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The Parenting Episode with Devon Harris
1k Plays7 months ago
Are you keen to join the dots between parenting and activism? Want to grow a beautiful parallel paradigm in and through and with the yoof?
I’m not a parent, but I am someone who believes that our “impact” starts at home; that the work of our times begins with ourselves and the beings in our orbit.
So I reached out to one of the greatest women I know who also happens to be a parenthood black belt. Her name is Devon Harris and she’s here to school us in Aware Parenting, which is a thrillingly disruptive alternative to parenting-as-usual.
Devon is a parenting coach, consultant and mother who helps just as many kiddos as she does adult people, because the Aware Parenting approach is relevant to everybody – especially, as I discovered, to our petulant civilisation that’s stuck somewhere been the terrible twos and teenage angst.
We talk about compassion and non-punitive discipline, power reversal games and listening partners, community childcare and schools as feedlots.
I loved this conversation and feel great about bringing it to Reskillience – and grateful to Devon for being such a wise and hilarious guest. Syd, Devon’s kid, was also hanging out as we recorded so you’ll have the pleasure of hearing from him too. So, without further ado, here’s Devon Harris to show us just how radically rewarding raising children can be.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Resilience' Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Resilience! Hey, this is Katie and you're tuned into Resilience, a podcast about skills, the resilience they bring and living closer to the ground so we don't have quite so far to fall if our fragile modern systems fail us.
The Role of Repetition in Nature and Culture
00:00:21
Speaker
Can you recite that intro yet? Is it becoming a little stale?
00:00:26
Speaker
As a writer, I've always tried to avoid repeating myself. Thirsty for new words, new ideas, new stories. So I've really got to gee myself up to reel off the reskillient spiel again and again like a radio jingle. But actually, isn't nature constantly repeating herself?
00:00:46
Speaker
And aren't we glad? The sun rises, the waves lap, the hearts beat, the seasons cycle, the cells divide. Pretty good things to copy and paste.
00:00:58
Speaker
Poets know the power of repetition, and oral cultures too. We're wired for the same old, same old, words, songs, stories, told and retold, embedded in the body and past between people, the drumbeat of culture. So perhaps we need less diversity of content and more contented repetition
00:01:20
Speaker
Huddling around a handful of myths and fables and iconic tales to deepen our bonds, re-establish shared meaning.
Repetition in Storytelling and Parenting
00:01:29
Speaker
Perhaps repetition is the cure for internalised progress, dropping us into circular time.
00:01:36
Speaker
There's nothing lost in the retelling of a story, says Claire Dunn. So I'm thinking that a useful skill to add to the Resculiant's handcrafted leather bum bag is not just how to tell a story, sing a song or hold a ritual, but how to get comfortable doing so again and again, even if it feels a bit naff, even when novelty beckons.
00:01:59
Speaker
As we turn towards winter in the southern hemisphere, campfire stories will be coming into season. And what better co-conspirators in the yarning arts than kids? Kids know that nothing is lost in the retelling of a good story, otherwise they wouldn't want you to reread The Very Hungry Caterpillar 17 times before bed.
00:02:21
Speaker
If you have little people in your life, you might notice their predilection for repetition, their innate love of rhythm and routine. You might also wonder how these natural instincts and wisdoms and joys can possibly withstand the damaging winds of Western culture.
00:02:38
Speaker
You may, like the listeners who've reached out to me requesting more kids' giliens, be keen to join the dots between parenting and activism. How to grow a beautiful parallel paradigm in and through and with our youngsters.
00:02:53
Speaker
I'm not a parent, but I am someone who believes that our impact, in air quotes, starts at home and can quite happily end there, that the work of our times begins with ourselves and the beings in our orbit, necessarily. So I reached out to one of the greatest women I know who also happens to be a parenthood black belt.
Introducing Devon Harris and Parenting Approaches
00:03:14
Speaker
Her name is Devon Harris and she's here to school us in aware parenting, which is a thrillingly disruptive alternative to parenting as usual. Devon is a parenting coach, consultant and mother who helps just as many kiddos as she does adult people, because the aware parenting approach is relevant to everyone, especially, as I discovered, to our petulant civilisation that stuck somewhere between the terrible twos and angsty teenage years.
00:03:43
Speaker
We talk about compassion and non-punitive discipline, power reversal games and listening partners, community childcare and schools as feedlots. I loved this conversation and feel great about bringing it to Risk Illiance and grateful to Devon for being such a wise and hilarious guest.
00:04:01
Speaker
Sid, Devon's kid, was also hanging out as we recorded so you'll have the pleasure of hearing from him too. So without further ado, here's Devon Harris to show us just how radically rewarding raising children can be. Hello testing, testing Devon's microphone, testing. Hello. Tell me what you had for breakfast this morning. I had two pancakes with tahini and then I had an apple crumble muffin from Cliffy's. How would you introduce yourself?
00:04:31
Speaker
No idea. That's how I'd introduce myself. Start by saying hi guys. Hi guys. Hi guys. I have no idea how to introduce these foxes, yeah. Do you have a chicken? Yes, we have one chicken. And everyone said she'll go mad if you don't, if you believe she's happy. She thinks it's brilliant. She had a buddy but the buddy got nicked by a fox because the buddy was a bit, you know, wanted to get out and grow in the neighborhood. She gets out but she comes back at, you know, sort of
00:05:00
Speaker
six o'clock every evening and said, excuse me, can you put me back now? You've got a cube in your backyard. Okay. This isn't a bedroom chicken. No, I mean, she's the inside of it. Does she shit everywhere? Well, not everywhere, but you know, I've got a tolerance of like, I can pick up three and then I'm like, right, you're out.
00:05:18
Speaker
So she can hold on for long enough. She gets to stay in for longer. And I think she's kind of cotton on to it. Are you parenting a chicken? Or is she parenting me? I thought actually that's a really interesting thought that's just struck me. Can you apply aware parenting to anything? Yeah. Anything and everything.
