Forthcoming workshops

2011 - 2012

London

In Forest Row, Sussex

 Lourdes Callen facilitates learning groups on parenting which include experiential exercises, talks and dialogue. She is a Biographical Counsellor with a background in Steiner Early Years Education, working in London, Forest Row and in Spain. She has led groups for 15 years and works with parents from a wide range of backgrounds.

Consultations and Biographical Counselling
In London and Forest Row (East Sussex)

Supporting you with parenting and development questions

For more information please go to: Consultations
For appointments please call 01342 826727
or E-mail: lcallen@atimeforchildhood.com

 Further information

Parenting - Programme

Will take place in London – From October 2011 to June 2012.

Dates: Sundays,16 October & 20 November 2011. See below for details.
 Dates for 2012 to be announced
Time: 10.30am- 5pm

Our experiences in Spain and London during 2010-11, together with the participants’ interest for having more themes and continuation, have lead us to create a new social-therapeutic group that will be active and supportive to parents in a continuous way throughout the year. We will meet only two times a term to facilitate attendance.
There are workshops also taking place at Emerson - Forest Row. East Sussex.

We would like to offer a space in which to feel the value of being a parent and the joy of being with children.  Away from the everyday busy-ness, we create the necessary time for reflection and learning. This group will integrate self development work and the understanding of children’s needs.Children and young people ask themselves: Am I understood? With these workshops we aim to: 

• Understand children and their needs in each phase of development up to 21
• Build resources and find inspiration for our everyday life of caring for children.
• Enhance abilities for observation.
• Explore each person's path of parenting.

This course will give parents, teachers and therapist the foundations to approach the child and young person in a renewed way. How can we activate and sustain our capacity to love? We will be presenting an overview of all the main themes we work with in our workshops during the last years, aiming to enrich the experience of childhood.
Through the process of 6 sessions we will observe:

• The natural rhythms of physical development.
•  Emotional development. How can we perceive and work with the soul in our day-to-day life with the children? And how can we fill with admiration our meetings with them – caring and sustaining the child’s and adolescent’s soul.
• Awakening to the child’s spiritual element. How can we nurture its development?
• The expression and unfolding of identity and capacity for independent judgement in youths.
• Ways of nurturing and kindling all these aspects.

This extensive panorama of life will give us a clear vision of the significance of the first years and its meaning for later life.
 

• Attention towards children, adolescents, and… ourselves.
• Observing the influence of the world in which we live.

• Exchanging and feeling inspired through the contributions of others.
• Exploring the path of parenting.
• Practice how to observe children and situations, and understand them better.
•  Discovering ways in which to observe and understand ourselves as well.

This work is based on
The knowledge of anthroposophy, life phases and biography work, and the experience  of many years of workshops with parents.

The work develops in a practical and experiential way.

• Encouraging the healthy development of the child – What this means practically.
• Enjoying the richness of the group contributions and the study of cases.  
• Working with “how” to set healthy boundaries and what to do when the child says “no”.
• Play time as a source of energy, balance and learning. How to encourage play.
• Developing abilities for: centring, grounding and feeling stronger in ourselves; perceiving in a deeper and wider way; and cultivating gratitude and reviving love.  

What participants say – An example.
The course was fantastic, I see things with more clarity, and what is more important with more tranquillity. When I arrived at home I took the children down to the play ground and after a while I thought to myself, how strange it is that they are playing between them in a peaceful way. I noticed them changed; they do not come to demand attention as they normally do specially after a few hours without seeing me. And in that moment I remembered your words, that it is possible that children experienced changes from this very moment. I notice more serenity and auto-control, more awareness, more respect, love and security in how I respond to my children. And I feel better with myself and in the relationship with my mother, to whom I could give thanks, for she enable me to go to the workshops.  I feel enormously grateful towards you, and bless you for your wisdom and way of working.
E.  Zaragoza-Spain.  June-2010……… To see more go to: testimonials

Themes for each workshop

1st Workshop - 16 October

Parenting as a path of awareness   

We would like to start these meetings with a introduction in which we look together for the essential elements and guidelines for raising children, and focus on parenting as a path of awareness and creativity. Other themes will be:

• Introduction to life phases in the first 21 years – The 7 years cycles.
• How the world of today influences children.
• Meeting children’s needs in the midst of today’s pressures.    
• What it means to give children a time for childhood.
• How we attend their growing process and the continuous changes they experience – caring for the soul and the environment.

Observation and practice.   Are the needs of children different from before? How are the children of today? How to discriminate what they would really like to tell us? Refining and recreating the task of parenting. Working with the child’s Angel. Knowing your child better. We will look at how our biography influences our parenting and how to overcome reactions and cultivate inner qualities – perceiving differently and developing intuition.

• Development up to 4 years – the progress the child makes: walking, talking and thinking. How does he discover and take in the world around him.
• Sensitive caring for the young child – the physical and human environment.
• Receiving the child, the daily rhythm as a source of familiarity and energy, working with transitions and understanding learning through imitation.
• Sensorial experiences. How much protection and how much freedom?
• Play and toys. A space for the child’s own initiative and expression.
• The changes at 3 years and the needs in this phase – a time for affirmation and for opposition. How to work with situations that arise and find positive ways for guiding children at this age.

