When life is busy or tough, it is good to stand still and take the time to see the things that do go well. It can be big things, but often feeling gratitude for the smaller things in life can help brighten up our day. “It’s about not taking things for granted”, says Katie Watt in the podcast. “Kids are so good at that, noticing the small moment. They see how amazing it is, that a centipede just made it across the driveway.”

Gratitude can be used as a way of validating and strengthening the bonds within your family. Podcast host Kate Nash started expressing gratitude at the dinner table when her kids were little. “I didn’t want to complain about things that didn’t go well throughout the day, and wanted to focus on something great instead,” she says. “When our kids were little, we often asked ‘What’s your favourite part of the day?’ and then when they got older, it transitioned into mentioning things we were grateful for. It became a tool for us to navigate hard times.”  

Do you want to know how gratitude can help your family when times are rough? You can listen to the ninth episode of the Parent Project Podcast here (or in your favourite podcast app).

For each episode of the Parent Project Podcast, host Kate Nash curated games, activities, resources, reflections and family practices to use, listen to, and do at home.

Game

Gratitude A-Z.

An A-Z gratitude game is a fun and engaging way to practice mindfulness and appreciation. Players list things they are thankful for, one for each letter of the alphabet, starting with "A" and working their way through "Z." This game can be played individually or in groups, making it a great activity for family gatherings, classrooms, or even as a simple daily practice.

Activity

Incorporate gratitude practice into each day. You can express gratitude for one another, or aspects of the day.

Watch

Watch Brene Brown talking about gratitude

Reflection

Answer these questions:

How do you practice gratitude with your family?

What are the ways that you personally role model gratitude with your kids?

The post The Parent Project Podcast: Gratitude Fosters Connection appeared first on The Circle Education.

Virginia Woolf once argued that, for women, writing fiction required a “room of one’s own”. Nowadays, more and more women, not only writers, are dreaming of a special space to create, write, make, grow, think and escape the bustle of daily life. During the self-guided tour, everyone interested in these backyard oases can meet the women behind the sheds and learn about the different ways they are built and used.     

Visual artist Melanie Thompson is returning on the tour this year and is one of the thirteen sheds that are open to the public on May 31st. “I had so many people visiting seven years ago, it was really great”, she says. “I was immediately drawn to the idea of opening up my shed and participating in the tour. Normally, it is just me here, creating art all by myself. I love to have this opportunity to talk about art and show my work to other people.”

Thompson’s husband built the She Shed in 2009, using reclaimed materials. “After finishing my Fine Arts diploma at Emily Carr, I had a small studio in a cabin on the Fraser River in Vancouver. I loved that space, but travelling back and forth from Salt Spring to work there, became less practical over time. Meanwhile on Salt Spring Island, we had a neglected vegetable garden, so we transformed the garden area into my studio space. Now, I buy veggies from local farmers and spend my time making art instead”, she says with a smile.

You can find Thompson in her shed daily. “Even if it’s just for a couple of hours. It's a space dedicated to creating art - not necessarily to produce something for sale, but to show up and be present with the process. I love that it is my space and it exists solely to support my creative life.”

The She Shed Tour on May 31st (10 am – 4 pm) is a unique and rare opportunity to peek into creative spaces and to be inspired. Tickets ($25 per person) are available at https://thecircleeducation.org/she-shed-tour/

The She Shed Tour and the Pass It On Girls program share the desire to empower women and girls by fostering creativity, mentorship, intergenerational relationships, and strong community connections—both support spaces where confidence and self-expression thrive

The post She Shed Tour: Unique and Rare Opportunity to Peek into Creative Spaces appeared first on The Circle Education.

For the longest of time, consent was something a lot of people connected to sexual relationships. Consent within the family wasn’t much of a topic. ‘My house, my rules’ was commonly uttered in households back in the days, while young parents now ask their babies if it’s all right to change their diapers. 

