Episode 1
· 37:36
Hello, I'm your host, Brandy McCray for the podcast Nurturing a Child's Consciousness. This is a podcast about relationship, consciousness, and well-being, especially as those realities live in children and the adults who care for them. This is a space to explore wholeness. Each episode invites us to look at how we know our world, how children know theirs.
Brandy McCray:If you're a parent, an educator, a caregiver, or simply someone who can feel that life holds more than just managing and getting through the day, you're in the right place. Hi friends, Welcome in. This is Brandy McCray, and I'm here today with Ba Luvmour and Josette Luvmour. Today's conversation is called Seeing Children Clearly: From Pathology to Well-being. We're exploring what it means to see children clearly, not through labels or behaviors alone, but through a lens of development, relationship, and well-being.
Brandy McCray:So let's start there. Can you share what natural learning relationships is and how it relates to child development?
Josette Luvmour:Happy to do that. Natural learning relationships is actually a practical and very applicable science of whole child development. And when I say whole child, we're looking at all aspects of a human being, such as the psychological, the emotional, the physical, and the spiritual components of optimal well-being, we're not focusing on pathology but well-being. It describes the dynamics by which these capacities come about, emerge in the child's life, and we see through the child's eyes by understanding the child's field of knowing. That is the way they know themselves and the world throughout childhood.
Josette Luvmour:It's relationship based and includes context of the child's life inclusive of family, which is different than other developmental approaches, which mostly focuses on cognitive development or behavior, but this is inclusive of family life, school environment, and the child's biographical background. So natural learning relationships is, you might say, takes off in a more humanistic or even transpersonal direction in that it looks at the whole child, not just the aspects of the child or their academic excellence or their behavior, but the whole child and from the standpoint of well-being.
Brandy McCray:Let's pause for
Brandy McCray:a second and make sure that we understand some of those terms. When you say whole child development, what are you including in that? Are we talking about developmental psychology, physical development? What does that mean in the context of natural learning relationships?
Josette Luvmour:What we know is that all life forms go through developmental stages. In natural learning relationships, as I said, we're looking at all the components, the psychological, mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual components of a human being. So we're not just looking at how the child performs in society, but what's happening inside the child. And we talk about fields of knowing, meaning that a field of knowing, it's a region in the child's consciousness in which they access very specific innate, meaning inborn capacities and capabilities. And each field of knowing throughout childhood has specific needs in the environment and from the adults around them to fully access these innate capacities and capabilities.
Josette Luvmour:So we're talking about the whole child.
Brandy McCray:You also mentioned relationship and relationship based and well-being. Those can be pretty loaded terms depending on how people hear them. So what do you mean by those in the context of natural learning relationships and child development? How does relationship fit in, and how do you define well-being?
Ba Luvmour:Well-being is a dynamically balanced state of health which optimizes our opportunities for self actualization, for self knowledge, and knowing who we are. In each field of knowing, the child has the opportunity to know themselves within that developmental moment. This suggests that people who possess well-being also grow in adaptive abilities and life satisfaction and a sense of personal meaning in life, insights, have sound judgments and the ability to amplify positive effects of emotional awareness and intelligence. In a state of well-being, the potential to access is available to everyone. Well-being is innate.
Ba Luvmour:We're always moving towards well-being. And when there's a conflict, it's largely because the well-being that wants to come forward is locked. There's something in the child's environment that's not nurturing, and it's blocked. And people, especially pathological approaches, look at the outcome of this conflict. But a person living in well-being will allow the well-being to come through.
Ba Luvmour:And in our many years of experience, this clears up so many of the misconceptions and the challenges in child's life and in being with child. So relationship, therefore, means that it's a mutual engagement towards this well-being, and it benefits anyone participating in it. Relationships in education are inclusive of educators and students among students and with administration. So many educational approaches don't understand and don't participate in the dynamics of student relationship. And this is critical for students to feel self trust and to be present, to optimize learning, to know one another, to listen, to be heard, to be respected.
Ba Luvmour:Relationships are not transactional. Gonna say it again. Relationships are not transactional. Relationships occur when we meet in the space between. This doesn't mean compromise.
Ba Luvmour:It means that we took the time to understand one another and to participate in a way without judgment so that whatever mutual learning that's available to us can be actualized.
Brandy McCray:Ba, you just framed relationships in what might be a new way for listeners. And I'm curious, now that we have a bit of foundation, what within relationships leads to well-being and what leads to pathology?
Ba Luvmour:Well, as I said, Brandy, relationships are not transactional. So if you're entering into an engagement with another person and it's, what did you get out of it? What did I get out of this? I'm looking for an advantage. I'm looking for some gain, and I'm not seeing you as a person.
