interview with Robin Grille

Robin Grille is an Australian psychologist, parent educator and author of internationally acclaimed Parenting for a Peaceful World. The US edition of his second book, Heart to Heart Parenting, is due for release in Spring 2010 (LifeTime Media). You can find out more about Robin’s work here:     www.our-emotional-health.com

Oh how fortunate we are that Robin was willing to do an interview for us! This wise wise man has much to offer the world. Here are a few words just for you in this exclusive interview for NPC.

1.      Tell us about where you are right now and what’s happening around you (little view into your world).

 

It’s Wednesday afternoon, and outside my window a Sydney springtime is trying to burst through the clouds. I have finished working with my clients for the day, and I am waiting for my wife and daughter to come by – we are all feeling lazy and are going out to the local Sushi Train. Fabulous! I feel blessed to live in a country where so many of the world’s cultures live alongside each other – here it is easy to pay allegiance to no flag; and instead to relate to the whole human family.

2.      What’s on your mind these days?

I have been feeling despair at times when I see on the one hand the relentless destruction of our shrinking planet and its atmosphere, and on the other hand how painfully slow our societies are to change from ‘business as usual’. There are times I am deeply worried for my own child and all the world’s children, I wonder what kind of world we are leaving for them. 

 

3.      What are you seeing in the world that gives you hope?

I do take great comfort from the abundant evidence I see that, in many places, attitudes towards children are changing for the better. I see great hope in the international birthing reform movement: so many parents are opting for natural birth, water birth and home birth. Around the world there is a gradual and steady return to natural breastfeeding, a rapid improvement considering it had all but disappeared through the 1960s and 70s. I am also buoyed when I see that each year more and more nations legislate to prohibit the corporal punishment of children, and I see signs that modern education philosophy is beginning to reject coercion in favor of more democratic and playful approaches to learning.

The fast-growing awareness about the critical importance of healthy emotional development in early childhood (attachment) promises to be a powerful engine for social transformation. If these changes continue to unfold and accelerate, this bodes incredibly well for future societies. In nations that have progressed in child-rearing reform, (such as the Nordic nations, for instance) there has been a corresponding progress in democracy, social justice and sustainable development – this is precisely what the whole world so urgently needs. I just hope that these evolutionary changes happen fast enough to prevent irreversible damage to our planet. We have very little time, so I feel we all must become active in the global child-rearing reform movement.

4.      Tell us about what set you on this path.

My own experience of psychotherapy, both as a client and later as a therapist, helped me to understand how utterly important our passage through childhood is. Parents, teachers and all who support them literally have the future of humanity in their hands. I have also learned that much of what passes for ‘normal’ parenting still falls short of meeting babies’ and children’s emotional needs. No wonder we don’t have a peaceful world yet. But the newest discoveries about the how early life relationships shape the child’s brain have placed at our disposal the key to creating the most peaceful, vibrant, loving and sustainable societies. What’s not to love about this?! I think this information is so exciting and so urgently needed, that I cannot stop writing about it and talking about it to parents and professionals all over.

5.      Where do you imagine yourself in 10 years?

In 10 years I want to be carrying on with my writing and my workshops and seminars for parents, teachers and health professionals. I love this work and I love to see the difference it brings to all our lives. So far, I have only taken my workshops overseas twice, once to New Zealand and once to USA (California) – and I enjoyed that immensely. My second book, Heart to Heart Parenting, is due for release in USA in the spring of 2010 – so I hope that means I will be touring there.

I also hope that in 10 years’ time there are tens of thousands more people than there are today supporting and educating parents, carers and teachers to promote healthy emotional development for all the world’s children. I believe this is the most powerful, effective and far-reaching form of social activism, and I believe this is how we can create a peaceful and sustainable global society.

6.      What are the most powerful things parents can do?

Listening, listening and more listening. More than anything, babies and children want their emotions heard and validated. Most of us have some difficulty with this, our children’s emotions press our buttons, and we tend to talk our children away from their feelings.

The next powerful thing is, from the time our children are toddlers and increasingly as they grow up, to express our own feelings to them with authenticity. In some measure, this requires us to be emotionally vulnerable and open. Most of us fear this. But an emotionally ‘real’ two-way communication is the very essence of a close and loving relationship in which empathy and respect can grow.

When children feel very heard, and when they see our feelings, their behavior becomes considerate, loving and respectful, as night follows day.

7.      Will you summarize tenets of Heart to Heart Parenting?

The most helpful thing any parent can do is to get in touch with how they felt when they were babies and children. In my book Heart to Heart Parenting, I show you ways that you can do that. Our own childhood experiences are the strongest drivers of our parenting behaviors, for better or for worse, so it is hugely important for us to connect with the ‘inner child’.

So although my book gives parents a map of their child’s stage-by-stage emotional needs and how to meet them, I focus a lot on the parent’s needs. I help parents to understand how their children act as triggers to their own feelings (and sometimes their unresolved wounds) from childhood. Parenting can therefore be an exciting personal-growth journey for the parent, it has the potential to be the most healing and heart opening experience.

I place a lot of emphasis on co-operative parenting, and I make many suggestions to parents on how to attract and create supportive groups of like-minded parents (or extended family, or tribe!). This is one of the most important and yet most understated secrets to a joyous parenting journey.

The human nervous system has been designed to produce for us many, many peak experiences of bliss – if we only make possible the simple conditions that generate this. The parenting journey from conception, through birth, early bonding and the child’s ‘flight to freedom’, is charged full of opportunities for unspeakable joy, for parents and their children. This is the outcome that awaits us as we give more time, attention and support to emotional connectedness.

