We do this while we eat supper and it works well, especially as our children are exactly those who would not want to sit still otherwise. We have used a talking stick my youngest made (a stick he found in our woods and painted) but do not always need to but we most certainly use a "go around the circle" order which they are familiar with from playing card or board games. We did have to address that this was not the time to complain about other family members but to talk about how each of us is feeling (which sometimes involves not liking what someone else is doing but seems a more positive approach.) I do think it is good for children to see that their parents are people and have worries and concerns and do not know all the answers but, at the same time, that the parents are committed to keeping things safe and helping to find the answers that will serve everyone. We have also talked about how we are a family of individuals (each of us has our own personality and needs and desires) but we also are a family and the family is like one other person. We are beekeepers and I have said it is akin to the hive idea. There are thousands of individual bees in each hive, each with its own abilities and jobs to do but the hive itself is an entity, too. The whole hive has a personality much like a family. I think this has helped our children understand that we need to care for each other as individuals but there is also care to be taken for the family as a whole. Sometimes, those things look very much alike and sometimes they don't. Another family might appreciate the "team" analogy better. Anyway, thanks for another thoughtful video. I always appreciate your enthusiasm and generosity. Peace and health to all!
Totally love that extra tip at the end to share the facilitation. This is definitely something I want to bring into our family, and I really agree with allowing kids a free space to blah where they're really heard and met as equals. Always find your videos so inspiring x
Since my daughter arrived back home amid this crisis we have been trying out a family circle. It hasn't been successful including my 4yr old son as he just says he's happy and isn't one to sit so the Playdough or something to play with is a great idea. Good idea also having two types as we've found that it's actually quite hard to not comment or want comments even but we agree having that space and listening fully is a very good thing.
@@LucyatLifeWithoutSchool it went better than I thought it would! Thank you for reaching out! Have fun mushroom hunting, we do that as a family too. No luck yet here is Pennsylvania, it's a little early but we are always looking them! Have a great day
Hi. I have been wanting to do something like this for ages and your vlog made me get on with it. I have 3 children aged between 5 and 14 and my 14 year old daughter was very negative about the whole idea but I insisted she join us. We started by brain storming name ideas for the sessions and all of hers were negative....the circle of doom, gloom and boredom....the circle of obesity (cos I said they could bring whatever snacks they wanted)....her ideas were all making us laff so much that it turned her negativity around. We actually have now named the group after one of her ideas....The Stinky Bed Gathering! I have been poorly for the last 5 weeks starting with the coronavirus leading on to a secondary infection and now another virus that's affecting my balance so it probably is a very smelly bed that I'm in 😂 anyway, just wanted to say thanks! X
Kia ora Lucy, I really enjoyed this video! Have you looked much into NVC - sounds like it would totally fit with the truth you speak.... I interviewed Deb and Wayne from The Meditating Giraffe who do online NVC training in Aotearoa if want to know more...much aroha.
She definitely knows about NVC. She talks about it in her courses and on her website (eg. lulastic.co.uk/activism/parenting-for-social-justice-non-violent-communication/)
Hi Lucy, as I was watching this video, I began to wonder how old Ramona and Juno were, when you first started having family circles. I have a newborn son, and he obviously can't participate in anything that involves talking just yet, but I would like to have family circles as soon as possible, so he can grow into it naturally.
Ooh yeah! I reckon Ramona was 3? but I think when they are verbal it can work - especially if it's fun, maybe you start and close with a song or something :D
@@LucyatLifeWithoutSchool A song sounds like a good idea. I've also considered, just starting to have family circles with his father, as long as he can't talk yet, so he can just naturally start participating when he is ready to
Challenge accepted. Will love to give this ago. Just have a quick question. How can you let your child let it all out and speak freely, but also keep to a resonalble time frame and not interrupt? Would that just be a gentle reminder from the person holding the circle? Just my daughter could sit there all day talking if we let her she loves a good audience. 🤣🤣
Great question! Hmmm, how I would do it would be to figure out together how long you want the meeting to be and then have an agreement about how long each person can talk for in order to honour the time, and have the facilitator say “one minute to go” and then call time (in love obviously 🤪)
Well, thats kind of the end! You could do something "ritualised" to sort of bring it to a close - like maybe you have a tune you could sing together or you could hold hands for a few seconds or something :D We do add that in a bit!
Oppression and repression are very British characteristics .... I'm Latin and expressing our feelings and thoughts is a very natural thing in our household.