Ba Luvmour:I'm not connecting to you and where you are. I'm not honoring whatever your situation is in the moment. Relationship occurs when we allow each person to come with who they are and to engage and participate in whatever activity we're doing. And this way, we grow and we learn and we create an understanding that we're here to enliven each other in self trust, to enliven each other in who we can be. And that pathology isn't only coming if pathology or conflict can't be resolved, it's coming through because something's blocked in the relationship.
Ba Luvmour:And we can go back now to the relationship, live in the space between, and find out what we need to open up so that we can develop that meaningful engagement together.
Josette Luvmour:Well, you know, Bar, so often children are looked at in terms of their performance. Did they memorize the right material? Can they regurgitate it? Can they pass the test? What grades did they get?
Josette Luvmour:How's their behavior? And once a child is labeled as anxious or disruptive okay. One time we give them a pass, twice. But once they start to act in a certain in a way that they begins to get a label, then they become the identified problem in the family, especially in the classroom or school. And behavior really is information.
Josette Luvmour:The child isn't behavior. Behavior is a cry for help. So rather than seeing behavior as evidence that something is indicating that we need to relate in a different way, we've approached the child with punishment. So we have to approach children with curiosity versus what's wrong with this child? Why won't they act right?
Josette Luvmour:A child may need to get their point across and not know how. A child may need breath and space in order to communicate and open curiosity from the adult instead of, well, have you performed the way I need you to perform? So it's really a different approach entirely, one of curiosity versus one of performance.
Brandy McCray:So if behavior is information, how does that change the adult's response in the moment? What does that look like differently compared to when we're interpreting behavior as something that's wrong?
Josette Luvmour:Well, you know, what changes when we make this shift, we start looking through the child's eyes and seeing through the child's heart. We look through well-being instead of what's wrong or pathology. What becomes different in our everyday interactions is us. Adults often assume intent or personality when they're actually just seeing a nervous system under pressure, for example. And so by assuming intent, we've already attributed meaning to the action instead of open curiosity.
Josette Luvmour:What does this child really need? How could I relate in such a way to bring forth developmentally what's trying to come forward? And so that's where I think as adults, we have been educated to make that kind of mistake.
Ba Luvmour:You know, Josette, also what you're saying and really what you said earlier is just striking to me because you also included the context. You talked about the whole school, the class, for example, and everyone together and the relationships among them. And I think also what changes is that we broaden out to the context. So I know in my years of working with different teachers and educational environments, often a child will act a certain way in response to the social environment around them of the other students. And then if we isolate the child and then look at it as that child's behavior, we've lost the whole context of what's going on in the class and the social environment.
Josette Luvmour:I think that's often the case where the child becomes the identified problem instead of seeing the environment has is drawing out of this child a certain way of being that may not even be what they intend. And so I once interviewed a school principal, and after learning natural learning relationships, she told me she shifted the way that she related to kids when they were sent to her office. And the first thing she asked herself was, well, I hear the behavior that the teacher is talking to me about. Now developmentally, what does this child need? I mean, what does this child really need?
Josette Luvmour:And she said when she asked that question of herself, the whole thing shifted. She began to really see and relate to the child in an entirely different way. So that would be wonderful if we were to begin to ask the question, what does this child really need? Because we know when our needs are satisfied, we're so much happier as human beings.
Ba Luvmour:And to go even more broadly, then we start to understand that the curriculum itself may be pathologically inducing, that the infrastructure of the school and the hierarchies and the power dynamics in the school and the implicit threats of, oh, I might call your parent or you'll get sent out in the room and and ostracized, really, in so many ways, that all of that adds to that internal pressure in a school environment, in a classroom environment. And we don't take that into account as a factor in what's leading to a child's given behavioral moment.
Josette Luvmour:That's very true. Very true. And then the child is you know, that very rarely do I see the adult taking responsibility. Well, my relationship was such that I put this child on the spot or challenged them publicly or I embarrassed them in front of their friends instead of saying, oh, jeez. Maybe I should have stepped back a second and taken the child aside and talked to them privately.
Josette Luvmour:Those kinds of questions.
Brandy McCray:I'm curious. You talked about, how the principal would look at a child's behavior in her school and think, what does this child really need? I'm curious if you have an example from working with children in your own life about meeting a child in their behavior and meeting their needs in that moment.
Josette Luvmour:I recalls a time when I was called into a kindergarten classroom because one little one child had torn up a picture. He was about five years old, had torn up another child's picture. Then the teacher had her hands full with the rest of the class, and she called me in and said, can you please speak with this child? And, of course, he was expecting to be punished. He was expecting me to take him out and tell him he was bad and wrong.
Josette Luvmour:But rather, I entered into an inquiry, and I sat him down face to face. And I said, tell me what happened. Can you tell me what happened here? And he he said, I just I I just tore up his picture. I said, well, how did you decide how did you decide that was the right thing to do?