00:05:41
Speaker
Yeah. Amazing. A whole world of emotions and feelings and thoughts and ideas inside of everything. Yeah. Yeah. One of the big reasons I wanted to bring the parenting thread into the resilience braid that works is because I feel like even if you don't have kids that don't want anything to do with kids and never intend on having them in your life, it's actually vital to understand
00:06:06
Speaker
how to manage ourselves and how to nurture ourselves and also then by extension the civilization that we're a part of and I really love I love Charles Eisenstein so much and I've heard him repeat time and again that you know we exalt these key figures in history like Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, but they had parents who allowed them to
00:06:30
Speaker
to be the people they are. How do you see the connection between parenting and this very wounded society that we seem to be living in?
Parenting, Society, and Compassionate Practices
00:06:41
Speaker
Such a big question. It just starts more.
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah, it is everything, you're right. And it's not everything at the same time. There's just as many incredible achievers that have had, you know, extraordinarily traumatic upbringings. But you're right, it's, you know, with the we're parenting that we're just talking about, you know, this is about being able to parent yourself, being able to coach and guide and, you know, reframe and, you know, make
00:07:11
Speaker
more empowered meaning out of life circumstances and situations and this is a framework that means that we can do that for our children but yeah we can also do that for ourselves. Yeah and I mean what would you say about your own parenting as in I'm sorry the people who raised you?
00:07:31
Speaker
I think that the line of they did the best that they could with the knowledge and information they had at the time and with the resources around them and in the context of society, what was going on at that time, they did a perfect job. Absolutely. And I reflect on that and just think, yep, there were so many wonderful things that you did. There were less wonderful things that you did, but it's all contextualized. It all makes sense. And this is one of the crux of the parenting
00:07:57
Speaker
that I live within is that everything makes sense. When you look at the context, everything makes sense. We look at the unmet needs or the pent-up feelings that drive behaviour. It helps us just plug into this intense sense of compassion and understanding and patience. It's a bottomless well of capacity to hold everything.
00:08:24
Speaker
Yeah, that idea that even when people do the most fucked up things, you can actually have compassion for how that has arisen in them is pretty revolutionary, I'd say. And that it's not an effort to be compassionate when you come at it from this angle. There's no trying. There's no like trying to find the compassion. It's just it is there. Like it's online.
00:08:46
Speaker
It's ever-present. Could you say more about that? What do you mean? Well, when we remove the barriers to it, like this is just a night human, you know, this is just a nightly human. This is just who we are. We are compassionate. And when we remove the the obstacles, things like, you know, dismiss, deny, patronize, you know, when we come across something that
00:09:10
Speaker
doesn't fit what we believe we should be, or what is good, or what is acceptable, or, you know, acceptable behaviour. Straight away, we're just like demonise, you know, this is terrible, this is bad, we'll do it in ourselves and we'll do it in others. And so as children, so this is where this parenting for me comes in is when we accept everything that our children bring with this understanding that
00:09:37
Speaker
hey, there's a good reason. You know, my first assumption is there's a good reason for whatever it is that's going on. We can listen for that. And it inevitably comes out very quickly that, oh, okay, it makes sense. It makes sense that you feel this way. Oh, I can really see that. Now I'm wondering if that sense of acceptance and idea of listening can be then used to really see where we're at as a people. Do you feel a sense of like there's an
00:10:06
Speaker
There's inevitability about where we've gotten to as a culture. Or do you still kind of rage against it? I rage against it. I do both. I rage against it a lot of the time, but then, you know, I do. I always come back to remembering, hang on a second, this makes perfect sense. You know, follow this red under these circumstances. This is, and look, I had, full disclosure, I had a very profound training around this on a personal level. So one of my jobs,
00:10:36
Speaker
When I was, I think, mid-20s, I think I started around 25 and finished around 28, was working with young people inside the prison system. And I needed to find a way to see the good in them.
00:10:52
Speaker
And so it was over a few years of going, hang on a second, why have you done what you're doing? Why did this happen? And these were heinous crimes, awful crimes, and yet it was my job to support these guys and to support them coming out of prison, integrating back into society.
00:11:08
Speaker
And in order for me to be able to do my job effectively, I needed to find a genuine, authentic part of myself that really did understand their story, that really did understand where it was that they came from and what it was that was actually driving the behaviours. So when I then came to be a parent, it was like that that I was drawing on. It's like my baby's not trying to manipulate me. My baby's not trying to deliberately try to wind me up.
00:11:31
Speaker
My baby's not entitled or self-centered. This is my baby's just here trying to get a need met. My job is to find out what that need is, to meet it. And one of the things that we miss out on in parenting is that we think that we don't consider that crying is also a need.
00:11:52
Speaker
That's one of the needs. We just need to have a cry sometimes. We just need to complain. We just need to offload all of the stress and the strain that's been loaded on us throughout the day. We often look at kids and go, oh, they haven't got all this stress and strain. But when we scratch the surface, they really have. We live in a
00:12:09
Speaker
very fast, loud world that's completely set up for adults and just looking at the size of chairs and tables and you know where the door handles are and it's disempowering, it highlights their weaknesses and they have a lot to complain about by the end
Devon's Background and Systemic Insights
00:12:25
Speaker
of the day. Okay, so working in a prison in your 20s is intense. What's the background to that? How did you actually get interested in why people are the way they are and then how we actually grow them up?
00:12:39
Speaker
I think by the time I stepped into this world, we'd already come a long way. So the feminist movement had already washed through and things were happening. So I think the next step that sort of became obvious to me as a 15-year-old was ageism, that we don't take young people's thoughts and feelings and preferences.
00:13:03
Speaker
I was outraged that we didn't get to vote. That's a ridiculous concept to me. Why wouldn't 14, 15-year-olds be able to do that? I was disgruntled. I was annoyed at that. I was annoyed at the groupings that we had in the school system and this is the rate and pace that you need to go out and these are the levels that you need to pass through.
00:13:26
Speaker
this is the time you need to get up in the morning the time you need to go to bed at night and this is you know all of these constraints which I just thought were ridiculous and didn't apply to me or a lot of the people that I knew. So I went you know so my first degree or my only degree my first degree listened to me
00:13:46
Speaker
Go on, reel them off. I was in youth studies, so I studied child and adolescent development and from there I sort of worked my way through, you know, I was looking for my, you know, where's my point of efficacy? Where can I make the biggest difference for young people?
