HOMESCHOOLER’s Hearth
The
Attachment-based Education & Consulting Services
specializing in homeschools, microschools and Waldorf-inspired education
…a warm place for parents & nontraditional schooling providers to visit for encouragement and developmental education
from an attachment-based perspective
At the HOMESCHOOLER’s Hearth, you are supported in bringing your child’s heart — and your own heart — to emotional rest.
The latest science of emotion and recent insights into human development confirm what many have understood for a long time: that before children are truly ready to learn they must be in a state of emotional rest. In fact, by natural design all growth and learning come from a place of rest.
Whether it is the yet-to-be flower, well-attached and at ease in its soil, or the child safely-rooted in a relationship to parent or teacher, the resulting inner rest is what allows for deep rooting, receptivity and eventual blooming. Children’s emotional rest depends wholly on their being attached, in just the right way, to the adults who lead them.
When care for human beings is allowed to unfold according to these natural relational developmental principles, the result is growth at any age. The same developmental imperatives that allow our children to reach their full potential are the same ones that allow for the continuing emotional, psychological and spiritual flourishing of parents, teachers and caregivers.
When our understanding of human development and the educational experience of children is anchored in safe and sound relational attachment first, rather than focused on curriculum, outcomes, tasks and requisite “good behaviour,” school finally becomes what it was meant it to be.
Sign up for
The Homeschool Roots Series of coaching sessions.
Learn strategies to root your home education experience in moments of deep, assured connection
…and let the curriculum follow.
Discipline that deepens, not divides.
Do you notice the children in your care resisting your direction or becoming increasingly disenchanted with their home education or disenchanted with you?
Have you resorted to using bribes, rewards, threats and sanctions to keep your child engaged?
Do you wonder what the impact of fear-based discipline strategies is on children’s relationships and development over the long term?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, the relational-developmental approach might hold the keys to the homeschool harmony you’re seeking.
How is sleepy time going in your home?
The day is coming to a close… everyone is tired… emotional bandwidth is at a minimum.
Alarm, frustration and “clinginess” are naturally activated in our children because Sleep’s Great Separation stands waiting before them.
Every parent knows all too well that sleep-time can be an immensely difficult part of a child’s day. It is often an arduous and exasperating part of a parent’s day too and this often has weakening effects on the homeschool life.
Because entering sleep comes with profound vulnerability, easing these times with insights from the relational developmental approach helps parents master the art of fortifying safe connection that allows for physical rest to take over. This is an essential, but often missing, element in modern bedtime and nap routines.
If sleep time is a challenge at your house, our Bedtime Beatitudes series of coaching sessions might be a great help to your child and to you.
Support for the Waldorf-inspired homeschooler
Are you a Waldorf-inspired home educator who is also interested in taking an attachment-informed approach?
Do you struggle with issues related to children not following your lead or wish to increase your child’s engagement in the Waldorf curriculum?
Would you like to learn how Gordon Neufeld’s attachment-based approach to child development aligns with Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy and can deepen a child’s Waldorf experience?
