Stephanie Heartfield 6/10/19 Stephanie Heartfield 6/10/19

How I Discovered Aware Parenting

Before I even planned on having kids, I always had this vision of how I would parent. There is a little known fact that every new generation of parents evolve from the way they were raised. Why? Simply because there were parts from all of our childhoods that we knew we didn’t like and therefore we decided to do things differently when it was our turn to have children. For me, I knew that I wouldn’t use punishments, spanking or timeouts with my children.

When I did become pregnant with my first child, I still had in my head the way I wanted to raise him. I had no idea if there was even a way of parenting out there that met my needs as a soon-to-be parent. Little did I know at the time that my desire to parent a certain way would land on my lap and send me on a journey that would shape myself as a Mum, entrepreneur and human being.

In my 8th month of pregnancy with my first child I was reading the Appendix section at the back of my Calmbirth book when I came across an essay written by Marion Rose (now my Mentor and dear Friend) about something called Aware Parenting, which is a parenting philosophy by Developmental Psychologist Aletha Solter PhD. As I sat there all bulgy and pregnant, my mouth got wider and wider in complete shock, delight and excitement as I soaked in those 5 pages of words. I thought to myself “Oh my goodness, can this really be? There is a parenting philosophy out there that 100% fit my desires as a parent. Plus so much more?” The answer was yes. I got up as quickly as an 8-month pregnant woman could and hobbled into the kitchen to share my exciting discovery with my husband. I read to him the entire article out loud. At the end I asked him what he thought. He said that it resonated with him before I’d even finished the first paragraph! That’s pretty powerful stuff.

The next thing I did was jump on the Book Depository website and ordered every single one of Aletha’s books on Aware Parenting (there were 4 at the time, there are now 5). Unfortunately the books didn’t arrive before my son was born, but once they arrived I devoured each page of those four books as quickly as I could. Thankfully, it didn’t take long because the time spent sitting up at night feeding my newborn gave me the opportunity to read the books that changed my life.

I became so passionate about Aware Parenting and sort other parents out in my community and abroad who were following this approach. I then connected with Marion (who I mentioned above). I have done several of the amazing online courses she has to offer. I lived and breathed Aware Parenting, all with the support from my husband – which let me tell you, when you are on the same page about parenting as your spouse if freaking amazing. Our family didn’t really understand this different kind of parenting. Some of them probably thought the whole thing was completely ludicrous. However, there were a couple of family members that went to the effort to understand and even practice Aware Parenting with my kids, for which I am truly grateful.

As my journey into Aware Parenting deepened, I realised it was more a way of life than just a way to parent. It sparked in me a deep passion and altered my career course to specialise in parenting and children. It was very early on that I decided I was going to become a Certified Aware Parenting Instructor. I achieved this almost 4 years ago; 3 years after I commenced my Aware Parenting journey.

So what is this Aware Parenting you ask? If you’ve read my previous blog posts they will give you some inkling as to the philosophy. Aware Parenting is about honouring a child for who they are, seeing them for who they are instead of their behaviour. It is a way of life encompassing compassion, empathy, cooperation, connection and understanding. There are three main components as outlined by Aletha as the core of what Aware Parenting is. These are:

Attachment-style parenting
- Natural childbirth and early bonding
- Plenty of physical contact
- Prolonged breast-feeding
- Prompt responsiveness to crying
- Sensitive attunement
Non-punitive discipline
- No punishments of any kind (including spanking, "time-out", and artificial "consequences")
- No rewards or bribes
- A search for underlying needs and feelings
- Anger management for parents
- Peaceful conflict-resolution (family meetings, mediation, etc.)
Healing from stress and trauma
- Recognition of stress and trauma (including unmet needs) as primary causes of behavioral and emotional problems
- Emphasis on prevention of stress and trauma
- Recognition of the healing effects of play, laughter, and crying in the context of a loving parent/child relationship
- Respectful, empathic listening and acceptance of children's emotions

All of these principles are based on scientific and psychological research into the development of a human baby and child. When you read that tears and tantrums are healing, I wonder how that makes you feel? Before I came across Aware Parenting, I thought these were things that needed to be stopped. However, after reading the scientific research it makes complete sense for me personally. Biochemist William Fey discovered that when we cry to release emotions such as sadness, powerlessness, frustration and anger we are releasing stress hormones from our body. This is a crucial step in allowing our body to regain equilibrium.

Aware Parenting is following what works for you, tuning in to your own feelings around all aspects of your life and going with what resonates with you. As with everything in life, take what you like and leave the rest when you close this window.