Daniel Squizato, who had a two-year-old at the time of the recording, calls practicing consent with his son a fuzzy balance. “Our little one is just in the throes of understanding the word no. How do you respect their own individual personhood, while you have to make them do things like brushing their teeth and going to sleep?”

When it comes to health and safety, we still expect that children, toddlers and teenagers, will do things we want, without giving consent. “Until they can pay their own dental bills, they have to brush their teeth. That is my responsibility,” says Laura Sol in this episode.

“Stop sweating the small stuff, that’s what it comes down to”, adds podcast host Kate Nash. “I try to practice offering my kids consent options when it comes to the things that aren't, about their health, or having to do household chores like dishwashing. They can choose what pajama to wear for example, or wear the same outfit three days in a row.”

Want to know more about this interesting topic? You can listen to the eighth episode of the Parent Project Podcast here (or in your favourite podcast app).

For each episode of the Parent Project Podcast, host Kate Nash curated games, activities, resources, reflections and family practices to use, listen to, and do at home.

Reflection:

Consent is an agreement between family members with the goal of making each other feel heard, safe, and comfortable. Consent is not just about sexual intimacy; it is about navigating personal boundaries and treating others with respect.

Answers these questions:

What is your definition of consent?

How do you look for consent when navigating boundaries in your home?

Where is the line between respecting your kids’ boundaries versus pushing them for what they maybe need?

What are some tools for practicing consent in your home?

Watch:

Kate Nash talks about consent in everyday life

Practice:

Talk about consent as a family: 

Have you ever really wanted a sibling to play a game with you and they wouldn’t?

Has it made you mad or upset?

Have you felt like, if you can convince them, or make them understand they will change their mind?

Draw a picture or write about what it feels like when someone does not want to do what you want.

Picture: White.Rainforest / Unsplash

This podcast is sponsored by Island Savings, a division of First West Credit Union.

The post The Parent Podcast Project: ‘Consent within Your Family, a Fuzzy Balance’ appeared first on The Circle Education.

What does positive communication look like in your home? Every family is unique and every family has its own way of communicating. You might follow the example your parents gave you, or you decide, or try at least, to do it totally different. Communication (verbal or non-verbal) is an important part of the family dynamics. When you and your family members have a healthy and respectful way of communicating, it develops trust and will forge strong connections with one another.

What are good communication skills? The participants in the sixth episode of the Parent Project podcast share tools that work best for them and their families. “Communicating with my kids goes best when I don’t have an agenda”, says podcast host Kate Nash. “When I leave the agenda on the back burner, I can really foster connections. The best conversation happens when I go for a walk with my kids or just stand quietly while we’re doing the dishes. What also works well for me and my husband if we want to broach a subject we want to talk about with our kids, is to wait until after dinner when everyone is digesting. Everybody's more relaxed when they have eaten.”

Nash, mother of two boys and a girl, found out that a proven method for better communication is ‘talking less and listening more’. “With teenagers that seems to be a helpful tool. If I am just there, listening, it seems to allow for a lot more dialogue. So less talking, and less advice giving, unless it's asked for, is sort of what we’re transitioning in, in our family.”

Listen to episode 6 here (or in your favourite podcast app)

For each episode of the Parent Project Podcast, host Kate Nash curated games, activities, resources, reflections and family practices to use, listen to, and do at home.

Activity:

A lot of communication happens without words (or in addition to words). As youth grow and define their feelings and identities, it can be hard for them to always say what they mean and mean what they say. It is important to read all their nonverbal cues to interpret best how they are feeling.

At dinner time try having a conversation without any gestures, body language or emotions. Reflect on what it felt like and what was missed. Then have a conversation with only gestures and body language.

Now reflect what you thought was said and what you noticed:

What body language clues do you look for to find out what your kid needs?

How easy is it to accept the cues that your kids give you?

What assumptions do you make about your kids’ body language and how they might feel?