00:14:00
Speaker
And I went through child protection. I'm like, oh, look at me. I'll be like Charlie's Angels going out and saving children. I got clear on that pretty quickly that that's not how that system works. So from there worked with homelessness organizations, mental health organizations. I worked on a couple of wilderness therapy programs and sort of went through the whole gamut of those before I went, no, no, no.
00:14:26
Speaker
where like I need to find something that's actually really like give me the um give me the worst of the worst like throw it at me here like where can I really be helpful and that's how I ended up in the prison system. Oh my goodness it's such a young age to have that level of insight around you know your own experience and then how you can apply that in a helpful way back you know into
00:14:51
Speaker
onto your peers and onto people. It's incredible to me that a 15 year old would have that degree of insight and understanding. Have you ever doubted yourself or has this trajectory been pretty obvious and linear?
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah, no, I went down other paths. So, but there was after that, I decided that the system was so incredibly broken and that, you know, I could make a difference, but it was on a very small scale. I like to actually change, you know, it's like that whole, you can't fix a broken system with the same thinking that created it. It's like, I need to do something from outside the system in order to genuinely make a difference.
00:15:40
Speaker
And so, but I didn't know how, so I left the welfare sector and effectively ran off and joined the circus. So I went on the festival circuit in the US with a friend of mine who was a costume maker and stage decor at a dozen or more different festivals that ended in
00:16:04
Speaker
Burning Man in, I think that was 2009. Wow. And so that was a two year sort of, you know, step out of that system and go, well, hang on, this is a bunch of people. I mean, there were three rules for our little posse, which was, does it look good? Was rule number one, you know, it needs to look good. Does it feel good? It needs to feel good. Because if it's not those first two things, then it's not worth doing.
00:16:28
Speaker
And to have that real orientation shift from this driven and sitting inside of this quite intensely uncomfortable situations, intensely uncomfortable, it's kind of an understatement, that to have that contrast I think was really important for me to really go, hang on a second, there's gotta be, what is the alternative thinking to this? How can we do things differently?
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean maybe I take sentiments like that and kind of put them through my own filter and biases but what I see happening so often and what I've noticed in myself is starting out with that
00:17:08
Speaker
young kind of impassioned energy of activism and doing good to others and having a bit of a moral lens and then gradually tracking towards what is my heart desire and what is that wellspring of love that then makes every one of my actions from the micro to the you know maximum
00:17:32
Speaker
Mean something is that kind of what you're talking about like coming from the this is what I should be doing to What actually feels good in my body and my my being? So yeah, so well said and it's it's what actually it's what actually works Not just what I should be doing
00:17:49
Speaker
uh following you know the the systems and structures the current systems and structures that were in place and you know playing within that set of rules it's like huh okay here's a whole other set of rules to to play with here what can i do what can i do from out here and from that point i went and retrained as a yoga teacher hi sid that's devin's boy sid just dropping a camera back which is
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah, nice. He's just hanging out on the property here. I am so all about like the integration of everything into the audio as you know. So yeah, just acknowledging that. Yeah, sorry, your yoga training.
Children as Innovators and Teachers
00:18:29
Speaker
Yeah and you know Sid is such a huge part of this he really has been such a huge teacher and I think one of the things that I talk to parents a lot about is that there's no such thing as an interruption with our child with our children. Oh my god great I know let's bring it in let's bring it in and I'll often say you know in sessions with people I'm like oh no
00:18:47
Speaker
if their child interrupts, I'm like, what did they just say? Like, actually, that's probably something really important that we need to listen to. Like, what is life saying for your kid right now? Like, it's probably an important piece. And with that sort of, you know, shift, you know, in thinking, people become a lot more, you know, accepting of children's interrupt using air quotations, you know, interruptions, it's like, oh, no, these are welcome, you know, this is welcome, important welcome stimuli.
00:19:13
Speaker
Whoa! Alright, so wait a second, we're getting back to your history in a minute, but my friends with kids, it's just impossible to have a conversation, which is totally fine, but I wonder about, I know there's schools of thought around, don't give your kids that kind of attention, because they're just learning to be monopolising or dominating in a situation.
00:19:36
Speaker
How do you respond to that difference in thinking? It's not just about accepted and surrendered to. It's about, I need you to come and talk to me about things. I need your perspective. I need to hear your preferences, your needs, your desires. I want this.
00:19:51
Speaker
The world that my child is creating, the world that children are creating, is going to be a far better world than the one that I can create, given the rigidity of my mind now. They've got so many innovative ideas and ways of viewing things that they can
00:20:12
Speaker
They're the ones who have been who are going to be able to change the world and welcoming that as a practice, I think just encourages it more and encourages a higher quality of interruption to I think when we try to shut it down it becomes this irritating thing and they get confused in what it is that they've come in to say, whereas when I welcome what happens with
00:20:30
Speaker
my child and what I see happening with my you know with the people that I coach is that they come in they say whatever it is that they need to say and then they go back out again and it's like over in a flash and you've got something really valuable pop it pop that in the pocket and get back to what it was that you're up to.
00:20:44
Speaker
That is so brilliant. And so this is not spoiling our children. No, we're parenting the number one thing is we can't spoil them. We can't give them too much love. There's no such thing. That's a pervasive myth that needs to be debunked. There's no such thing as spoiling. OK, great. Yeah, I have read that, but
00:21:05
Speaker
Yeah, I still find it really challenging based on how I was raised and how I see other people doing it. What else kind of wants to be said, I guess, about your backstory that then feeds into what you're doing now? We'll come back to that challenge.
00:21:22
Speaker
Just taking a big sip of ginger and dandelion root tea from our local co-op as well. Spicy. But back to the backstory around, you know, so then I went on and retrained as a yoga teacher. So I'd come off that festival circuit and come back into life here. And again, I was faced with this question of, well, how am I going to serve? You know, I've got my, I've got my degree. I've got all these years of experience. It's like, and I've got this burning desire to be of service to young people. It's like, huh.
