I'm so delighted that Kim Cousins is back on the podcast! Kim is an Aware Parenting instructor as well as a registered nurse who works on a perinatal mental health unit. She is also studying a graduate certificate in family therapy. She was also on episode 136 with her colleague, Erin. Please note that this episode talks about painful experiences in relation to food and feelings. As always, I invite you to listen in to yourself about whether you feel called to listen, and if you need to...

This is the last episode in the series related to my latest best-selling book, 'I'm Here and I'm Listening', before I return to finish the food series, so this episode is a kind of bridge back to that! Then I'll be starting the second sleep series! Today, I share a story from my book, again from a child's perspective. Before that, I talk about how in Aware Parenting, one of the core aims is to help our child/ren stay connected with, or return to, the innate wisdom of their body, including...

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...

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...

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...

In this episode, I talk about when children use have a soft toy, blanket or other object as a control pattern. This might be something they use to suppress their feelings when going to sleep or during the day when feelings bubble up. I explain about how they used to be known as 'transitional objects' in Winnicott's work, and how we see them differently in Aware Parenting. I also share my own experience of having a bunny as a control pattern for many years, and the touching experience I had...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

My new book is out! It's called 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' and is for parents of 1-8 year olds. In this episode, I read the first couple of chapters of the book. The audiobook won't be available for a few months, so I thought I would give you an audio taster! The paperback of 'I'm Here and I'm Listening' became an immediate best seller – reaching number 1 in the Child Development and the Emotions and Feelings categories (both Best Sellers and Hot New Releases) and number 66 in all books...

Welcome back after the festive season! This episode is informed by Aware Parenting, but includes a lot of The Marion Method in terms of our reparenting and reculturing journey. I talk about what may be getting in the way of our deep connection with our innate body wisdom in relation to food: Our thoughts and beliefs and understanding about food and eating; Needs we may be meeting with food; Ways we might be suppressing or dissociating with food. I share about why judging ourselves and...

Hello again! This is a pause in the food, feelings and trust series for a festive season special, all about the opposite of overwhelm. I share about: The importance of connection with yourself and your values; How to prevent overwhelm in the first place (saying no is a big factor here); How you can recognise overwhelm in yourself and your baby/child/teen; How to release overwhelm. I'm sending you so much love this festive season and I'm so willing for you to have plenty of connection,...

In this episode, I talk about how to help children who have learnt to eat to suppress their feelings. This follows on from the last episode about helping babies who have learnt to suppress their feelings, and the one before that, about how babies and children learn to feed and eat to suppress their feelings in the first place. If you haven't already listened to episode 160, I recommend listening to that one first. And as always, I want to remind you that it's so understandable if your...

In this episode, I share about what you can do if your baby has learnt to suppress their feelings with feeding. If you haven't already, I invite you to listen to the previous episode, where I talked about how babies and children learn to suppress their feelings with food. I said I was going to talk about babies and children in this episode, but I'm separating them into two episodes - so the next episode will be about helping children who have learnt to suppress their feelings with food. I...

In this episode, I talk about how babies and children learn to suppress their feelings with food and how we can prevent that or lessen those effects. I share about: The importance of self-compassion; Reassurance that this is one of the most common ways that babies and children suppress feelings; Whatever age your baby or child is, it's possible to help them relearn how to distinguish between hunger and upset feelings; Inviting you to connect in with yourself to see if this resonates; How...

I'm so delighted that Carly Facius is back again! Carly is a Registered Midwife, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and holds a Master of Primary Maternity Care and is an Aware Parenting instructor. Carly has already been on two episodes of The Aware Parenting Podcast: Episode 149 on Communicating with babies and Episode 154 on Reclaiming our power through birth. I absolutely loved this conversation! We are sending so much love to any woman who gave up breastfeeding before...

After the last episode, I felt called to share more details about how things get in the way of children's innate body wisdom. If our aim is wanting our child to make the most optimal food choices based on their bodily sensations as well as information from us and from their own prior experience about whether they enjoyed the food and how they felt afterwards, then knowing what can get in the way of that can be helpful, whilst also being compassionate with ourselves that we live in a culture...

I absolutely love that Clare Louise Brumley, PhD, has returned to the podcast. She was on episode 135 about an evolutionary perspective on sleep. She is an Aware Parenting instructor as well as registered nutritionist and Integrative Medicine Practitioner and she did her PhD on this topic. We talk about: Why we are meant to feel a lot of feelings in relation to food; How an evolutionary perspective helps parents; How we can support children to use their sensory system to know what food is...

In this episode, I talk about the self-connected approach to eating, which is officially called the self-demand approach to food or self-regulated eating in Aware Parenting. I talk about children's innate body wisdom in relation to food, and the interplay of that with them needing to learn about the place, family and culture they are born into. I share about what gets in the way of their connection with the sensations in their bodies, and specifically what we can do to help them stay...

Hello and a big warm welcome to the next series, this time about food, feelings and trust. In this episode, I offer an overview, sharing some information about trusting children's wisdom in relation to food and helping them stay connected with that, understanding how eating can become a way of suppressing feelings, and supporting children who already have control patterns in relation to food. I also reveal the title of my next book, which will be coming out fairly soon, as well as...

At the end of this series on the effects of birth, I wanted to share an episode about how wonderful birth can be, and the effects of that on a family. In The Aware Baby, Aletha Solter talks about doing what we can to prepare for birth, and I wanted to offer some examples of that through this conversation with Carly Facius who is a Registered Midwife, International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and holds a Master of Primary Maternity Care and is an Aware Parenting instructor. We...

In this episode, Shelley Clarke returns to the podcast. Shelley is an Aware Parenting instructor, Hand in Hand Instructor, Marion Method Mentor and CranioSacral Therapist. Shelley was on the podcast in episode 146, talking about helping babies to heal from their birth. We talk about trusting that older children can heal from their birth experience and seeing through a different lens so we can recognise that this is what they are doing or trying to do. Shelley offers lots of examples of...