An Introduction to Attachment Parenting Did you carry your son around in a sling during his fussy times as a baby with the sense that it would help him?  Do you bend down and look in your daughter’s eyes when trying to discipline her?  Do you treat your teenager with respect and listen to their desires before you give them an answer?  Then you are practicing Attachment Parenting and you may have not even known it. Attachment Parenting is a term that was coined by Dr. William Sears.  His life’s work as a father and pediatrician along with the insight and mothering of his wife Nancy and the raising of…

Pulling Up Roots: Home Transitions with Pagan Children It is human nature to put down roots.  Our community, our home, they are not just where our hearts are but where our roots can push into the earth and bring us grounding.  As pagans we tend to set down roots or acknowledge them in a concrete way.  A hedgewitch may be intimate with every square foot of woods behind her house, a city dwelling druid may have deep conversation with the oak tree that shades his apartment balcony, and the Wiccan family can make a sacred space in their sunroom where each member can rejuvenate in times of stress.  All of…

Family Values: Creativity A family value that is high on my priority list is creativity.  It is not a traditional family value but many would argue that a pagan family is not traditional in the first place, so in my opinion it fits. Creativity is fundamental to humanity as a whole, without it we would not have made the discoveries and advances that we have as a culture.  Pagans honour the sacredness of creation, the earth in her splendour creates on a scale that is baffling.  Volcanic eruptions spew out what will become new ground; dead trees in the forest shelter the sprouts of new seedlings that will take their…

Letting it Flow I attempted to force out a Family Values article this month but in the interest of practicing what I was preaching I decided to try again next month.  The flow was not happening. Going with the flow in parenting is a lesson that is hard to keep up with.   It is a challenge that is constantly facing us and it seems that kids move with natural rhythms with more ease than we do.   If they are tired they sleep, if they are hungry they eat.   When we try and inflict our ideas of schedules and such we can often present a conflict to the very primal…

The Wintertime Family The winter months can be very gloomy for us.  We contend with few hours of daylight, cold temperatures and often limited mobility due to snow and ice.  Beach frolicking is a distant memory, the piles of leaves for jumping in have been racked away and the fresh sprouts of spring are not quite stirring under their frozen blanket.  Despite the limitations of the season we crave activities to share that connect us to the quite slumber going on under our feet.  This month we’ll look at some options for sharing this time as a family in terms of activities that connect the family unit and feed our…

Family Values: Thankfulness Values in relation to family building are defined as: “one’s principles, priorities, or standards.”  Values are what is important to us, what we give meaning to in our lives, and how we delegate the priority of our time, of ourselves. Words that are considered values are thrown around in our speech daily.  Respect, kindness, honesty, fidelity…but as we use these words do we actually live them?  Are they buzz words, or ideals?  And how do we live these ideas as pagan parents and enact them within our family, as an example to our children? As an ongoing series in Pagan Parenting Every Day I will be exploring…

Thoughts on the Village in Paganism It Takes a Village to Raise a Child…. this proverb, saying, cliché is often bandied about in society.  While the origins of the saying are debatable, the meaning behind the term is one that I have always thought to be important.  As parents and as pagans how does this philosophy apply to our lives?  And do we practice it or should we even practice it? As humans evolved we lived in groups to ensure survival.  Our societal structure was vastly different from how it is today.  We hunted, gathered, ate together, lived together.  Our living was done in units.  The women and men probably…