Lucy at Life Without School greetings from a homeschooled teenager’s mum in the U.K. - homeschooling my son has been the best thing I have ever done !!!! ❤️💜💚💙💛🤍🤎
Hey ! love your content! How have you worked through holding space for your own emotions in order to hold space for your family/children's emotions? Do you have any good books/videos/resources? I have noticed I suppress certain emotions due to "programming" from childhood and I want to work with this for myself and future family. Also, I bought the book Wild Power, you recommended and I am in love!
Oh hey! it's the best book huh. Yep your hunch is right - we do a lot of work uncovering these bliefs in my online courses. I also love The Artists Way for this! My FAVOURITE book for working this stuff through :D
@@LucyatLifeWithoutSchool oh cool I didn't realize you had online courses! I'm actually reading the artist way right now! Such a powerful book, I think I will need to read more than once.
Do you set any rules around emotion sharing? I'd love to try this with my kids but they have been squabbling SO much. I'm worried that encouraging them to 'let it all out' could sound like giving permission for them to be nasty to their siblings!
I’d love to try this with my family. I’m just wondering, to what level of sharing would you share your emotions with your children? I’m just thinking about the current crisis and if I share how I’m feeling scared and worried about various things, would it actually make my children’s anxiety worse? I want to be honest but not sure how much we adults should share (they’re young - 5 and 7) Thanks Lucy, loving the new channel x
Hello! Yes, that’s young, I would say things in a slightly softer way so like “more worried than usual” or “full up with thoughts” rather than “frightened” kind of thing. Because I do think honesty is great and there’s a beautiful thing in our kids understanding *us* as feeling beings and knowing that we are out of sorts right now and that’s why things might be feeling different in the home... but without fully downloading through this setting. Great question! I’d definitely recommend another setting for getting to do a big deep heavy “I’m scared” kind of blah for the parents!
We do this while we eat supper and it works well, especially as our children are exactly those who would not want to sit still otherwise. We have used a talking stick my youngest made (a stick he found in our woods and painted) but do not always need to but we most certainly use a "go around the circle" order which they are familiar with from playing card or board games. We did have to address that this was not the time to complain about other family members but to talk about how each of us is feeling (which sometimes involves not liking what someone else is doing but seems a more positive approach.) I do think it is good for children to see that their parents are people and have worries and concerns and do not know all the answers but, at the same time, that the parents are committed to keeping things safe and helping to find the answers that will serve everyone. We have also talked about how we are a family of individuals (each of us has our own personality and needs and desires) but we also are a family and the family is like one other person. We are beekeepers and I have said it is akin to the hive idea. There are thousands of individual bees in each hive, each with its own abilities and jobs to do but the hive itself is an entity, too. The whole hive has a personality much like a family. I think this has helped our children understand that we need to care for each other as individuals but there is also care to be taken for the family as a whole. Sometimes, those things look very much alike and sometimes they don't. Another family might appreciate the "team" analogy better. Anyway, thanks for another thoughtful video. I always appreciate your enthusiasm and generosity. Peace and health to all!
i love your hive analogy - so good!
I would love to see one of these family circles ‘in action’! 💕
I am too too excited that you are back. Please stay on youtube even after this pandemic. I miss your content so much.
hahaha :D
Totally love that extra tip at the end to share the facilitation. This is definitely something I want to bring into our family, and I really agree with allowing kids a free space to blah where they're really heard and met as equals. Always find your videos so inspiring x
Thank you for all of your videos!! I love them 🥰
Since my daughter arrived back home amid this crisis we have been trying out a family circle. It hasn't been successful including my 4yr old son as he just says he's happy and isn't one to sit so the Playdough or something to play with is a great idea. Good idea also having two types as we've found that it's actually quite hard to not comment or want comments even but we agree having that space and listening fully is a very good thing.
Awesome!
Love this idea of a family circle. I am going to try it tonight at dinner. Thanks for sharing!!