Josette Luvmour:And he said, well, the thought came into my brain. Tear it up. And so I just did. And I said, oh, so now that you tore it up, have you looked at his face to see how he feels about that? Yeah.
Josette Luvmour:I said, would you do it differently next time? He said, I probably would, but I don't know. Maybe. I said, well, what do you wanna do now? He said, I could tape it together.
Josette Luvmour:And I said, okay. That would be probably be really good. He'd probably really appreciate that. So one of the things that I do a lot of times people will say, children that age can't reflect. They do can't do self reflection.
Josette Luvmour:But in if you ask the right questions in the right way, they most certainly can do self reflection as long as you're not accusing them with punishment hanging over their head. They certainly can especially if you ask how questions instead of why. Why did you do that? Instead of, like, you know, how did you decide to do that? And what would you do differently next time?
Josette Luvmour:And those kinds of questions leave openings instead of shutting it down into accusatory tones. And that little boy just rose to the occasion and came up with a resolution that he thought would work for everybody, and we all went on. So that's an example of first of all, kindergarten children are capable of self reflection, especially if you ask the right questions. And second of all, if the tone is less accusatory and more curiosity, how did you decide to do that? How did you decide that was the right thing to do?
Josette Luvmour:Then the child can rise to the occasion.
Ba Luvmour:Well, Jones, I I mean, of course, I love the story. But what was in your heart? Not just what was in your tone because your tone comes out of who you were in that moment. So what was going on for you inside?
Josette Luvmour:In all honesty, I really felt connected to the child. I thought it was a little bit funny, but, you know, he obviously can't go through school tearing up other kids' pictures because the thought popped into his head. So I I wanted to stay relational to him and make him feel at ease and not accused of anything. But I also like, my heart embraced him. Like, he's he needs to learn something here and not be ostracized for making a mistake.
Ba Luvmour:Thanks. Along these lines, I just wanna say that having spoken to many, many children while they were in timeouts or punished or whatever confused reactions people might have. Invariably, they are bored or just hanging out. If I ask them, what did you get out of this? They'll say something like, not to avoid that teacher or to not in other words, it's a to not comment.
Ba Luvmour:It's a negation rather than, oh, I learned how to be more relational or something like that.
Josette Luvmour:I'm not teaching him how to be relational. I'm asking inquiring questions for him to reflect on his decisions, choices, and what he got out of the situation that he might wanna do differently next time. He did not swear to me he would never do this again. And that's I think that's a mistake that adults often make that they're gonna somehow bring home the lesson, and the child is gonna swear. I will never do it again.
Josette Luvmour:He I asked him. He asked him, what would you do next time? And he said, I don't know. But he did say he he wasn't happy with hurting this other child's feelings, not in so many words, and he would fix it with tape.
Brandy McCray:So what does well-being look like as a child develops?
Ba Luvmour:Well, it's as Josette said earlier, that in the fields of knowing, the capacities available in those fields of knowing are nurtured, and they're able to come forth. So if we this is very briefly, and in future podcasts, we'll go into this much more specifically and deeply. But if we're looking at the child, say, instance, of the age kindergarten that Josette just spoke about, we're looking for that child to have a sense of rightful place. They know where they belong. They have a sense of personal strength.
Ba Luvmour:Now I don't mean some sort of overwhelming push out. I mean a sense of I can do what's right for me to feel like I belong and I can explore and I can be present to my developmental capabilities in the environment in which I am. And this way, I can also learn boundaries, but learn boundaries as a relational learning opening, not as a prohibition, not as but as something that reinforces safety, that's something that reminds us that we belong, not crossing the street without looking and this sort of thing. But as we grow, it changes. And on very broadly speaking, in ages approximately age to 13 or 12 or so, then what we're looking for is a way of relating to this child in a feeling sense of being able to participate profoundly in the feelings without judgment so that they develop a sense of trust.
Ba Luvmour:Just think. I know we probably won't get there today, but just think how profoundly a spiritual word trust is. To know trust, to know that I am first, I belong. Now I can trust. I can enter relationship.
Ba Luvmour:I can make mistakes. I can participate. I can adapt. As we grow into the teen years, a sense of autonomy is what needs to develop. And therefore, we're talking about their sense of self government, not individual.
Ba Luvmour:Individual means to be separate. We're talking about a relational understanding developed earlier in trust in which we can now self govern and learn to self govern. But we don't know how to do this because we're moving out from the family embeddedness. We're moving out into a much greater understanding as we move to a deeper sense of core self. And then we go all the way here to at least 23 years of age, And what I wanna develop is my sense of meaning and allow myself to surrender and participate in interconnectedness with all life in such a way that it has meaning and purpose and honors my belongingness, honors my trust, and honors my core nature.
Ba Luvmour:So that's the thumbnail sketch. And as I said, in future podcasts, we'll go into that more deeply.
