The Aware Parenting and Natural Learning Podcast

We are so happy to be back with a new episode of the Aware Parenting and Natural Learning podcast for the end of the year. We talk about the many gifts for our children and ourselves of choosing these ways of raising them, as we are both now at the end of the "schooling" process. The gifts include our children's self-connection, their freedom from the painful and enduring beliefs about ourselves that are set up in school through cultural conditioning, their freedom from coercion and control and the deep, mutual, unconditional love that is the defining feature of our relationships, throughout childhood and beyond. We share some recent examples of joyful experiences we have had with our children and share some of why we have both loved this journey so much. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. Lots of love to you xx

In this episode, we talk about meeting needs of both parents and children when practicing Aware Parenting and Natural Learning. We share about the effects of the culture on needs, and the creative ways we might need to utilise to support everyone in the family getting their needs met. We discuss the needs inventory from Nonviolent Communication (which you can find at www.cnvc.org) and how helpful it is in identifying needs, valuing needs and being willing for our needs to be met. We include the process that we can go through from not knowing that we have needs to reclaiming the beauty of our needs and having willingness for our needs to be met. We talk about specific ways that we found helpful for getting our needs met as mothers whilst also supporting our children to have their needs met too. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware Parenting with Joss.

In this episode, we talk about how school trauma can affect our callings in the world, our work life and our ability to be who we were always meant to be and to contribute to the world. We discuss the amazing opportunity for healing old hurts and themes that we receive, when we become entrepreneurs and start sharing our voice, as younger parts of us come up repeatedly to be heard and healed. Marion shares her Marion Method processes for exploring and healing the themes from school, including powerlessness, coercion, self-doubt, harsh self-criticism, feeling unsafe or afraid, not being heard and experiencing shame. We describe examples of our on-going journey of healing our school trauma so we then feel liberated to share our work in the world. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. Lots of love to you xx

In this episode, we talk about the different choices we've made to be able to practice Aware Parenting and Natural Learning. All the way through, we acknowledge with gratitude all the ways we've received support and help, as well as the challenges that have come in the choices we've made. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware Parenting with Joss.

Welcome back to another episode of the Aware Parenting and Natural Learning podcast. In this episode we discuss school trauma again. We talk about some of the visible and some of the invisible traumas that children experience at school, as well as the impact of the accumulated mini and major traumas that are part of each school day. We discuss how children often need to go into a dissociation nervous system response at school and how this then makes it difficult for many of us to remember and really understand just how traumatic school was or to see the conditioning, denial or social acceptance that school is fine. We talk about the long-term impact on us as adults of these traumas and the effect on our psychological and physical health of being in a chronic stressed state. We share about the adultism that is such a strong part of our culture, where adults get to decide and power-over children and where children’s voice, opinions, needs and desires are overlooked and not honoured. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. Lots of love to you xx #awareparenting #naturallearning #community #marionrose #supportforparents #parentingpodcast #learningwithoutschool #trust #schooltrauma #healingtrauma

In this episode, we talk about school trauma - what it is, how it happens, and how institutionalised it is. We share about the fight/flight/freeze response and how Aware Parenting understands that we also have an innate healing response to move out of those states, which are often not supported in schools. We include the third principle of Aware Parenting - both the prevention of stress and trauma as well as the healing from it. We discuss the bigger cultural shift we are inviting, rather than simply inviting everyone to homeschool. Joss shares her experience of being in boarding school from the age of 8, and the four main areas of trauma that happen in many schools. We talk about how vial it is for us as adults to become more comfortable with feeling and expressing our feelings again. To hear Joss on An Evolving Man podcast talking about school and trauma, the links are here: https://spotify.link/HIlvp8ilQyb https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/an-evolving-man-podcast/id1586665873?i=1000605723877 To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware Parenting with Joss.

Welcome back to another episode of the Aware Parenting and Natural Learning podcast. In this episode we discuss the challenges of juggling everything in life by ourselves when we are pratising Aware Parenting and Natural Learning. We share how normal it is to find it really difficult to do work, to support our children’s learning and to meet all the other demands of life, and to do so in isolation in our nuclear families in this culture. We share many of the powerful things that we have found to support ourselves to make it possible to thrive in our families, including: deconditioning ourselves, choosing to put down some balls, freeing ourselves from coercion and guilt and “shoulds”, organising our work around the other needs and priorities of our lives, reaching out for emotional and practical support and community from others on this path, and not comparing ourselves and our families to others. We share the strategies that we have found most helpful on this journey. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. To read Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, please visit www.awareparenting.com/learning.htm Lots of love to you xx

This episode title comes from a quote from Gabor Maté: "It is completely unnatural for kids to be separated from their parents for the whole day." In this episode, we talk about how The Disconnected Domination culture peddles the lie that babies and children need to be separated from their parents at an early age in order to become independent. We shared about how our own early experiences of separation before we were ready were traumatic, and how that opened our eyes to what we wanted and didn't want for our own children in terms of connection, attachment and separation. We talked about how this belief in the importance of early separation is passed on through shaming, judgment and unhealed trauma. We discussed why attachment-style parenting is the first of three aspects of Aware Parenting, and how we supported our children to be securely attached. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware Parenting with Joss.