Do you have body language cues that signal when you are happy, upset or at the end of your rope?  Are these understood by your family?

Do your kids have body language cues that signal when they are happy, upset or at the end of your rope?

Are these understood by you?

Game:

Broken Telephone in Action

Have someone begin by whispering a series of actions that someone could do, i.e., forward roll, jumping jack, clap three times.

Have each person whisper what they hear from the person before them into the ear of the person next to them.

They can only hear the actions once and must whisper exactly what they hear.

When it gets to the last person have them do the action that they have been told.

See how similar or different it is from where it started.

Reflection:

Answer these questions:

What does communication mean to you?

What did communication look like growing up for you?

What hinders communication with your kids, what puts up roadblocks or makes communication with your kids difficult?

What helps communication? What sort of tools do you use to create more open communication at home?

This podcast is sponsored by Island Savings, a division of First West Credit Union.

The post The Parent Project Podcast: Less talking, more listening appeared first on The Circle Education.

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What does respect mean to you and your family? How do you respect your children’s feelings and are they respecting yours? It might sometimes feel that way, but trust us, you’re not the only parent who feels disrespected by their kids every now and then. 

 “It happened to me last night, my daughter was really rude to me,” Natasha Kong says in this episode.  “But the next morning, after having a rest and sleep, she came up and apologized for how she treated me. She knew she had treated me poorly, and felt bad about it. I think respect is also recognizing the impact of your actions on another person and taking responsibility for those actions.”

Listen to episode 3 here (or in your favourite podcast app)

For each episode of the Parent Project Podcast, host Kate Nash curated games, activities, resources, reflections and family practices to use, listen to, and do at home.

Games:

Fruit bowl game

• Have everyone sit in a circle on chairs with one less chair than there are people.
• To start, someone in the group, stands in the middle of the circle and states something that is true for them in relationship to respect, for example, To me respect looks like…, I feel the least respected when I am…, I feel the most respected when I am...
• Everyone who agrees with this stands up and moves to another chair in the circle.
• The person without a chair becomes the new person in the middle. Now they say something about respect that is true for them.
• Make sure everyone has a chance to answer each of the prompts.

Mystery Game

Have you ever been busted of clearing your child’s room of what you thought was junk, only to be affronted with tears over the loss of something really precious?  We all keep treasures that hold value and are important to us for different reasons.  Knowing the reasons why often offers powerful insights into who we are and what is important to us.

In this family sharing, invite members of your family to share and item or object from their life that is special to them.  Have other family members guess the significance of these objects, and then have the person who’s object it was share why the object is so important to them.

Watch:

Reflections:

Answer these questions about respect with your family or reflect on them alone:

What does respect mean to you?

How do you show respect to your kids?

What does respect from your kids look like? How did your kids show you respect?

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being not at all and 10 being like all the time) how respected do you feel on a day-to-day basis?

What are some simple tools that you feel could create a language of respect in your home?

What are some tools that you hope could foster more respectful relationships within your family?

The Parent Project Podcast is sponsored by Island Savings, a division of First West Credit Union.

The post The Parent Project Podcast: Home is the ideal place to learn respect for all people appeared first on The Circle Education.

Family rules are important. They are statements on how we want to treat each other and they create structure in a busy family life. Setting rules, and applying rules in your family can be hard. Kids can be upset; wouldn’t it be so much easier if we could say ‘yes’ all the time?

Saying ‘yes’ all the time, is probably not the best idea, but sometimes setting up agreements instead of rules, can be a game changer. The main difference between rules and agreements is that rules are something you have to follow, whether you like it or not, while an agreement is something you want to follow, for reasons you believe are best. “If kids can have input, they are more likely to follow through,” says Zoe Fox in the second episode of The Parent Project.

