Why Parenting & Teaching is Getting Harder & What to Do When All Else Fails

WHY PARENTING & TEACHING IS GETTING HARDER & WHAT TO DO WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS

Parenting and Teaching is getting harder, not easier!

Despite enormous efforts and resources to embrace technology, refine the curriculum and hone the pedagogy, the teachability of students is declining.

Faced with an epidemic of emotional health crises and behavioural problems, parents, teachers and principals are feeling the toll on their mental and emotional well-being. The implications for education and the community are profound. Parents and Educators are asking what went wrong? More importantly; What can we do about it?

Something special happens in the space when developmental science and attachment-based practices equip you with the tools to nurture resilience, emotional well-being, and healthy relationships.

🌱 Dynamics shift within families and schools;

🌱 Relationships transform between children and parents;

🌱 Children and teens grow up to realise their full human potential .

The NEUFELD ATTACHMENT-BASED APPROACH is about 'what do I see'. It is NOT about what do I 'do'.

It is a fundamental 'universal truth' that what we 'do' arises from what we 'see'!

Join us to discover a fresh new way of 'seeing' children in our care, that points a way forward, that is as powerful as it is surprising.

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🌱 WHO ARE THESE THREE EYE OPENING EVENTS FOR?

• Teachers, Educators and caregivers who want to foster engagement, curiosity and emotional well-being in the children they work with.
• Parents and family of children looking for guidance through common childhood struggles.
• Anyone curious and interested in an 'inside-out, developmental and attachment-based approach to raising resilient, well-adjusted children, as an alternative to more traditional cognitive behavoural, outside-in skill sets.

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🌱 1. ONLINE ZOOM DROP-IN BOOK CLUB

"HOLD ON TO YOUR KIDS" Why Parents (Teachers) Need To Matter More Than Peers.

Starting March 12 for NO COST this 12 week zoom study group is an optional precurser to two 'Live' Geelong based workshops in June.

SEE INTERVIEW CLIP WITH GORDON NEUFELD PhD & GABOR MATE MD BELOW

BookClub Details: Weekly for 12 weeks prior to 'Live' workshops in Geelong, Victoria Join us as we navigate the insights offered by Dr. Gordon Neufeld and Dr. Gabor Maté on the essential role of parents and teachers in the lives of children.

• Date: Starting Wednesday March 12th-May 28 (with flexibility to consider alternative times or days based on group consensus).
• Time: 7.45-8.45pm ESDT (with flexibility to consider alternative times or days based on group consensus).
• Location: Online via Zoom. Register your interest to receive the Zoom link and join any week.
• Cost: FREE of charge.
• Led by: Australian Neufeld Interest Group (ANIG), graduates from "Making Sense of Kids 1."

Learning Together is Better: We believe in the power of collaboration. Each session invites participants to pre-read or listen to 1-2 chapters in advance (optional) to facilitate lively, supportive and friendly discussions.

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🌱 2. "LIVE" EVENING PUBLIC TALK GEELONG:

UNDERSTANDING FRUSTRATION and AGGRESSION

• Date: Thursday June 12, 2025
• Time: 6:00 – 8.30pm
• Location: Eden Oak Geelong
• Cost: $45 per person (Bundle includes both workshops $210.)
• Description: The expression of frustration and aggression in pre-schoolers and teens can take on many forms, including temper tantrums and various forms of attack. Part of making headway requires understanding the roots of frustration and aggression and how to deal with the resulting behaviours.

This presentation will focus on strategies for dealing with a frustrated child while preserving one’s relationship to them. It will address the importance of setting limits and helping children learn they can survive futilities that are part of life.

Join us for a candid discussion on the challenges of modern parenting and teaching. In this event, Deborah will explore why these roles are becoming more difficult and provide practical tips on what to do when all else fails.

Whether you're a parent, grandparent, caregiver, teacher or educator this event is for you!

Grab the discounted Bundle option and come and connect with like-minded individuals at Eden Oak Geelong.

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🌱 3. "LIVE" PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT - FULL DAY WORKSHOP GEELONG:

TEACHABILITY UNPACKED

• Date: Friday June 13, 2025
• Time: 9:00 – 3.30pm
• Location: Eden Oak Geelong
• Cost: $200 per person (Bundle includes both workshops $210.)
• Description: The main objective of this one day workshop is to begin the process of making sense of the children in our care. Intervention must be based on insight if it is to transform children from inside-out and be long lasting in its effects.