I have lived, breathed and parented Aware Parenting for 7 years, and I can say with absolute certainty that the times I have stumbled (whether from exhaustion or stress) and defaulted to the way I was raised (punishment, timeouts, etc), my children have not responded well. When I use Aware Parenting by connecting before correcting, using play for challenging behaviours and holding space for big feelings, everyone feels happier and more connected.

Stephanie Heartfield 9/6/19 Stephanie Heartfield 9/6/19

How Our Expectations Can Ruin Our Relationship With Our Children

Expectations – those darn things that we seem to allow to run amuck in all areas of our lives. The problem is that expectations have a nasty habit of ruining our goals, our dreams and our desires. This is especially true when it comes to our expectations of ourselves, and our relationship with others. Including the sacred relationships we have with our children. When we hold expectations about how others (and ourselves) “should” act, behave and live we are essentially projecting our own issues, insecurities and values onto another person. When that other person happens to be your child, the consequences can be far reaching,

Before I gave birth to my first child, I would visualise what it would be like to be a Mum. How I would really nurture who this little person was, who was about to enter my life. I would focus on how I would parent, what we would do together and how our relationship would have a strong unconditional loving connection. All of this was fine, because it was all up to me and how I acted as a parent, and my responsibilities to my son. However, as time went on and my son entered toddlerhood and his strong personality came stampeding to the forefront, I realised I had (at the time) become attached to these unrealistic expectations of not only how he “should” behave but also who he “should” be. This ironically, is one of the very strong values that I vowed to myself I would follow – that my children would be who they are born to be. That I wouldn’t shape, or mould them to my values. That I was their equal, not their superior. That I would nourish and nurture their uniqueness and celebrate them as the beautiful person they came here to be.

Unfortunately, along the way in my parenting journey my vision became cloudy. It became murky. My expectations of how my son should act and who he should be tainted not only our relationship, but also how I saw him as a person and how I acted – or rather reacted towards him. My delusional visions of him were of this well-behaved, quiet, dreamy little boy who would stay next to me at the shops instead of running off and stressing the hell out of me; who would clean up his own mess; who would sit quietly in his own imaginative world; and who would exude peace and serenity. When my son did not meet these preconceived “delusions” and expectations I felt angry, frustrated and annoyed. I would meet his storm with my own storm. As you can imagine there was thunder, lightening, cyclones and hail. He would run around the house creating a mess of toy destruction in his wake, and claim he was too tired to clean it up. I would yell, threaten, and issue ultimatums – all things I swore I would never do – to try and counteract and “persuade” him to clean up as he went. In all honesty, it became exhausting. My energy got depleted. The more I pushed my expectations on him, the more he pushed back, and then some. We were both trapped in this vicious delusional cycle that I had created all because I had these expectations of who he should be instead of embracing the beautiful person he has always been.

When I realised how much my expectations were projecting on him and negatively affecting our relationship and becoming extremely detrimental to his personal growth, I had an epiphany. Like in the movies where the character suddenly has this flashback of all events prior to that particular moment in time. The camera zooms in on their eye and then pulls back. The audience sees the utter devastation on the character’s face. The moment the character realises they instigated the whole thing. Then we wait a moment more and a look of determination lights up the character’s face, as they make that epiphany, revelation, realisation, that they hold the power to change. Well that dramatic movie occurrence that Hollywood loves to include in basically all their movies happened to me. I realised that by having all these confounded expectations, I had single-handedly destroyed the relationship with my son. In that moment I made a decision. A decision that has brought me more peace, more acceptance, more authenticity and more love. That decision was to release all my expectations and to fully embrace EVERY. SINGLE. aspect of my son for WHO HE IS.

Where I saw loud and noisy; I now see energetic and full of life.

Where I saw messy and destructive; I now see fun and creativity.

Where I saw defiance; I now see free-spirited and courageous.

Where I saw roughhouse; I now see playful.

Where I saw screaming and frustration; I now see as determined and strong.

Where I saw constant movement; I now see as a wild imagination.

In that moment I made a choice. The choice to see my son for who he is, instead of who I think he should be. Now when I see mess and cushions all over the floor I no longer feel frustrated and annoyed that I will be the one that cleans it up. Instead I see the growth and learning that is occurring. The world of imagination and creativity that my son has produced. Yes, I am still the one that cleans up the mess but what is more important; becoming a raving, yelling lunatic and shouting “if you don’t clean up your mess than [insert threat here]” or that my son is learning, expressing himself and being so present in the moment, in his own world that nothing else matters. Cleaning up messes is what comes through developmental milestones and modelling cleaning up – as they say monkey see, monkey do. It just takes patience…a lot of patience to get to the point where they are willing to clean up by themselves.