Agreements relate to empathy and respect, podcast host Kate Nash adds. “Rules can feel uncomfortable because they are not flexible. Agreements acknowledge that everybody has an opinion. Agreements still can be rules, but there is an agreement on why the rule is important and everybody understands the purpose of it. It is easier to get on board with a rule that makes sense than one that doesn’t make sense.”

Listen to episode 2 here (or in your favourite podcast app)

For each episode of the Parent Project Podcast, host Kate Nash curated games, activities, resources, reflections and family practices to use, listen to, and do at home.

Game

Human Knot Game:

Have each member of the family stand in a circle, facing toward each other. Each person should be standing shoulder to shoulder. First, instruct everyone to lift their left hand and reach across to take the hand of someone standing across the circle. After you're in your circle, reach out and hold hands with two different people in the circle, excluding the two people to either side of you. Each left hand should hold a left hand, and each right hand a right.

Now that you have formed a human knot, you have to try to untangle the knot without letting go of each other’s hands. You can play this game with as few as four people. You may find you or others need to duck under the hands of other players, step over a pair of hands, or do similar moves to untangle your knot.

After the Human Knot game, you can ask these questions:

What spoken or unspoken agreements did we make when we played that game?

What agreements would have helped?

Goals of the Human Knot Game: team building and communication, problem-solving and making agreements.

Watch

Take 5 for Adults: Dr. Ross Greene on Creating a Collaborative Partnership with Your Child

Ross W. Greene is an American clinical child psychologist and author of the books The Explosive Child, Lost at School, Lost & Found, and Raising Human Beings. Greene developed a model of intervention called Collaborative & Proactive Solutions. He has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.

Family practice

Build agreements for your family.

Start by asking everyone what an agreement is they would like to help maintain a happy and healthy home. Make a list of these agreements and make sure everyone understands what each agreement means. See if there are others to add. Put them up on the fridge or a spot that will be noticed.

Check in about the agreements every so often to see if they are relevant and being followed. Be open to adding new ones or changing those that do not serve everyone.

The Parent Project Podcast is sponsored by Island Savings, a division of First West Credit Union.

The post The Parent Project Podcast: Why agreements often work better than rules appeared first on The Circle Education.

Kate Nash, our lead facilitator and program coordinator, hosted a podcast series for The Circle Education about parenting. For the Parent Project Podcast, Kate sat in circle with new and seasoned parents, as well as grandparents to talk about one of the most important but also hardest jobs in the world: parenting.  

Because let’s be honest: every parent makes mistakes and struggles. Kate, mom of three teenagers, is the first to admit that parenting is not easy. Facilitating the Circle Education’s podcast series for parents, helped her to reflect on her own parenting and to make positive changes in her practices. “The other participants offered me compassion and a deeper insight into my actions in relationship to my children. Talking about my struggles left me feeling relieved. It was a stepping stone to change in my family.”

While she thought her role in the circle was to facilitate, little did Kate realize how it would impact her own experience. “Being in this circle with other parents provided me with a place to share my experiences and to be heard. When we recorded the podcast, I went through a difficult time in my parenting life. I was struggling with my youngest who has ADHD and who would have violent outbursts. It was difficult for me to share this. I felt a great amount of shame, but talking to other parents in the circle lessened my burden. As my childhood hero Mr. Rogers used to say: when it’s mentionable, it becomes manageable.”

Fifteen local parents – young parents, experienced parents and grandparents – participated in the podcast. “We were all very different: different ages, stages of lives, parenting styles, traditional and modern families,” Kate continues. “I was surprised by how open and genuine participants were in this podcast. That is the nature of the circle; there is a lot of integrity, and that is why circle sessions are so important. We need spaces for parents to talk. If you’re struggling, reach out to someone, and find people to talk to. If you are able to talk about your struggles, this action alone can change the situation.”

In the podcast series, parents talk about important topics in daily family life. How they use agreements as a tool to navigate the needs and desires of everyone in the family. How they role model empathy with their kids. How they set boundaries. What positive communication looks like to them. How everyone in a family can learn to respect each other.

