most of us by far want to pass on more to our children than our parents gave us. Such is the script […]