I'm so delighted to be starting this second sleep series, in tandem with editing my book, Sound Sleep and Secure Attachment with Aware Parenting, as well as offering a live round of the course of the same name, and my first Aware Parenting children's book, on rambunctious play before bed. This episode is an introduction to what me and my guests will be talking about in this series. I include: The innate release and relaxation response all babies and children have. Differentiating cultural beliefs about sleep from innate biological wisdom. How sleep challenges are a reflection of needs and feel ..read more

I'm grateful to one of my lovely mentees, who requested this episode, where I talk about some of the differences between Aware Parenting and Classical Attachment Parenting (a term created by me and adopted by Aletha Solter, the founder of Aware Parenting). Classical attachment parenting (CAP) refers to the original attachment parenting paradigm, which was first described by William and Martha Sears. The Aware Parenting (AwP) version of attachment parenting has several key differences from this original version. In this episode I talk about: Why people commonly make the change from CAP to AwP ..read more

In this episode, I talk about why children aren't fighting sleep, and why we're often fighting their natural relaxation response. I share concisely about how we can trust children and follow their lead and can then cooperate with their natural relaxation response. I explain the power of play before bed, and why we can look at the "it'll all end in tears" phenomenon in a very different light. At the end, I share a story from a child's perspective that comes from my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening.' The book has a chapter on sleep. If you want to understand more about sleep ..read more

In this episode, I share about how we can stay connected with children in relation to screens, including with attachment play. I offer some information that I wish I'd had when my children were younger, about loving limits. I also share a touching story at the end from my new book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', from the perspective of a child. Putting ourselves in our child's shoes can really help transform our parenting experience with screens. I talk about one phrase that I found really helpful around screens. There's an in-depth chapter on screens in my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here a ..read more

In this episode, I share about what's going on when a child is hitting. I talk about them being in the fight or flight response, and how we can help them move out of that state of hyperarousal, through feeling physically and emotionally safe, to return to homeostasis through healing raging and crying (or laughing and playing) with our loving support. I mention ways we can prevent hitting from happening in the first place, what we can do if we don't get there in time to prevent it happening. I talk about the choice we have between loving limits and attachment play in response to hitting, and wh ..read more

In this episode, I respond to questions about loving limits that parents asked on my social media accounts. They include: What happens when loving limits don't seem to work – eg, the child moves on to something else and doesn't express any feelings; When loving limits aren't actually the most apt response; When our own feelings come up; When we find it hard to be with the crying and raging that happens after loving limits; When the child experiences the loving limit as a punishment; Whether loving limits are possible in response to shouting; How we can care for two children after a loving limi ..read more

In this episode, I share an update on loving limits, after gaining lots of new clarity through the process of editing my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening'. and having conversations with Aletha Solter, PhD, the Founder of Aware Parenting. The update includes: The importance of giving information when offering a loving limit; The language we might use when offering loving limits; The three situations where we don't recommend offering loving limits. I will be updating all my courses with this information and will let you know when that happens. For now, I've updated my Loving ..read more

This is part of a series of episodes where I refer to topics in my new best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', and I read a story shared from a child's perspective. In this episode, I talk about the process of helping a child move out a freeze state (which in Aware Parenting we tend to refer to as dissociation, or a control pattern) and back into connection with their body and feelings. Once they do that, they can then express the feelings they were needing to suppress or dissociate from, and return to calm presence. I've always seen control patterns as like frozen feelings. Our role ..read more

Long gone are the days where parents who wanted to leave the park were told to just walk away and say "bye!" to their child. However, it can be so common for us as parents to feel really powerless when we want to leave the park and our child doesn't want to. This can often correspond with times when we're hungry or tired, and our own feelings can easily bubble up and out into responses we later regret. Putting ourselves in our child's shoes at these times can help us be less likely to respond in harsh ways. Free play, explorative play, these are such innate needs for children, and they're ways ..read more

There is an episode called 'Go away" from early on in The Aware Parenting Podcast, AND I felt called to record another one. That's partly because one of my favourite parts in my new best-selling book 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' is where we see this from a child's perspective. In fact, when parents ask about helpful responses to their crying child saying "Go away!" I often ask them to reflect back on a time in their own childhood when they had a lot of big feelings bubbling and they shouted "Go away!" Did they really want their parent to go away? Or would they have loved them to have stayed lo ..read more