 

8. What else do you want us to know/are you interested in

sharing?

A lot of parents suffer anxiety, guilt or shame as more information about children’s emotional needs becomes publicly available (by the way, babies were telling us all along, but in our culture we learned to ignore our instincts. Until now that is, when scientists are finally agreeing with the human heart-signal). It can be daunting to be confronted with the list of babies’ ‘wants’ that has been made clear by international research into attachment – especially in nations like USA and Australia where parental leave provisions are appallingly low. Great relief from these agonies is possible as soon as you realize that all parents are as ‘good’ as the support we are given. It is absolutely the case that the best parents can disappoint their children when they feel isolated and under stress. On the other hand, you can take a fairly neglectful parent, and improve their parenting capacity enormously by providing them with all the emotional and practical support they need. Often, some kind of personal healing of deep emotional wounds is necessary as well.

Any of us can and do become better parents when we feel held and loved in a close-knit and supportive community. Human beings were designed to parent in groups, not in pairs!

So, whenever you are unhappy with your parenting behavior, the first question to ask is: are you getting the support you need right now? Often it can also be important to look inside and see if there is something in you that is wounded and wants healing. With this kind of approach, the strain goes out of parenting, and both parent and child win.

 

 

Comments

[Terace]

"...if i just remain open and ask for help that the universe will provide..."

The first time I discovered your site- I had just put the baby to sleep for the third time that night, I was so tired, from all the way down in my soul... drained and.. well, lost... I felt like I had just worked a quadruple shift at the busiest restaurant in Times Square (I do know what that actually feels like). Anyway, I sat there and stared at the rascal babe in her (FINALLY!) sleep... and I found myself in fervent prayer to the universe. "PLEASE SEND ME SOMEONE, SOMETHING, TO SHOW ME WHAT TO DO, TO GUIDE ME, TO HOLD ME UP FOR A WHILE, TO REMIND ME OF WHAT I AM DOING HERE! I. NEEEEEED. HELP."
I then found myself reaching for a book I love ("A New Earth") there in the dark under the night light... I read a little and I felt a little better, at least I could muster the strength to rise from my place on the bed and go out into the living room... where I then found myself paying a long over due visit to soulemama... And there YOU were. I clicked. I read. I couldn't believe what I'd come across. I was a bit giddy I have to say. The universe had answered my call so immediately! I have such admiration for what you are doing here. You are changing the world for the better for so many more people than you can fathom. Isn't that just amazing?!

[Alyssa]

I really enjoyed this interview and look forward to reading his book. Thanks!

[kris laroche]

hi terace.
oh yes, you have a challenging situation. sounds like you are so wanting to move beyond your unconscious programming so that everything you want/feel inspired about just flows completely naturally and with ease. a working reality for your family...yes. three things come to mind when i think of you (i solo parent lots with two, so i can only imagine three!). though it is never easy and quick to change your internal programming, it IS possible. i'd say dedicated 20 minutes a day for a stretch of time, seriously devoting that, could make a world of difference to your daily interactions...a few things come to mind which you could play with journaling, if you haven't already done so...

1. get crystal clear about what you want for them. what are your long term, big picture goals for who you want them to be? write them down.

2. get crystal clear about what you want for yourself. what do you want from the experience of parenting? how do you want it to forward your own growth, enlightenment, actualization? remembering why you are doing it for you can lift you out of the daily struggles and help you respond in a different way.

3. keep focused on what will actually get you all of what you want...their success/fulfillment/brilliance/skill/capabilities and your own evolution of your soul....it is the quality of your relationship with them. that is where we are recreating something different from almost everything we hear around us about parenting.

like in those moments when they won't do what you want them to do and the old program of 'got to get them to or they will be spoiled, etc' or 'got to punish/praise to get them to...' or 'they are being...' or 'this can't continue' or or or...

you shift to...what is going on here? what do we all really need? what really matters here?

the other big thing that helps me shift in my toughest moments is really trusting that i don't have to figure it all out, that if i just remain open and ask for help that the universe will provide joy and ease. the only thing ever blocking joy and ease is ME!!! so getting out of my own way and believing it will work out.

oh so much more...
how can we help you manifest this inspiration into a working reality for you????

[kris laroche]

oh joanna.
those days are SO hard!! yes..some days are just trigger trigger trigger. that's just how it is and i giggled at your guilt/coffee/crap/pattern because it is oh so familiar. i wonder what it would be like to soothe yourself with the kind of mind talk that actually nurtures you the way you are trying to nurture them??/oh honey..this is such a hard day for you, and now you are giving yourself a hard time for drinking coffee. sweetie, what do you need? what are you feeling in your body? kind of like that! like tuning up the volume on that magnificnet inner being who adores you so much.

[Joanna Smetanka]

Man, it has been a REALLY tough morning. Thanks for bringing me back to a more grounded place. I too struggle some days to translate what I believe to be "the way" into my reality. Some days I am triggered by everything it seems, like today. And instead of giving myself what I need like empathy, relaxing food and drink, rest, a break, I often times beat myself up by feeling guilty, drinking too much coffee, eating crap and running around like a lunatic. uggh.

[Terace]

Thank you for sharing this. I have visited this blog a handful of times now and am so ... well... stunned at how your posts always hit the spot for me... like picking up a trusted book and opening at any page and getting exactly what I need at the moment...
I must say I am desperate for the sense of connection and community that is mentioned here. A mom of 3 (4, 2, and 1) with my partner gone most of the time, I am at a loss as to how to make this work so I can parent from my heart and not from my program. I am inspired all the time, but somehow unable to manifest this inspiration into a working reality for my family.