I remember when I ran my own day care one of the government department assessors said to me “when we come to a home and there is no mess we feel concerned that the children have not been learning.” Life is messy. Fun is messy. Creativity is messy. The big advancements in society didn’t come from cleanliness and tidiness. Your child’s – my sons’ – learning and growth won’t come from that either.

Note: I’ve used the mess example because it was one of my failed expectations of how my son should be that I felt annoyed about most.

My Tips for Releasing Expectations

Write down a list of all the expectations you have of how your child should act and who they should be.
Write down how they are not meeting these expectations.
Turn all these unmet “expectations” into something positive. I.E. defiant becomes free-spirited, knowing their own needs, assertive and/or creative.
Write down all of their positive traits – many of these will overlap with those above .
Become mindful of your reactions towards your child and recognise when you are projecting your expectations onto them.
Breathe and take a moment to alter your automatic response. Research has shown that you can create new habits in 21 days. This also creates different neural pathways in the brain, so that eventually what might have been a yelling match reaction now becomes a peaceful request or a different way of looking at the situation.

Remember that how you react with or connect with your child is a choice YOU make. You could be yelling at your child to clean up their toys until you turn blue but as the saying goes “if you have told your child a thousand times, it is not the child who is the slow learner.” Choose a different response, talk to your child in ways that resonate with them, get them involved in problem-solving a way to get both your needs met. That way they also feel like they are in control of their life, which means it is less likely, they will “rebel” against you.

So now I invite you, when you walk into the room and see a cyclone of destruction everywhere choose to see a world of imagination that your child has created. A mess is easy to clean up, squashed imaginations and hope is not easy to reignite.

I also challenge you to make a choice in every moment to see beyond the loudness, messiness or whatever it is that really gets up in your grill and choose to see it differently. Choose to see it how your child does. Choose to nurture your child for who s/he is and not coerce them into how you think they should be.

Love and Gratitude xx

Stephanie Heartfield 29/4/19 Stephanie Heartfield 29/4/19

Playful Parenting

My eldest son who is 6 years old tends to get overwhelmed and overstimulated easily. These feelings are then externalised as screaming, hitting and throwing. I’ve had various people tell me to threaten him, bribe him, send him to his room and deprive him of things he loves. All of these are techniques I told myself before I became a parent that I would not do. Why? Well, for two reasons. One, it didn’t sit well with me, and two, because I have read the scientific research which demonstrates these ways are not effective and in the long run can even be harmful to the parent-child relationship. Instead I chose to focus on the works of those who

First of all, I am no saint. I have used some of those more severe methods of coercion to get my son to not do something like when he wanted to throw his toys in the ceiling fan or when he refused to get into the car next to a busy road. I didn’t like how it felt using threats and bribes, and I can tell my son certainly didn’t either. It just made his behaviour worse. It made him feel powerless and frustrated. In turn it made me feel the same way. So here we were, stuck in an endless and never-ending battle of wills and stubbornness.

Last year, my husband was away for work, for 8 months. He came home on weekends when he could but it was challenging. I was solo parenting for the first time with a 4 year old and an infant. I was exhausted from lack of sleep. Exhausted from lack of support. Exhausted because I didn’t have the resources, nor the time to replenish my completely depleted supply of energy, love and compassion. I found myself yelling back at my son. It was horrible, for both of us. I look back at those times and shudder. At the same time, that yelling still comes up, because after months of reacting this way, it kind of became habitual. I still feel like I’m detoxing the residual effects of all those threats, all that yelling, all that coerciveness.

The good news is that I reached out to a dear friend and mentor of mine; Marion Rose (PhD). She knew exactly what I needed, offered some suggestions, and away I went to work on myself and rebuild the relationship between my son that has melted in the face of yelling matches. Now, what Marion suggested to me was not new to me, in fact they were things I have known about for years. But hey, I’m human, so I needed a re-push in the right direction. Her recommendations were based on the principles of Aware Parenting (something I am so passionate about I became a certified Instructor 2 years ago). Now, the stuff I am about to share with you is unconventional (as in it goes against what most people see as “discipline”) and it seems completely counterintuitive. If you’ll bear with me, I will share with you specific examples of how it helped my son and I so much more than using “carrots and sticks” (i.e. rewards and punishment).

So here is what I did. I re-read Attachment Play by Aletha Solter (PhD), and re-did Marion’s course “Attachment Play.” I also read for the first time Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen (PhD). Funnily enough, this book had been sitting on my bookshelf, unread, for over a year. I highly recommend both these 2 books and Marion’s course. Lifesavers and life changers. When I was reading Playful Parenting, like most books I read, I took notes, underlined and put sticky notes on pages. I would like to share with you some of the things that I took away from this book so you can understand some of the principles behind the philosophy, and then I will give you specific examples of play I used with my son to solve behavioural upsets.