00:21:47
Speaker
what am I going to do and I'm like I know I'll teach them yoga like that's going to save them everything will be fine so so got yoga certified and and you know got right into that year-long course and meditation courses and
00:22:01
Speaker
took that into the youth detention center and went, I'm here to teach you all yoga and how to meditate. Let's do this. And again, I was just met with the same thing. It's like, this is not a problem with the young people. This is a problem with the environment. This is a problem with the systems and structures that they're inside of. The fact that they're rebelling, the fact that they're behaving like this actually reflects really well on them. And that saying of, you know, it's not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society, like that just rings in my mind all the time.
00:22:31
Speaker
I'm looking at these guys going what are you doing is completely functional I don't want you to not do this like be mad like be angry be upset in the context of your life this is the healthiest response so what do you do with that well and this is where then I you know so the history goes on I then became pregnant and went oh holy crap
00:22:54
Speaker
I'm, what am I going to do? Like, what do I do with this? Because yeah, it is a healthy response, but it's also a very painful one and very painful to live inside of. And I don't want that for my unborn child. So what am I going to do differently? It's like, ah, I've got to create this different environment, huh? But I can't change what's out there. I can't change this wider.
00:23:16
Speaker
you know systemic issues but I can change the way that I parent and this little bubble that I put around us around our family around myself and my child and that's where I was like right okay let's look at different parenting paradigms let's look at these different approaches and find one that's going to actually work and I started methodically leafing through so which one's going to fish and found a way of parenting okay and
00:23:43
Speaker
That's the conclusion you came to for yourself, that kind of zone zero bubble, you and your baby. Do you think that's a good prescription for most people to kind of start there or do we still need people who are working at scale to kind of like pull different strings in the system?
00:24:01
Speaker
To be honest, sadly, like my, and I'm happy for people to argue with me, but my personal view is I think the most, the biggest point of efficacy we can have is with children. And if we get this, if we really focus here and we get this piece right, the rest of it, the rest is going to take care of itself. Yeah. I absolutely agree. And this has been.
00:24:23
Speaker
this, this hunch that I've had for a really long time, but I don't have the rigor or the being botheredness to kind of back myself in some, you know, with some intellectual spiel about why that is so, but again, this is why I was so drawn to speak to you because I don't see the way we parent as separate from learning ancestral skills or things that are going to help build resilience into the future. I actually think, fuck me, this is like the conversation to have about a collapsing civilization. Oh,
00:24:51
Speaker
actually we can just bring it right home. And isn't that so much more achievable for every single person? And again, like thinkers like Tyson Yunkoporo when he brings that indigenous perspective in of the network effect of like just bloody like come back to your people. One person, like if we all did that, amazing. That's done. But for some reason we love to stretch and reach over there and neglect the thing right here. It's just not as sexy.
00:25:22
Speaker
Well, and it's harder. I think it's easier to look outside of ourselves. When we start looking inside of ourselves, and as you all know, with family systems, it's a mess. Like I said, it's a mess in there. It's like, how do I even start with this? It's so much easier to point the finger outwards at others and not look inside. The cockatoos are angry about that as well. Oh, outright. They're screeching like mad people. OK, one thing I really liked on your website was the idea of there's business as usual.
00:25:51
Speaker
there's parenting as usual and you as an aware parenting practitioner or coach and actually I should clarify what what you call yourself but you're disrupting parenting as usual. So I wonder if you could set the same the current kind of status quo when it comes to raising children and doing the parenting thing. Okay so currently it's still widely accepted that we use punishments, rewards, bribes, that this is the way that you know we work from this behaviouralism perspective. I'm from psychology that's like we can
00:26:21
Speaker
we can make the behaviour we want to have happen. And that is, for me, just so erroneous and so problematic and just absolutely chips away at trust, chips away at safety and security over time and destroys relationships. And there's no like, like way to say that. But
00:26:40
Speaker
as long as we're employed and I still do it. Like I'm not going to pretend that I don't. I still fall back on that from time to time, but I, when I do, I name it. I'm like, Oh, you know, I'm, well, actually my child names it. I can see what you're doing. That's not very aware parenting of you. And I'm like, all right, wise guy. So that for me, that's like one of the biggest ones. It's like, how do we do away with that? And the way parent has got some really great tools that, that mean we don't, um,
00:27:09
Speaker
that we don't fall into needing to punish and needing to bribe or needing to reward. What's the alternative to that? So just for anybody who's listening, if this is you, that's so normal. It's so, so normal. It's deeply ingrained in our society.
00:27:24
Speaker
And that this approach wouldn't have a magic bullet for a single episode, for a single incident, but what we do is we build over time. It's an accumulative practice that we establish an understanding and we establish agreements, right? Like how things operate, how things work, so there's a level of predictability.
00:27:49
Speaker
and a level of understanding, then it's more about reminding our child at that time about what it is that we need to do. But it's also in that moment, if that was my child and that was my situation, I'd be recognising that, huh, there's some feelings on board here. And if I listen to those feelings, if those feelings get some air time,
00:28:10
Speaker
If that little girl gets to complain for a little bit, she's going to come right back into balance and she's going to go right back to being the innate human, the cooperative, connected, wants to contribute. That's what ends up happening in families that operate in this way. It's like, everyone's like,
00:28:26
Speaker
fighting to help each other and to do something to make life better for others because that's where they get the dopamine hit from. That's the reward. It's this innate internal reward system of being a part of a family, of belonging, of really making a meaningful contribution, making a difference.
Foundations of Aware Parenting
00:28:45
Speaker
Oh my God, I want to pop out a kid now so I can experiment on it. This is so magical, Devin. Okay, so I don't want to skip over the aware parenting philosophy and, you know, the real flesh and bone of what that is. So maybe if you could illustrate, give some examples around what aware parenting is.