Episode 13: In this episode of The Aware Parenting and Natural Learning Podcast, we discuss the documentary "Schooling the World" by Carol Black. This incredibly powerful movie interviews the villagers of Hemis Shukpa-Chen and other Ladakhi people, as well as Manish Jain, Vandana Shiva, Wade Davis and Helena Norberg-Hodge about the role of schooling in colonisation and the implementation of a centralised economy. As Helena Norberg-Hodge says, "99 percent of all the activities under the label of education come under a very specific agenda that grew out of the colonial expansion across the world by Europeans - and now the agenda is the same across the world, to pull people into dependence on a modern, centralised economy and to pull them away from their own independence, their own culture and self-respect." In the podcast, we share the feelings we felt when we first watched the movie and the effect it had on our own natural learning journeys. We discuss the ideas raised, such as how poverty is created, the role of indoctrination, how people are pulled out of their lineage and culture and the effects of this. We talk about loss of language and the deep sadness and outrage we experienced watching the movie and seeing children being punished for speaking their original languages. We talk about what we learnt about elders being taught to believe that they know nothing, and how reading and writing becomes valued as the only form of language. We found this a really powerful episode to record. You can find out more about the movie by Carol Black here: http://carolblack.org/schooling-the-world/ You can find out about our Aware Parenting and Natural Learning Community for 2023 here: https://marionrose.samcart.com/products/the-aware-parenting-and-natural-learning-community-with-joss-and-marion-2023/ You can find out more about Marion and her work here: www.marionrose.net and Joss and her work at: www.awareparenting.com.au Lots of love xoxox

In this episode of the Aware Parenting and Natural Learning Podcast, we talk about the history of schooling. Our conversation is based on an article of the same name written by Peter Gray, the Psychologist and research professor and author of "Freedom to Learn". In this article he describes the history of education from hunter gatherer times to the modern day. We discuss how schools are the product of history, rather than the product of science or research about learning. We describe the evolution and purpose of schools throughout human history and the cultural conditioning of schools - how schools have been used to inculcate children for thousands of years. We talk about how far removed from the 3 aspects of Aware Parenting schools have always been and many continue to be. We discuss how fundamental play has always been for human learning and yet it has been missing in schools, throughout history, with so little room for play in most schools now. We talk about moving away from universal education to ways that are more a fit for us and our learning as human beings. To learn more about Peter Gray or to read his full article, please visit https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/freedom-learn/200808/brief-history-education Details of our new Aware Parenting and Natural Learning Community for 2023 will be coming soon. To learn more about Marion, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media. Sending love to you all xx

In this episode of The Aware Parenting and Natural Learning Podcast, we talk about the challenges we've experienced practicing the combination of these two philosophies, and the challenges we've observed mentees and friends going through. Most of all, we offer deep compassion to you in any challenges you might be experiencing, and we offer bigger context reasons why challenges are so normal and natural. We share about ways we found for everyone to get their needs met, despite living in a culture that doesn't support Aware Parenting and Natural Learning. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media @ _marion_rose_ and Aware parenting with Joss. To read Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, please visit www.awareparenting.com/learning.htm

Welcome back to another episode of the Aware Parenting and Natural Learning podcast. In this episode we discuss number 11 of Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, which is as follows: Children learn best when they have a warm, supportive relationship with their parents and teachers. The learning process is enhanced when parents and teachers: - show acceptance and love while giving children good quality attention - Use encouragement rather than praise, rewards or criticism - Have age-appropriate expectations (neither too high not too low) - Use a non-punitive approach to discipline - Encourage children to ask questions and be independent thinkers - Accept children's painful emotions and allow them to cry. We talk about the failings of our school systems and the impact of learning in environments that do not support our children in these ways. As always, we invite deep self-compassion for everyone listening! To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. To read Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, please visit www.awareparenting.com/learning.htm