My Take Aways from Playful Parenting

· For our children to have a Secure Attachment to us as parents (see Bowlby for more on Attachment Theory) our children need cups overflowing with affection, security and attention. When their cups are running low this can lead to behavioural issues.

· Physical play is extremely important to a child’s development and wellbeing

· Most experts who study childhood emotions agree that anger covers up other more vulnerable feelings. For example pain, loss and fear.

· When children are GENTLY stopped from lashing out, they will release their vulnerable and painful feelings through tears, trembling and talking

· Countless studies (which I have read for my Masters degree) have shown that adults hitting children is likely to make them more aggressive, more antisocial and more likely to end up in prison or with serious emotional problems.

· Instead of getting children to be more obedient, strive for them to have good judgment.

· The way children develop into thoughtful, considerate, kind and honest adults is because of the love and affection, the high moral standards and the close relationship with someone who models those values. Promises, threats, rewards and punishments have been called “the most primitive way of dealing with human beings.” Humans have the advanced capacity to think and reason, and because we NEED close connections, it makes much more sense to use loving and talking as the basis of discipline.

· Laughter is the best medicine. It releases anger, fear, anxiety and all those juicy painful emotions.

· By focusing on the underlying need and feeling instead of reacting to the surface behaviour, we can develop strong and lasting connections with our children, that they will then take into the world with honesty, kindness, cooperation and compassion.

The bottom line is CONNECTION, CONNECTION, CONNECTION. So how do we do this when our child is screaming at us, hitting their sibling or us and throwing things across the room? Here are some examples:

· Hitting (The Love Hit Game) – not long after my husband went away for work my son went through a stage of hitting me whenever he felt overwhelmed, upset and angry. While it would have been easier to send him to time-out or punish him in some other way, I decided to turn it into a game. Whenever he hit me (which I made sure I was a distance where it wouldn’t hurt, safety is always important) I said in a mock angry voice “did you just hit me? I think you just hit me. Do you know what that means? That means I must hug you with lots of love.” I then goofily followed him around the room and hugged him in a silly way that he found hilarious. Now, I get it, it may seem like I was “rewarding” his behaviour. But I chose to see his behaviour as a cry for help, here was this little human that was experiencing all these big painful emotions. So I connected with my son and used love to remedy the behaviour. The result? Well the more I did this, the less he hit out of anger. His behaviour dramatically improved and when he did experience these emotions in the future he was better able to process them on his own.

· Baby bear in a cave – this game I learnt from Aletha in her book Attachment Play (p.65). This game is really helpful when it comes to getting our kids to cooperate and they have feelings of powerlessness. For this game I created a cave, which I simply did by making a circle of pillows. I then had my son play the baby bear, and I played the Mama bear going to get honey. I said to my cub “Mama’s going to get honey, no baby bears are allowed out of the cave ok?” Of course my son snuck out, so when I turned around and saw him making a run for it, I got my mock anger on and said “I said no baby bears out of the cave, oh baby bear, you better go back in that cave.” Lots of laughter ensued from this and our connection grew stronger, as did my son’s cooperation.

· Pillow fight – when my son gets really riled up, my husband and I pillow fight with him. We direct the hits and kicks to a pillow. Sometimes we give the pillow a helpless persona “oh don’t hit me I’m a poor little pillow.” Other times we play the weaker role and allow our son to hit us with the pillow. We then fall down and say “oh no you hit me.” When we go to hit him with the pillow, we purposefully miss. This also brings on lots of laughter because children are constantly attempting to deal with their own inadequacies and parents showing their flaws and inability to do things really forms a deep connection that we are all going through similar experiences.

These are just a small number of games we play with my son. We play them either as the need arises. For example any misbehaviour we turn into a game, which then release the emotions in the background and restores harmony. We also set aside time each day (if we can) for “Special Time” where we set a timer and let our kids direct the entire play session.

How are you feeling about bringing more fun, laughter and play into your life?

As adults, it can be quite challenging as most of us left our goofy, awkward selves back in our childhood. I have found though, through personal experience and the research, that this type of “play therapy” is so beneficial for our children, but also for ourselves. I also feel less stressed and anxious after a play session with my son because I laugh as well. I constantly feel out of my comfort zone, and the thought that I’m making a complete fool of myself does make me cringe, but it is so worth it, just to see and feel that deep connection.

If you’ve used play to discipline I would love to hear your experiences. If you are new and willing to throw it all to the wind I would highly recommend Attachment Play course, Attachment Play by Aletha Solter (PhD) or Playful Parenting by Lawrence J. Cohen. Such amazing and life changing resources. If you feel like the whole idea is ludicrous then that is ok too, but just know that this method is always here if you need it.

Love & Gratitude xx