00:29:07
Speaker
as this alternative. Okay. Yeah, for sure. And I think most people, I imagine most people listening will be very well grounded in attachment parenting. And so you understand attachment parenting. So, you know, keeping our kids close, you know, we've got physical proximity when meeting needs promptly, like if some, you know, there's a cry, we
00:29:26
Speaker
Maybe we think, is it needing something to eat? Are they needing to sleep? What's going on for our baby at that time? And so meeting those needs promptly. So this is built on attachment parenting. There's no argument with attachment parenting. So for anyone who's read the Continuum Concept and those books, brilliant, right? This is foundational from that place. We then add two extra elements to it. So one is that
00:29:50
Speaker
this non-tunitive discipline, right, so we don't do rewards punishments, right, or bribes. We meet any sort of teaching that we think we need to do, or any sort of, you know, redressing of behaviour. We look at, we use play. And so there's a specific nine styles of attachment play that we've got, and we practice those, and then we know what to pull out at any given time, or better still, our child knows.
00:30:14
Speaker
They'll come to us after they've started playing these types of games. They come to us with it. Hey, can we play this one? Can I play that one? Or just initiate that play because they know what they need in order to come back into balance. And then the other part of it is this understanding that it's pent up feelings that there's trauma that needs to be released and that that's another need. And so we just need to listen to kids cry from time to time. And actually when I say time to time,
00:30:44
Speaker
more likely on a daily basis in our current world. And that time needs to be set aside for emotional release. Wowza, okay, play. This is good. This is not really featured on the podcast before. We are a serious podcast operation that does not indulge in such playful pursuits, but I do feel like play is such a game changer. And yeah, tell me more about how that might help adult people as well.
00:31:12
Speaker
So play like, so laughter, crying, these are all about releasing, you know, releasing emotions. And so with the, with the play where
00:31:22
Speaker
both accessing laughter, where we can release tension, you know, let go of embarrassment, we can dislodge all sorts of feelings, but we're also able to process, like emotionally process. So within these different styles of play, there's room for, you know, say one of them is separation games. So, you know, all of the times in my life where I was, you know, wasn't able to be with my mum or my dad left for work every morning and didn't come back until six o'clock at night. Like for every time that's happened, it's like there's a little,
00:31:53
Speaker
heart of us that's gone ouch ouch ouch and all of those ouchies over time build up so when we get a chance to play these separation games and they're as simple as a game of peekaboo right oh i'm here oh i'm not here oh i'm here oh i'm not here or hide and seek when your child gets a little bit older
00:32:10
Speaker
We often play hide and seek before a separation and right after a separation. And it just, the connection just comes back online in an instant through, through playing those reunion, reunion, reunion games. So that's one example. And there's a whole bunch of others. Oh, can you give a couple more? Cause I feel like these, again, it's this, it's like when you find out that nursery rhymes have like, you know, they have lessons in history embedded into them.
00:32:40
Speaker
Yeah, this is what I'm feeling about these games, which have just been completely abstractions for me or things that you do as a kid that you never return to, but they've actually got a function. I used to call it purposeful play, but it's very much it's called attachment play. And so another one is power reversal games. And these are amazing. So this is for when kids are feeling they feel frequently weak, right, incompetent,
00:33:04
Speaker
or perhaps powerless and this like i said earlier you know you live in a world where the chairs and the tables and the doorknobs and somebody else has got the keys to the car and somebody else has got the credit card right like these are all things that make you feel powerless and unable so we play power reversal games which can be
00:33:21
Speaker
um in our house it's it's a game of push me down so i'll strut around the lounge room going i'm so big i'm so powerful i'm so strong you're never going to be able to push me down my child comes up gives me a shove i fall down dramatically and go oh my god how did you do that that's you'll never be able to do that again and i get back up and we play over and over and over again until he gets that embodied sense of
00:33:45
Speaker
He knows that it's a game, he knows that it's a joke, but having that embodied sense of power, having that embodied sense of strength means that you don't get into power struggles with your child. There's nobody trying to one-up somebody else because they've got this outlet for it on a daily basis.
Play as a Tool for Parenting Transformation
00:34:02
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:34:03
Speaker
Yeah and I'm thinking too of when little kids ride their daddy like kicking him in the guts like a Bronco. And so in that in that instance dad's responsibility is to act like he's really hurt. Oh god oh no you've taken me out oh god no please don't do it again.
00:34:21
Speaker
Right? The kids start laughing and as soon as they start laughing, you're like brilliant. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Like this is healing. This is, you know, them coming back into balance where they can be in touch with those innately human qualities of wanting to cooperate, wanting to contribute. Okay. And so that idea that this is a cumulative process, that it is like a whole picture rather than a panacea that you kind of apply and then you're all good.
00:34:46
Speaker
That rings really true for me, working in the health space and with herbs that aren't like drugs, they don't have a single direction of action. It's a whole kind of system effect that builds up over time. So when people come to you with, I don't know, like what age kids are you working with, with families? Is there a limit? Nope, we go to all ages. Okay, getting on the phone to mum straight after this interview.
00:35:11
Speaker
pregnant ladies come to us absolutely it's like all goodness I've got this and people with teenagers it's all ages okay right but yeah if people are feeling you know the excitement of hearing that this this exists and these possibilities exist in you know we're parenting but then they're so so so far removed and struggling hard with the way things are done in their household culture like where do you make a start with people
00:35:36
Speaker
Hmm, well that's a good question. We start wherever they're at. We absolutely start wherever they're at. I think that most people come like these days, most people come with a, you know, attachment viewpoint. So we would start with play.
00:35:54
Speaker
and then move into the, you know, releasing through crying and laughter. So once that's that foundation of safety and trust has been built and it is you bring you bring your problem. I prescribe a game and then next week you bring whatever happened as a result of playing the game and we tweak it or change it a little bit. And then you get more games and we sort of roll on like that until enough safety and trust has been built. And then we can start incorporating the what we call crying in arms or deep empathic listening.