Article continues under photo.

In the nine episodes, the parents didn’t hold back. “We were vulnerably honest, if not brutal. As someone said, ‘we love our children, but we don’t always like them’. We all can relate to that. Parenting is a 24-hour job, with successes and failures. It is comforting to know that you are not alone in that. It helps us feel empathy for the challenges of being a parent.” 

Circle sessions are a key feature at The Circle Education. When our facilitators meet with youth, they gather in a circle. In a circle, everyone is equal, able to look one another in the eyes and listen fully. “During these sessions with youth, we discuss important topics like boundaries, consent, empathy and respect. Through our in- and afterschool programs, we give children and youth the tools to communicate, to advocate for themselves and to build healthy relationships with themselves and others.”

The podcast series hopes to contribute to a bigger change and impact in our communities. “That’s why we started to think beyond our usual interest groups, being children and youth. All participants of our programs live with parents and caregivers. We wanted them to experience a circle session as well. Unfortunately, we don’t have the funds and resources to offer adult programs and that’s how the idea of the podcast emerged. Through this podcast, we can talk about important topics for parents and reach parents and caregivers on the Gulf Islands and far beyond.”

With this podcast, in which parents talk about the great things about parenting as well as the hard parts, The Circle Education wants parents to be able to feel validated for the work they do and perhaps offer seeds of insights from our different experiences. “Our tagline is “empowering youth for a better tomorrow”.  We hope that this podcast helps parents to feel stronger in their roles towards achieving this.”

You can listen to the Parent Project podcast here

Thank you to our sponsor:
Island Savings, A Division of First West Credit Union: www.islandsavings.ca

Thank you to the Salt Spring Foundation for developing funds for this project.

The post The Parent Project Podcast: Brutal Honesty Builds Empathy in Parenting  appeared first on The Circle Education.

Three years ago, my class toured the morgue at Saanich Peninsula hospital. We weren’t shown any bodies, but the smell in the air made it feel as if we were surrounded by death: it was the smell of cigarette smoke. That morning, the mortician had dissected a dead person who smoked for most of his life and died of lung disease. His corpse was in that very room, hidden by steel doors. The presenter showed us pieces of the inside of his lungs in plastic bags on a steel platter - the organs that were supposed to be a healthy pink were instead blackened and charred. The cloying smell of smoke that permeated through the plastic bags has followed me ever since.

If I had any qualms with smoking before, I was certainly scared away after that day. But a lot of the people in my class weren’t. We knew the risks, but many of us still continued to drink, smoke, vape and take other risks related to our health anyway. So, what made us do it? Why do teens smoke, vape and take other risks related to our health, despite knowing the full consequences of those substances on our bodies, and what will help us make healthier choices?

Why do teens vape?

Many youths start vaping because they see it all around them. According to Statistics Canada (2021), peer and family use of vapes increases adolescents’ odds of vaping. In their 2019 report, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) branch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stated that “a primary concern” is that “many young people view vaping as socially acceptable”. Another SAMHSA study showed that youth indicated that they vaped because their friends, peers, and siblings did. A 2020 study by Truth Initiative, America’s largest nonprofit public health organization, found that youth and young adults with high exposure to popular streaming and TV shows containing tobacco images are three times more likely to start vaping compared to their peers with no exposure. Through advertising, social media platforms, TV shows/movies, in school and many public spaces, youth are constantly seeing other people vaping. This exposure causes youth to see vaping as a ‘normal’ part of the teenage experience, a way to be ‘cool’ and a way to rebel against their parents all at once (SAMHSA).

Kate Nash, facilitator and program coordinator with The Circle Education, asked some local youth about their experiences surrounding vaping. Their answers were similar all across the board. When asked if they knew the consequences of vaping, they answered that they had had lots of information drilled into their brains by their teachers, by admin, and even social media. This shows that Salt Spring youth are not misinformed and that they are well aware of the dangers of vaping, but still do it anyway. What’s more, one youth was quoted as saying: “If an adult tells me not to do something, I’m totally going to do it” and their friends all agreed with that statement.