Observation and practice:What do the needs of the child involve at this time? How do we accompany these changes? What capacities does the adult need to develop? Sometimes we may think, What about me?  We will explore how to build resources which support our giving. How to care for ourselves and improve our energy?

• How children learn through imitation and repetition.
• The development of the senses – the experiences that will enrich the journey through the first years of life.
• How to work with rhythm and transitions in everyday life.
• Play and imagination. Encouraging and supporting play. Materials and others questions on this theme.
• The change that takes place from 2 to 4 years (continuation)

In this workshop we will also explore how to create a sense of calm, security and happiness in children. And how our upbringing influences the way we approach children and limits. We will understand why sometimes setting limits does not work and why children say “no”. Also how nurturing the relationship can improve children’s cooperation.    
Observation and practice:  Our reactions. How to manage anger and other emotions? Inner work during our path of parenting - obstacles we meet and what we project on children. Knowing the inner child - Self-control and healing.

• Giving children the time to be children – with rhythm, movement, play, celebrations and other essential elements of childhood.
• The world of feelings – cultivating and balancing them through beauty and art.
• Imagination in these years and the awakening to reality.
• The capacity for reasoning and logic.
• Preparing for the time of adolescence.

We will continue the theme of working with boundaries and how to set healthy boundaries that children will benefit from and will accept. Exploring also:

• The resistance adults feel to setting boundaries.
• How to accompany and guide the child at this age: overcoming reactions, towards an active education that anticipates and works for prevention.  

Observation and practice. Understanding the time we are living in involves realizing the need to learn and develop while children are growing. How can we connect to love, listen to it and enhance it? Our love and learning are resources that take us to discover those wonders we wish to offer them and offer ourselves.

• Leaving childhood behind – transition moments.
• Physical, emotional and spiritual changes that children - young people - experience in this moment.
• Development of independent judgement.
• Independence, freedom and responsibility.
• The search for truth – the ideals.
• Understanding the moment of 18 years. What emerges in the person at this time?

Observation and practice.  The task of parenting continues in this phase – giving sustaining forces which support the young person in his preparation for life. Cultivating Trust – managing anxiety. Relating and communicating with young people. Overcoming challenges and Crossing our Bridge – knowing and healing our inner adolescent. The path of parenting as a part of the wider path of life: working with biography – a way to healing and awareness.

• Stepping into adult life – first important decisions.
• The awaited freedom – going into the world: exploring own limits and those of the environment. The projects, journeys, meetings and the awakening to oneself.
• The unexpected events that give form to our life in that time.

Observation and practice.  How we can keep supporting and guiding young people, fostering their confidence and nurturing the relationship. We will look at the significance of karma in the relationship between parents and children. What can we learn from our biography that can serve the next generation?
We will take time to round off the series of 6 sessions, giving thanks to the contributions of the participants.  Together we will gather discoveries, new insights and the creative work that has emerged in the last months.

• To book a single workshop, please send a cheque for the above amount.
• Or to book 6 sessions, please pay 2 sessions each term: £170 / 130

By Cheque. Please send a non - refundable cheque to:
53, Upper Close. Forest Row. RH18 5DS. And contact us by phoning.
On line payments:  A Time for Childhood   20-23-97     90873152
In both cases: please, tell us your name, telephone, e-mail and the title of the workshop/s you are booking.

To book and for more information please contact Lourdes or Rainer on 01342 826727   or  send us an e-mail:     lcallen@atimeforchildhood.com

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Saturday, 11 February 2012 from 10.30am – 5pm

A Time for childhood

How to make it possible?

When we let ourselves go with the flow of the time we are living in, it is very easy to treat children as little adults rather than as children.

With this workshop we would like to give a space for reflection on the question of how to give children a complete experience of their childhood.

For many years in our work with parents we have spoken about the importance of childhood, and gathered many experiences and knowledge on this theme.

Questions we often hear are:

• How to give children a time to be children.
• How to nurture, keep and consolidate the spirit of childhood.
• What is the benefit of this work for the child’s future.
• In which ways do they lose the experience of being children.
• What are the consequences of this loss.
• How do we support them to recover, and help them get back on track.

We will observe the ways in which children lose the possibility of building a well founded childhood, and how to restore the natural processes of physical, emotional and spiritual growth; giving the children the time, space and experiences they need.

We will discover the benefits of re-establishing all these processes for the child - resulting in inner strength and a confidence in themselves and the world.

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To book and for more information please contact Lourdes or Rainer on                           01342 826727    or  send us an e-mail:     lcallen@atimeforchildhood.com

 Venue: Emerson College, Forest Row, East Sussex RH18 5JX
Cost for each workshop: £85/£65 Conc.                                                                    .                     Payments: To book for this workshop, please send a non - refundable cheque for the above amount to: 53, Upper Close. Forest Row. RH18 5DS.