00:36:24
Speaker
and adding because that's, we're not really able to get there until we've restored safety and trust. Okay. Yeah. And yeah, I'm keen to really understand your inner workings because I think that's inherently fascinating for me and for people listening. And what I am wondering is, you know, you have this such an expression of like, this is your, your thing and your niche and your expertise, but what have you had to,
00:36:54
Speaker
What are the hard lessons that you've learned throughout this journey and what has been, what are some really sore points, I guess, for you? Yeah, choosing this as the, you know, and I could have gone a different direction with the, you know, after sort of stepping out of the welfare sector and going through, you know, yoga teaching, I could have taken, because parenting is, you are just on display
00:37:20
Speaker
24 seven like your night at nighttime when my child's crying in the house and it's like oh god what do the neighbors think of me right now because I am you know practicing this empathic listening or when I've lost it and yelled you know god what you know it's somebody gonna range our protection I'm like how is this it's such a
00:37:42
Speaker
excruciatingly but exquisitely painful process I think to go through this level of self-examination with this level of consciousness and yeah choosing this I'm glad that I did but I yeah it's it's definitely not for everybody yeah yeah I hear what you're saying and one question I wanted to ask was around village support
00:38:06
Speaker
for parents and how that saying it takes a village to raise a child works in your life. You know, we both live in the same community. It's incredible. There's basically no niche unfilled in this wholesome, you know, and supportive place. How does the village play into your parenting of Sid?
00:38:29
Speaker
I've had it both ways. I've had the stark contrast of not having any village at all. And there was quite a few years early on where as a single adult household and quite isolated. And then now having come back to our beautiful community and being able to forge the relationships that I have now, the village plays a huge role.
00:38:58
Speaker
but it doesn't have to be.
00:39:00
Speaker
the village that I have now. Like when I look back on those times of isolation, there was still, there were so many sort of incidental people. I don't know if I can say that. Like there was a particular lady at the supermarket who really saw me and saw my child. And I made sure that, you know, when I was,
Community Support and Emotional Expression
00:39:20
Speaker
when I was down there that I would, you know, not seek her out, but make eye contact, say hello, and just go, I know that you know that, you know that I know.
00:39:30
Speaker
we see each other right and you know the librarian and you know there were these touch points in my day where I could you know connect in and just feel validated and feel yeah seen I think but now having what I have now is like wow I can just imagine how life might have been then
00:39:51
Speaker
had I had this level of support where daily basis, very meaningful contributions get made to me through all sorts of things. So it's not just emotional support that I get now where I'm able to talk about my feelings quite openly and I'm able to cry quite openly with friends and also in structured women's circles and
00:40:16
Speaker
and other things, but I'm also able to get really high quality thought partnership where I'm able to sit down and have extraordinarily interesting conversations like this and really nut out what it is that I'm up to and where it is that, you know, how is this working and this stage is coming up and what's that about and what am I going to do differently here?
00:40:34
Speaker
So getting into the nitty gritty of it, but also that practical support. Like, who do I call when I need someone to, you know, hold my, not hold my child anymore. He's now 10. But, you know, when I need to go on and do something, I've got an appointment over here. And so all of this, you know, those, those pieces all come together now. And I'm like, wow.
00:40:55
Speaker
I don't know how I did it without it, I did, but having that level of support now is just off the charts. Yeah, I love that idea that even people with whom to converse and grist over things is part of the picture, to support a family. It's not simply
00:41:17
Speaker
offering some free childcare every once in a while, bringing a meal. It's that emotional piece as well. And yeah, Meg Ollman, when did I release hers? It's like episode three, maybe. Her women's circle is just completely cathartic and transformative for so many folks in this community. Yeah. Having a place where we can learn to witness each other. And actually I was with someone yesterday who just broke down.
00:41:44
Speaker
And I see it. 20 more minutes? 20? Yeah.
00:41:49
Speaker
great it's like volleyball hand signals um yeah who just kind of broke down who just needed to break down like that and being part of the women's circle gave me the confidence to just sit there and hold that space for her without flapping around and trying to look for a hanky or shut it down so or fix it or fix yeah is this what we do when our children are releasing is it about witnessing
00:42:15
Speaker
That's exactly it. That is exactly what we need to do It's it's you know, so we try to meet all the needs and first we do what what we can to if we've got a baby You know, we need to be really responsive to those, you know physical physiological needs first up and once we've addressed all of those and Then we get to the point where like I think you actually just need to cry So I'm just gonna be right here with you while you cry and I'm gonna be
00:42:41
Speaker
calm my nervous system and get myself into a position. Get myself physically comfortable. Maybe I'm going to sit on the couch wherever I'm going to be. I'm going to hold you. I'm going to maintain eye contact. I'm going to maintain the faith and trust that, hey, you're going to feel so much better on the other side of this. And I'm right here and I'm listening. And please, please tell me all about it.
00:43:04
Speaker
I don't think I cry enough and it's inconvenient. That's why it's because I look like a goldfish with those big bobbly eyes on the side of my head. I get really blotchy and red. And so I avoid that level of intense emotion. And I also think we as a community, as a society, avoid that level of intensity because there's not that many people who have the capacity to be able to listen like that and that it needs to be
00:43:31
Speaker
witnessed and you need to be with someone in order for it to come out and there needs to be the time and space and there needs to be the reassurance that hey your feelings are not too much for me like I can listen and you know as long as you want to cry let's do that and this time poor society where we're running from one thing to the next it's like oh hang on a second this is going to take an hour I'm good like I'm good I've got you let's go. How do you
00:43:57
Speaker
have that spaciousness in your life. Do you? I create it very so part of a way parenting one of the pillars of it is that we have listening partners. So every week
00:44:07
Speaker
every single week without fail. And sometimes I'll even leave messages in between these, but we have a 20 minute space we're down to now, but it used to be longer, but now I'm a bit more efficient at it. And any feelings are welcome. So my listening partner, my current listening partner, I've had different ones over the years, but my current one is just, oh my God, she's incredible.
00:44:30
Speaker
And we've just created this space that you can say anything and nobody's going to call the police. Nobody's going to call child protection. Nobody's calling anybody. You get to say whatever you like. And if it's anger, if it's rage, if I want to spend the whole time swearing, it's totally fine. If I want to spend the whole time crying, totally fine. So whatever comes up for me on the day, you know, that's what happens and I can leave messages in between times as well. Wow. Okay. And so is each
00:44:58
Speaker
call or meet up dedicated to one person or do you swap? So different people do it differently. In mine we get 20 minutes each. So I go first and when I'm done I say thank you so much for listening and she says thank you so much for sharing. I so value all of your feelings and all of your needs and this makes so much sense and thank you so much. It's an honour and a privilege to listen to you.
