Regenerative nurturing is the approach to child raising that reclaims the village and involves all adults in the work of nurturing, themselves, the children, and thus the whole world.

Coming to a place where you feel safe and comfortable holding space for children allows you to create self sustaining school systems. My dream is that the program I am directing right now does not have to go to land sites and install school system or hire educators. My dream is that there will be an interwoven thread of developmentally appropriate practice that educates all adults to be able to show up for their local youth communities and skill share. I think there is a real capacity for adults with children and adults in community with children to be able to provide enough enriching, interesting, stimulating, skill building experiences with their own knowledge and wisdom. It's a matter of the elder population of our society getting to a place where they understand how to meet different age groups of kids. This ability is connected to understanding the stages of cognitive development, and also understanding our own cognitive development as adults. Often, the challenging moments we experience with children or the uncomfortable reflections they offer, are directly related to our own traumas and the ways we were treated when we were children. Our inability to meet those parts of ourselves because we were unmet.

Regenerative child raising, or regenerative nurturing, is based on my understanding of regenerative agriculture- that every practice is formed in consideration to the soil and giving back to the land that is providing life. The soil of the regenerative practice of raising youth so that they are able to give back to the life that provides for them, their elders, their lineage, the Earth, is relationship. I have witness the belonging that grows from the roots of the children when they are given the opportunity to develop deep relationship with place. Belonging also grows when we approach relationship with children in a way that honors their autonomy, sovereignty, depth of feeling and emotional expression. This way of meeting children provides them with a beautiful model to nurture all of their other relationships and continue to inspire a sense of belonging in themselves and the world.

Reframing reaction refers to changing the pattern of labeling disregulated behavior as negative and instead referring to those emotions such as anger, sadness, frustration, rage, etc. as survival emotions. Anger is the emotion that saved our ancestors from being killed. Grief is the emotion that allowed our ancestors to honor all that is unseen. We need the full spectrum of emotions to survive. Being able to freely express encourages balance in our being and balance allows us to walk strongly on. Honoring where those emotions come from, and that they might not always make sense, helps us to meet ourselves in a gentler space. Our capacity to meet ourselves in a soft way directly reflects the way we are able to meet each other and the children.

Understanding patterns involves understanding the relationship between your prefrontal cortex and your limbic system, witnessing your reactive . Your limbic system is the area of your brain that contains the hippocampus and the amygdala, and is largely connected to emotional response. Your prefrontal cortex is hugely associated with logical and reasoning, higher level thinking that regulates the emotional reactions generated by the limbic system. The prefrontal cortex is not fully developed until most human beings turn 25 and executive functioning skills associated with this area of the brain typically start to present themselves around age 3. Learning about the development of this cognitive system is compassion inspiring when meeting the sometimes confusing and abrasive behavior of developing bodies. This system of regulation between brain centers can be degenerated by high levels of cortisol, the primary stress hormone, in the brain. So even though we have a fully formed prefrontal cortex, when we are stressed as adults, something so common in today's world, our ability to use these systems most effectively decreases. Let this knowing invite softness into all moments of emotions you walk forward into.

Reparenting is the concept of meeting your inner child self in your adulthood and parenting again the wounded parts of your cognition that stunted your emotional maturity, or regulation, holding softly that which was once met with pain. This involves acknowledging that the concept of neuroplasticity, our brains' infinite ability to shape and change, wiring and rewiring, wasn't discovered until about 25 years ago. Many of us are born from the stagnancy and pressure of being fully set in your personhood once reaching the era of adult. When we are able to reach that place where we are soft in our heart with our inner child, that is where we will meet the children.

Once you have arrived here, the final step is to create the village. If you have moved through all of the spaces detailed above, you are ready to step in with the children in your community. This doesn't have to look like creating your own localized education system, it can be asking your friends with young children if you can watch them one night a week so you know they have time to connect. It can be reaching out to the parents and caregivers you know and letting them know you're here to support. It can be sharing this article, or ones like it that share information about the real journey of rewiring our system to show up in our most aligned self. It can be normalizing moments of disregulation and inviting a space to release shame where parents have shown up in ways that reflect how they were met as children. There are so many resources for parents and caregivers in the false village of social media that can inspire positive behavior and these spaces are equally capable of being inspiration for guilt. If you don't have children when you bring children into the world, ....