“Gentle Teaching is the way I communicate and interact with other people, from the way I talk to the way I look at them.”

I highly value Gentle Teaching because I recognize the benefits of having that foundation in my own life and have made the decision to raise my children using the same philosophy. I read extensively about Gentle Teaching on the COR website and I adopted this approach rapidly with my own family and my children.

As an immigrant, we have our own values; cultures and ways of doing things. For example, the way I talk or educate my kids can be very different from the mainstream Canadian perspective. I have heard people saying that immigrants tend to be loud with our children and we tend to influence their choice. Sometimes, it can be an assumption but in my case, it was the sad reality. As an immigrant, I have realized that this is the sad truth for a lot of us who came to Canada to have a better future. It’s true; we tend to have high expectations for our kids. After all, we (immigrants) learned that way of life through primary socialization by our own parents.

When I started reading about Gentle Teaching, I realize there were things in my life that were not going according to the philosophy. I started questioning my own way of parenting and I started on a journey of self-awareness: of the way I do things and the way my husband and myself, we were raising our children. Growing up in a developing countries, where we didn’t always have access to a good education, I understood why my parents were the way they were. However, being here in a more modern and developed society, I knew I needed to be the instrument of change for my family.

“I easily adopted the Gentle Teaching approach with my family and I hope I can pass it from generation to generation.”