00:45:22
Speaker
And then off she goes and has hers. And is that something that's unique or owned by the aware parenting community? Or is it something that everyday people can say, hey, that sounds really good. I don't have someone who listens to me like that in my life. I want to set up a listening partner.
00:45:39
Speaker
I mean, can anyone do it? Anyone can do this. And I think it's come from, there's another similar practice called co-counseling. So it will peer counseling. And I think hand in hand is another parenting approach that has a similar empathy buddies, they might call them, or we call them empathy buddies, I can't remember. But no, nobody owns it. Everybody should have a listening partner.
00:46:04
Speaker
I think that if we all had listening partners we'd yeah things would be quite different. Totally. I know that I'm incredibly different as a result of having this and again it's another cumulative practice, cumulative process and I remember when I first started at how difficult it was and how then I had to have a lot of listening sessions around how difficult it was for me to have listening sessions right like I would talk about that in my sessions and finally got to this place where it's like I'm just hankering for a cry, I'm just hankering to swear
00:46:33
Speaker
I'm just hankering to have a tantrum. I just, I just need to release this. This is such a whole life practice, isn't it? So many takeaways for people who, as I've mentioned, might not even have joined the dots between parenting and how they are in the world or have any kind of interest in that subject.
Leadership in Parenting and Education
00:46:53
Speaker
So I'm feeling extremely affirmed in having you here and having a conversation because this is
00:47:00
Speaker
endlessly applicable, you know, to my life and to everyone's life. I want to talk about leadership because that really stood out to me as part of your write-up, your beautiful website. I'm thinking about Sid who's outside just exploring and having a good time and periodically coming up and kind of checking in and feeling like he's just an incredible human and how you're working together with Sid to kind of grow each other is phenomenal and
00:47:30
Speaker
so different to what I've seen before. In terms of leadership, I'd love to know how you define that and what someone like Sid might actually do in this world that so desperately needs radical leaders.
00:47:46
Speaker
um leadership for me is not about you know being out in front or being the biggest person or being in charge leadership happens at any level and every level and i already view him and i viewed him as a four-year-old and as a two-year-old as a leader and that he was you know in many respects leading me and still is leading me um you know closer to myself and to a greater understanding of who i am
00:48:16
Speaker
And, you know, what my values are and what my expectations are, you know, for better or for worse, you know, what it is that I'm that I'm expecting his. Absolutely. So the the idea that there's no. Yeah, you can be a leader wherever you are. And it's about how.
00:48:34
Speaker
inclusive you can I hate that word um how how you can you know help the people around you how how it is that you're you become a support you know what problems are you solving or working towards solving how are you contributing
00:48:51
Speaker
So that including everything is being accepting of everything around you and being accepting of every part of every person around you. Nothing is too big for me. Nothing's too scary. It's like, come to me with what you've got going on. That to me is a leader. And I remember when I was working in the prison system,
00:49:13
Speaker
that my boss there was an incredible man, Peter. He was probably the first manager that I went, oh my goodness, like that's what it means to be a leader. And I'd come back from being out all day and I think it was like six o'clock at night or something. And I was back at the office late and dropping off the car and putting the keys away and found my way out. And I saw there was a room, like a big recreation room
00:49:41
Speaker
at our offices for the boys to hang out in. And there was a light on in the toilet. And so I walked in to turn it off. And there was Peter in there with, this is the manager of the whole centre, managing 50-odd staff. And he had on big pink rubber gloves. One of the boys had come in, drug-affected, and had vomited in the bathroom. And he was in there cleaning it up. And that to me is leadership.
00:50:13
Speaker
Do they make gloves in any other colour than pink? No, no they don't. And when I said to him, you know, what, no, hang on, why are you doing that? Why isn't the cleaner or somebody else doing that? And he's like, I'm not leaving this for somebody else to do. So having kids is quite the topic for discussion when one is hypothesising about how
00:50:39
Speaker
things will unfold in a civilisational sense. When is a shit gonna hit the fan? What do you reckon? What do you reckon about having kids in this day and age? What about people who are too afraid to bring new beings into this situation?
00:50:58
Speaker
There's kind of, I see a little bit of a problem with it in that the more intelligent people see the greater problems with it. And they're the ones that we need to be having children. However, you know, I don't have a strong position on it either way. I haven't waded into that.
00:51:22
Speaker
thought for you know, since I had children and since I decided that I was gonna have a child so
00:51:29
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Okay, what was this other thing that I wanted to ask you? There's so much I wanted to ask you, Devon. Oh, schooling. I think that's a huge thing. That is such a thing that people have asked me about. I'm like, well, how the fuck should I know? But what are the options and how do kids play into that decision-making process as well? If you don't want to just send them through the mainstream system or if you do want to do that, but in a really considered way, what have you done?
00:51:54
Speaker
So right now my child is at school. We started homeschooling, but because of the family situation, I mean, everyone's going to have different constraints.
Homeschooling and Educational Alternatives
00:52:03
Speaker
And so there's no judgment. My preference would be homeschooling. I think that that's probably the smarter way to go. However, you know, and especially nice post
00:52:17
Speaker
post pandemic you know changes with online programming that there's so many supports and resources available for children to be able to
00:52:26
Speaker
you know, to be able to access curriculum, so to speak. But so much learning happens through play. And I think that almost every valuable life lesson that you wanna give children, if you start applying attachment play, you can, you know, give all of those, give all of those ones over. Children's innate and, you know, desire to learn. If we just don't get in the way of that, they're gonna pick up everything that they need anyway.
