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Gentle Teaching Stories: “It’s all about love, feeling safe and providing a safety net to people we love.”

You are here: Home1 / Our Stories2 / Blog3 / Gentle Teaching Stories: “It’s all about love, feeling safe...

Gentle Teaching Stories:

“It’s all about love, feeling safe and providing a safety net to people we love.”

July 25, 2023/inBlog, Gentle Teaching, Stories

In order to describe how Gentle Teaching has transformed who I am and the person I aspire to be, I think it is important to describe what the philosophy means to me.

I see Gentle Teaching as a foundation in our socialization process. We are aware that the first primary socialization takes place in our family, in our home; equally I see Gentle Teaching as the model of interaction and learning. It is all about love, feeling safe and providing a safety net to people we love and value.

“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.”

If I have to ask myself this question – what has changed in my life? What is the transformation that has happened within my own family? I will say that it’s everything, from the way I talk to my kids to the response I get from them has made all the difference. It has also changed the way I view the world; it can be a dark and difficult place to live sometimes. Looking at things with the Gentle Teaching approach has also helped me to find happiness and peace in the simple things. And, most importantly, to view the world differently and make the change in myself instead of wanting others to change. I think Gentle Teaching is a great mechanism to make us understand that we can all be the change, we can all be the light without having expectation from other.

As Ellen DeGeneres would say, “let’s be kind with each other.” I think this is exactly what Gentle teaching teaches us: “Be kind” and “Be positive.” Kindness and positivity can only help us to improve relationships.

Joana,
COR family member

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