How did it go? x
@@LucyatLifeWithoutSchool it went better than I thought it would! Thank you for reaching out! Have fun mushroom hunting, we do that as a family too. No luck yet here is Pennsylvania, it's a little early but we are always looking them! Have a great day
Hi. I have been wanting to do something like this for ages and your vlog made me get on with it. I have 3 children aged between 5 and 14 and my 14 year old daughter was very negative about the whole idea but I insisted she join us. We started by brain storming name ideas for the sessions and all of hers were negative....the circle of doom, gloom and boredom....the circle of obesity (cos I said they could bring whatever snacks they wanted)....her ideas were all making us laff so much that it turned her negativity around. We actually have now named the group after one of her ideas....The Stinky Bed Gathering! I have been poorly for the last 5 weeks starting with the coronavirus leading on to a secondary infection and now another virus that's affecting my balance so it probably is a very smelly bed that I'm in 😂 anyway, just wanted to say thanks! X
oh my gosh I LOVE THIS! I love that you were able to just embrace your teenager and roll with one of her ideas! love and health to you x x
Kia ora Lucy, I really enjoyed this video! Have you looked much into NVC - sounds like it would totally fit with the truth you speak.... I interviewed Deb and Wayne from The Meditating Giraffe who do online NVC training in Aotearoa if want to know more...much aroha.
She definitely knows about NVC. She talks about it in her courses and on her website (eg. lulastic.co.uk/activism/parenting-for-social-justice-non-violent-communication/)
Hi Lucy, as I was watching this video, I began to wonder how old Ramona and Juno were, when you first started having family circles. I have a newborn son, and he obviously can't participate in anything that involves talking just yet, but I would like to have family circles as soon as possible, so he can grow into it naturally.
Ooh yeah! I reckon Ramona was 3? but I think when they are verbal it can work - especially if it's fun, maybe you start and close with a song or something :D
@@LucyatLifeWithoutSchool A song sounds like a good idea. I've also considered, just starting to have family circles with his father, as long as he can't talk yet, so he can just naturally start participating when he is ready to
Challenge accepted. Will love to give this ago. Just have a quick question. How can you let your child let it all out and speak freely, but also keep to a resonalble time frame and not interrupt? Would that just be a gentle reminder from the person holding the circle?
Just my daughter could sit there all day talking if we let her she loves a good audience. 🤣🤣
Great question! Hmmm, how I would do it would be to figure out together how long you want the meeting to be and then have an agreement about how long each person can talk for in order to honour the time, and have the facilitator say “one minute to go” and then call time (in love obviously 🤪)
@@LucyatLifeWithoutSchool ah perfect thanks.😁
Just wondering what do you do after the “checking in” part of the circle if there’s no problem to solve or action plan to make?!
Well, thats kind of the end! You could do something "ritualised" to sort of bring it to a close - like maybe you have a tune you could sing together or you could hold hands for a few seconds or something :D We do add that in a bit!
Oppression and repression are very British characteristics .... I'm Latin and expressing our feelings and thoughts is a very natural thing in our household.
haha brilliant :D :D
Lucy at Life Without School ❤️💜💛💚🧡🤍🤎👍🏼🥰😘
Lucy at Life Without School greetings from a homeschooled teenager’s mum in the U.K. - homeschooling my son has been the best thing I have ever done !!!! ❤️💜💚💙💛🤍🤎
Hey ! love your content! How have you worked through holding space for your own emotions in order to hold space for your family/children's emotions? Do you have any good books/videos/resources?
I have noticed I suppress certain emotions due to "programming" from childhood and I want to work with this for myself and future family.
Also, I bought the book Wild Power, you recommended and I am in love!
Oh hey!
it's the best book huh.
Yep your hunch is right - we do a lot of work uncovering these bliefs in my online courses.
I also love The Artists Way for this! My FAVOURITE book for working this stuff through :D
@@LucyatLifeWithoutSchool oh cool I didn't realize you had online courses! I'm actually reading the artist way right now! Such a powerful book, I think I will need to read more than once.
Do you set any rules around emotion sharing? I'd love to try this with my kids but they have been squabbling SO much. I'm worried that encouraging them to 'let it all out' could sound like giving permission for them to be nasty to their siblings!
I’d love to try this with my family. I’m just wondering, to what level of sharing would you share your emotions with your children? I’m just thinking about the current crisis and if I share how I’m feeling scared and worried about various things, would it actually make my children’s anxiety worse? I want to be honest but not sure how much we adults should share (they’re young - 5 and 7) Thanks Lucy, loving the new channel x
Hello! Yes, that’s young, I would say things in a slightly softer way so like “more worried than usual” or “full up with thoughts” rather than “frightened” kind of thing. Because I do think honesty is great and there’s a beautiful thing in our kids understanding *us* as feeling beings and knowing that we are out of sorts right now and that’s why things might be feeling different in the home... but without fully downloading through this setting. Great question! I’d definitely recommend another setting for getting to do a big deep heavy “I’m scared” kind of blah for the parents!
@@LucyatLifeWithoutSchool Awesome! Thanks so much for replying, I will definitely use those sorts of expressions x