The aim is to do more than simply modify behaviour, but rather to unlock the processes of inner change.

By removing the impediments to the innate maturational processes, we can lift the ceiling on functioning and move closer to realising the child`s developmental potential, whatever that may be. Some problems cannot be fixed but the stuckness surrounding the problem can still be addressed.

Our goal is to equip the participants with conceptual tools to make sense of kids and to provide instruments of intervention that will bring lasting change.

TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION:

🌱 Why students are more anxious, aggressive, and shut down than ever: four natural contexts for learning and why these contexts are being eroded in contemporary society.

🌱 Teachability introduced: the role of emergent functioning in learning and behaviour, including curiosity and sense of agency

🌱 Teachability & the adaptive brain: correction, resilience and neuroplasticity

🌱 Teachability & the developing brain: problem-solving, self-control, and the capacity to process conflicting thoughts and feelings. Understand the emotional roots of resistance, dominance, and aggression and how to diffuse conflict

🌱 Teachability & the heart: stuckness and defendedness in students who don't engage

🌱 Teachability & Relationship: how attachment is meant to develop, what hinders its formation and the effect on student-teacher relationships. Insight into strategies for minimizing the impact of peer orientation and alpha behaviour

🌱 Raising teachability through attachment: overcoming students' reticence to attach and cultivating a context of connection and engagement

🌱 Raising teachability with stuck kids: developmental stuckness as the most common problem of childhood and its impact on learning.

Whether you're a parent, grandparent, caregiver, teacher or educator this event is for you! Grab the discounted Bundle option and come and connect with like-minded individuals at Eden Oak Geelong.

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🌱 THE NEUFELD ATTACHMENT-BASED APPROACH:

DR GORDON NEUFELD a psychologist with a reputation for penetrating to the heart of complex parenting. Is an internationally highly acclaimed and respected developmentalist, theorist, and attachment-based expert. His developmental ‘insight’ model explains how human beings develop the extraordinary capacity for connected relationships.

Unlike many approaches that are skill and outcome-based and aim to shape and manage behaviour. Neufeld’s Attachment-Based Approach is very different in that the focus is on understanding what the child is experiencing on the 'inside'.

When this distinction is realised, there often follows-

🌱 immense relief

🌱 a sense of awe

🌱 celebratory spirit!

Moreover, it provides clear insights, empowering parents, grandparents, teachers, educators and others become the answer, children in their care need. https://neufeldinstitute.org/about-us/dr-gordon-neufeld/

With co-author GABOR MATE, in their ground breaking highly acclaimed book "HOLD ON TO YOUR KIDS - Why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers', together write with the radical intent of normalising natural parenting instincts. .......................................................................................................................................

🌱 'LIVE' GEELONG WORKSHOPS LED BY:

DR DEBORAH MACNAMARA serves on Faculty Neufeld Institute, Canada. She is a highly acclaimed fascilitator and author who specialises in Neufeld’s developmental-based approach.

Following her highly successful Australian Tour in 2024, public support has inspired her return as a much sought-after speaker.

Deborah will lead two "Live" events in June, in Geelong, and address the root causes of the growing crisis in children’s emotional functioning, maturation and capacity to learn, and point a way forward that is as powerful as it is surprising.

Deborah came to this work as a new mother herself, curious and confident that Neufeld’s approach could shift not only her children’s futures forever but also her professional approach to supporting and helping others.

The experience that shaped Deborah the most as a developmentalist was becoming a parent. She yearned for a deeper understanding of human development beyond her academic experience. It was then she found the work of Dr. Gordon Neufeld and completed a two-year post-doctoral internship at the Neufeld Institute. Her studies included making sense of human development based on neuroscience, emotional development, vulnerability from depth psychology, attachment theory, developmental psychology, and the science of play, while honouring Indigenous wisdom and practice. .

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🌱 GEELONG WORKSHOPS HOSTED BY:

Point Lonsdale Primary School, Australian Neufeld Interest Group (ANIG) and Compass at the Eden Oak Conference & Events Centre, Geelong, Vic.