As we begin another not-quite-usual holiday season, we wanted to share with you, once again, some seasonal offerings from our homes to yours. In looking at the writings that Neufeld Institute faculty submitted this year, it became clear that what I had in front of me was a collection of togetherness rituals— annual activities that…
I feel fortunate that I discovered the Neufeld approach to parenting when my children were quite young, so I knew that they needed me to help bridge the night.But knowledge wasn’t everything. I had to find my sense of play as a parent, too, lest I frustrate myself and begrudgingly wonder why my children wouldn’t…
There’s a hole in my bucket …I can’t say the words without hearing Harry Belafonte’s smooth mellow voice singing the words to this 400-year-old nursery rhyme – a most humorous depiction of futility: going round and round in circles without getting anywhere. A ‘hole in the bucket’ is, in fact, more than just a great…
Re-entry has begun and we are now preparing to return to parts of our lives, like work and schooling, without knowing exactly what this looks like. How do we lead our children? What do they need from us? Can they adapt to the new realities of social distancing at schools and will this create anxiety…
The world can be an alarming place. Difficult things happen that are out of our control. And yet, it is not about the trauma itself–what happens or doesn’t happen to us or around us– but what happens inside of us as a result. And about who is, or isn’t, present with us in our pain. This is the…
Have you ever felt like life is spinning around you and you are not sure where you fit or how you fit or even IF you fit, but you can’t slow down enough to even contemplate the question?Well I have … on more than one occasion. At first, I didn’t even notice the spinning. It…
Tummy aches and monsters in the closet. Headaches and risky behaviour. Frequent hand-washing and repetitive behaviours. These are all manifestations of alarm. Thinking about this list of manifestation probably doesn’t make any of us feel very playful, however play is often just what is needed to keep our children’s alarm system healthy and well-functioning.The alarm…
Dr. Neufeld says that we need to offer our children two invitations. The first is the unconditional invitation to exist in our presence and the second is the invitation to become fully who they are. This same sentiment is sometimes represented imagistically: we are helping them grow both roots and wings. Some parents find it natural…
Anyone spending time with a young teenager knows that they can be lovely and intriguing one moment and irrational and angry the next. Their emotions are strong and their prefrontal cortex is under major reconstruction, resulting in incredible highs, desperate lows, mature insight, and impulsive reactions – sometimes all in one day. The early teen years…
Wash the dishes, wash the dishes; The Christmas dinner dishes; Three generations in the kitchen all at once (Hawksley Workman, 3 Generations) My mother was the keeper of our family rituals. Fiercely independent and proud of her amazing turkey dinner timed just right, she would never accept help from us, her two adult daughters. She took complete responsibility for…