If warnings from adults only spur young people’s interest in vaping, what would actually make them stop? Peer influence seems to be both the reason why and why not to vape for Salt Spring youth.  When asked why they started vaping, one responded “to do cool hacks, and vape tricks, like ‘ghost inhale” as a way to impress friends and people they were into. Others gave similar responses. When asked what would keep them from vaping, other youths answered, “Maybe if my friend died from it” or “maybe if someone I was into didn’t like it”. Having other outlets also seemed to keep some from vaping, as suggested by one youth, “if I had a goal or something to work for I wouldn’t do it”. When asked why they continued, they responded that it helped them focus their thoughts, to relax and because they had become addicted. They knew that they were addicted because they felt “antsy” and they thought about vaping all the time. One youth said, “At first, I didn’t think I was addicted at all, but now I know I am. I just need it”.

How can you help youth in your life make healthier choices?

As a parent, or as someone who has young people in their life, your first instinct may be to forbid or scare your kids away from taking risks or using substances. But, as I know from my peer group’s experience, shocking teens into not vaping doesn’t always work. There is more information about vaping out there than ever before, and yet the rate of youth who vape only continues to rise, according to the latest Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey (Statistics Canada, 2019). As we learned from our small informal sampling of youth on Salt Spring Island, warnings about the consequences of vaping alone may not be effective. So, in addition to the facts and preventive information, what can we do to help the youth in our lives make healthier decisions?

Kate Nash says that she sees changes towards safer behaviour when youth are simply asked questions around their choices. “Youth are commonly told what not to do, and when bombarded with the adverse effects of vaping, often, they will respond with rebellion. Alternatively, the purpose of The Circle’s programs is to explore through open curiosity the boundaries we push, decisions we make, and how those decisions serve us.” The best way for this to happen is through dialogue.

Here are some tips for having a conversation about vaping or other substances with youth in your life:

●            Before you start the conversation, it is important to know the facts about vaping. Here is a helpful link

●            Recognize your own values and biases. Try not to project personal feelings of judgment and shame upon the important young people in your life. This may cause them to feel like you are judging them and they may become unwilling to continue the conversation.

●            Be prepared to delve into this topic at a developmentally appropriate level.  What this conversation looks like to a 15-year-old might be very different for a 17-year-old.

●            Sharing your personal experiences with substance use can be a way to connect with youth in your life, however, steer the conversation away from specific examples and focus on the feelings/thoughts around your choices instead of the intoxicants themselves.

●            Use “What” questions. “Why” questions often trigger defensiveness. Open the conversation with questions like:

-”What are you hearing about drugs/alcohol/vaping in school?”

-”What are your friends doing? Are they into vaping/drugs/alcohol? What do you think/feel about that?”

-”What would be the worst thing that would happen if you were to start vaping/drinking? What would be the worst thing that would happen if you didn’t?”

●            Have your youth think about risks and brainstorm the pros and cons of using substances.

●            Encourage the youth in your life to engage in healthy risk-taking instead of using substances as a way to satiate their need to push boundaries. Healthy risk-taking can look like riding roller coasters, rock climbing, trying out for a team or a play, meeting new people, or volunteering.

●            As a team, try to land on an agreement around substance use and how to stay safe.

●            Lastly, this conversation about vaping can be ongoing. It can be helpful to check-in regularly with the young people in your life about how they are feeling, their thoughts and their experiences around substances. 

As Kate Nash explained to me, what is most important about this conversation is that youth are “given the opportunity to safely consider and question their choices around substances so that they can better decide what is right for them”. This may be how we can encourage youth to make healthier choices about substances for themselves. That, and by showing them bits of shrivelled black lungs!

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