00:52:56
Speaker
yeah okay learning's a really good topic because I feel like school just got in the way and thwarted my own natural curiosity and also my love of learning and self-directed learning and so I've been left as an adult completely cut adrift because I'm just used to being told what to do so unless I kind of mimic that authoritative voice from above and set hard deadlines and kind of flagellate myself I find it actually quite hard
00:53:22
Speaker
to do things that are necessary or that I want to deepen into because there's this schooling kind of hangover that I have. So are you anti-school for that reason or and or like what do you have to say about learning in general? I'm gonna be bold here. Oh please do. I am anti-school to be perfectly honest. I don't think it's a healthy environment. You know it to me it almost looks like you know you get a bunch of cows in a feed lot and
00:53:51
Speaker
You know, it's they're not getting what they need in there and people say to me, oh, but what about socialization? I'm like, yeah, it's not really socialization now, is it? You know, forcing children to hang out just with their age mates is not that's not preparing them for society.
00:54:07
Speaker
I don't think there's enough room for innovation or creativity. And neither one of those are celebrated in there. And that's what the world needs. The world needs innovation and creativity right now. It doesn't need more people who know how to multiply and divide and add, although that's very important too. But, you know, I think that, yeah, schooling, yeah, thoughts, learning, like you said. Yeah. So how do we then bring that back online? That intrinsic motivation?
00:54:37
Speaker
of the focus on play, putting the focus on play, really, yeah, coming back to that. I mean, we live in a society where it's, you know, we have to, like we don't have choice around schooling. There's no choice. We have to do it. So like it or not, that's what we do. So I think what I do a lot with my child and what I've done over the past few years is that we play
00:55:03
Speaker
power reversal games around it so you know Will at the end of the day he gets to be the teacher and I'm the naughty student and we play it out and so we're sort of undoing as much of it as we possibly can and thankfully despite three years at school and he's only 10 and usually the wheels fall off sort of 11 or 12 you know it's about grade five that that most kids go okay well actually if this is learning I don't want to have a bar of it anymore
00:55:32
Speaker
But he's still very much connected to his love of learning and is very interested and very curious and wants to read and experiment and play with things. So I'm imagining that my, you know, me playing and undoing any of the trauma that happens at school is going to be enough to keep him connected. And then the other idea is just sort of like grease him up and get him through there.
00:56:00
Speaker
What's your preferred grease? Blood, tallow, schmaltz. A combination of all of your love. But just, it's the play. It's the separation games at the start of the day and at the end of the day. Quick comb of hide and seek on the way out the door. And nonsense play is another really important one where that's where I get to exaggerate being
00:56:24
Speaker
confused and silly and stupid, like not knowing things that I'm supposed to know. So the more I can play at that, the more he can laugh and the more he can release the trauma, the accumulated trauma that happens as a result of schooling. Because Sid is a gifted kid. Do you want to talk about gifted children at all?
00:56:45
Speaker
I think it's loaded and I think it's difficult and I know that it's plastered all over my website because that's sort of my niche market.
Beyond Intellectual Giftedness
00:56:52
Speaker
This is not restricted to gifted kids and we've got a very narrow way of measuring giftedness that I think doesn't include, you know, we can only measure for the intellectually gifted.
00:57:06
Speaker
which is which is great and wonderful but there's there's other i mean and there's not just like there's other types of giftedness there are specifically other types of giftedness the research is very clear around you know psychomotor and the imaginal and you know sensorial gifted like these are these are real emotionality is another
00:57:26
Speaker
you know, type of giftedness. So these are all very real. We can't measure them. It's difficult to have a conversation. We could have one, but that would take another hour. Yeah. No, that's all good. Just wanting to acknowledge that that is a part of your, your work. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Does Sid want to come in? Do you want to come in, Sid? Are you done? We're nearly done. I reckon maybe I've got one more question for Devin, but did you want to, like five, how are you feeling, Devin? Maybe five minutes? Yeah. Yeah.
00:57:54
Speaker
I know, sorry, it's been an hour and two. Okay, mate. Yeah, what is a good... What is a wrap-up question? Like, you've really bought so many things home in a way that's just phenomenal.
Conclusion and Reflections on Aware Parenting
00:58:13
Speaker
Like, normally interviews, people warm up around this one hour mark, and then I'm like, ah, shit, we gotta stop.
00:58:21
Speaker
you're just a torrent of insight. It's so amazing, yeah. I think maybe the wrap-up might be that what
00:58:30
Speaker
You know, my biggest takeaway from aware parenting is that it, and this is funny because we're off to a sustainability festival today, that this is sustainable parenting. This is not something that we get to, you know, it's like, we're just trying to get through the day. We're just trying to get through the year. If we just get past the terrible twos, if we just get past, you know, the teenage years, if we, it's, this is sustainable parenting that is like slow release, you know, fertilizer for everybody. It's like, we just get to really sink into this time.
00:58:58
Speaker
nobody's wishing this time away. We're in it and we love it and when people start adopting this approach it just becomes almost...
00:59:09
Speaker
not a cult-like, no. It becomes a joy, like parenting becomes a pure joy and I remember the times and I look at you know blips in my life or I look at people who've not adopted a paradigm like this and yeah the pain and the complaint and the the upset about it is like and yeah I know I mentioned before that it's painful to look inside and it and it is but it's
00:59:37
Speaker
It's a growth pain and it's a welcome one. So yeah, my big sort of thing that I'd like to leave people with is that this makes it sustainable. Thank you so much, Devon. Thank you, Katie. It's been such a pleasure to be here. Thank you.
00:59:53
Speaker
If you're at all curious about a more compassionate and easeful style of parenting, I've linked Devon's website and offerings in the show notes. She works online too, so don't be discouraged by distance. And because the cosmos loves coincidence, I've actually had a few folks this week requesting more conversations around wild birthing and mothering and unschooling. So look out for those contrarian convos coming down the pipeline.
01:00:19
Speaker
Thank you as always for showing your support through listening, subscribing to, rating and sharing resilience. We're actually closing in on 10,000 downloads which is super thrilling for a new podcast and extremely affirming. I'm glad these themes are chiming with you and keep collaborating with me on what's next. You can reach out with suggestions and feedback at katie at katie.com.au or via a westbound Black Cockatoo. Catch you next Monday.