Welcome back to another episode of the Aware Parenting and Natural Learning podcast. In this episode we discuss number 9 of Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, which is as follows: Stress and trauma can interfere with the learning process by causing confusion, anxiety, grief, anger, and difficulty concentrating. The learning process is enhanced when children are allowed to release painful emotions through the natural healing mechanisms of play, laughter, and crying. In the episode, we talk about sources of stress and trauma in traditional school environments, the hyperarousal or dissociation that can occur as a result, and the effect that has on a child's openness and spaciousness for learning. We share about our own experiences as children as well as what we have experienced with our own children. As always, we invite deep self-compassion for everyone listening! To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. To read Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, please visit www.awareparenting.com/learning.htm

Welcome back to another episode of the Aware Parenting and Natural Learning podcast. In this episode we discuss number 9 of Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, about screens and learning. We start by inviting people to bring compassion to this tricky aspect of parenting and learning and to put down any judgement, shame or guilt about screens. We acknowledge how difficult it is to parent in our nuclear families without the support we are designed to need and how screens can often make parenting easier. We discuss the many beneficial ways that screens impact our lives and our children’s lives and discuss how we have navigated screen use to meet everyone’s needs. We offer reassurance about how to stay connected and trusting around screens and how to offer loving limits when screens become a control pattern for our children. We share the importance of getting support and listening for ourselves as we find ways to manage these enticing instruments in a way that suits our unique individual families. Whether your children are at school or not, this episode will support you to bring more compassion and clarity around screens to yourself and your children. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. To read Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, please visit www.awareparenting.com/learning.htm Lots of love to you, Joss xx

In this episode, we discuss the ways in which the Disconnected Domination Culture, and many schools, value particular types of learning style above others, and the effect that has on children whose key learning styles aren't those. These learning styles are based on different forms of intelligence and include: logical, mathematical, verbal, visual, spatial, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. We talk about the de-conditioning process we've each been on to come to value all forms of learning equally, and how we see that in our own children. We offer suggestions and ideas to explore for parents who also want to get free from this conditioning, both in their own lives, and in supporting their children's unique journeys. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. To read Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, please visit www.awareparenting.com/learning.htm

Welcome to another episode of the Aware Parenting and Natural Learning podcast. In this episode we discuss another of Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning. We talk about how “earlier is not necessarily better. Each child develops at his or her own rate”. We share how we have learnt to trust our children’s own unique timing with their learning and how natural learning and Aware Parenting have supported us to treat our children with respect and unconditional love. We talk about the damage of exams and gradings and how schools set our children up for comparison and competition in a way that is stressful and detrimental to their learning. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. To read Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, please visit www.awareparenting.com/learning.htm Lots of love to you, Joss xx

In this episode, we are again inspired by Aletha Solter's Principles of Learning, this time, 'The best toys are ones that inspire children to imagine, build, create, and think.' We discuss toys, including those that are overwhelming for children, and we also talk about the power of play and the beauty of having plenty of opportunities to play with our children when we practice Natural Learning. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. To read Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, please visit www.awareparenting.com/learning.htm

Welcome to another episode of the Aware Parenting and Natural Learning podcast. In this episode we discuss another of Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning. We talk about creating rich learning environments for our children at home. We discuss the often-overwhelming sensory impacts of school and how that can push our children into chronic hyperarousal or dissociation states, which impacts their capacity to learn. We share how our children have thrived in learning at home in a very relaxed, inspiring and nourishing sensory environment, day after day. We share about the primal human needs for comfort, beauty, peaceful space, choice and being in environments that are attuned to the individual needs of each child. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. To read Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, please visit www.awareparenting.com/learning.htm Lots of love to you, Joss xx

In this episode, we return to Aletha Solter's Aware Parenting Principles of Learning article, particularly focussing on play, and how children learn through play. We discuss how play is devalued in this culture and how much we value it in Aware Parenting and Natural Learning, seeing it as the primary mode of learning for a child's first decade. We share our own experiences of supporting our children with an environment rich with play, and explore the pain many children experience when faced with long hours sitting at desks being given verbal instruction. We also have a wonderful conversation about the learning power of conversation! To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. To read Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, please visit www.awareparenting.com/learning.htm

Welcome to another episode of the Aware Parenting and Natural Learning podcast. In this episode we discuss some of Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning. We talk about trusting that our children are born with the desire to learn and the ability to do so in their own unique ways. We share the long and ongoing process we have been through to decondition and deschool ourselves in order to be able to trust our children with learning. We discuss how to support our children’s learning to be self-directed instead of imposing our conditioning around what learning “should” look like. To learn more about Marion and her offerings, please visit www.marionrose.net and Joss at www.awareparenting.com.au and follow us on social media at Marion Rose and Aware parenting with Joss. To read Aletha Solter’s Principles of Learning, please visit www.awareparenting.com/learning.htm Sending you love, Joss xx