Brandy McCray:I wanna pause here for just a moment and share something with you. If you're interested in exploring this work more deeply, the natural learning relationships introductory course will be launching soon. It's an eight week experience open to anyone who feels drawn to these ideas in their life or work. And for those who want to continue, it's also the first step in a longer journey, a certificate program that includes 10 courses and a practicum, where a small cohort learns together and grows over time. To express interest, please visit www.transformativedynamics.org and fill out the interest form or check the link in the show notes.
Brandy McCray:Alright. Let's come back to the conversation.
Josette Luvmour:I wanna take a second here and talk about what happens in relationships in which the child feels seen and understood and what changes in the adults when we actually make this shift. A lot of people tell me that they actually feel better about themselves. And if we start looking through a well-being lens versus, you know, what's wrong with this child or how do I get to correct this behavior and make this behavior stop, What actually becomes different in everyday interactions with children is that we feel better and our children feel better. And one big change is how we respond to difficult moments. Because if we're looking at children as I've gotta stop this behavior as fast possible, which is the pathology lens, the goal is usually to do it quickly and whatever means, whether it's punishment or so on.
Josette Luvmour:But under a well-being lens, the goal is to understand what is happening here. What's the behavior signaling? What's the message that this child who can't sit me down and have a heart to heart talk about, you know, what's not working for me is when you went out with dad the other day, and, you know, it's like children can't do that. So what we see is in their behavior, and that behavior is giving us information. And if we read the information correctly, we can inquire in a whole different way, and everybody feels better about it.
Brandy McCray:As I was listening, I've heard you talk about inquiry, and we've talked about what well-being might look like for a child depending on where they are developmentally. And it reminded me of this story because you said, Josette, that usually in a pathology lens, we're looking to move to quick solutions, wanting to solve it. But how whenever you're in relationship with a child through well-being and not looking through that lens, it's often much slower. You're doing the inquiry. You're taking the time.
Brandy McCray:And recently, my son Max, who's 10, who is organizing around trust, and he we were doing a lesson in science, and I knew some more about the subject. So I was just telling him what I knew. And he challenged me. He's like, how do you know? How do you know all that?
Brandy McCray:Because I've read the research. I've actually read the scientific studies and all this. He's like, but how do you know that that's real? And I was like, well, because I trust it. Because it's, you know, scientific and it's what I can trust.
Brandy McCray:And he said, well, how can you trust your trust? And I and I was just like, geez. A good question. Isn't that what trust is? And so his attention switched pretty quickly after that, but I was like, this is where we're at.
Brandy McCray:We're in this moment that that was his question. How do you trust your trust that that came up? And how do you trust your trust?
Josette Luvmour:That's a great question from a 10 year old who really wants to learn through his mentors about authentic trust. And, you know, he's asking a tough question there.
Ba Luvmour:And and look at how wounding it is if that question is not honored. Look at what happens, how the child will close in and be completely confused about trust, including trusting, in this case, his mom, but his mentors as well. And so much I just need to say how powerful well-being is because so many parents and teachers have come and said, well, if I didn't meet these developmental needs when the child was five or eight, then it's a ruin for life. And that's one of the progress based myths that have permeated this culture that is so so pathological. The fact is that if you waken well-being, if you go through the open window and bring that nurturing for that in that developmental moment forward, it has the power to reorganize many, many of the confusions that might have happened earlier when there were when development wasn't honored.
Ba Luvmour:So when we're talking about well-being, we're talking about an inexorable quality in us that needs and wants to know that there's something great in this world and that I'm part of it. I live it. I embody it.
Josette Luvmour:So caring of you to be honest and fair with the question. You know? Well, I've read the research. Well, how do you know you can trust my research when the fact of the matter is there's a lot of research we can't trust? That's true.
Josette Luvmour:Good. So I really love his his challenge and his willingness to venture into, you know, questioning the fact that you're putting forth there. That's a lot of trust between the two of you for him to do that. That's really sweet.
Ba Luvmour:Well and also the yes. But and that makes a really important point that natural learning relationships is based in fieldwork. It's based in huge trust. I mean, all bibliographies will fill pages and pages and pages. But the bottom line is for forty plus years, we've been in the field in programs, in seminars, running schools, working with other teachers, working in their school environments, creating family camp experiences that were learning experiences, and many, many other developmentally appropriate experience such as inspirational journeys for kids in the eight to 12 range and things like that.
Ba Luvmour:Fieldwork is essential to understanding and participating with children, and so many people, unfortunately, are going by the book, by the research, and not by how do you trust your trust.
Brandy McCray:Well, most parents and teachers and caregivers really they really wanna do it right. But pathology seems to be ever more present in our collective, and it's coming forward even more. So what's going on there?
Ba Luvmour:Well, Brandy, you're touching on something that has affected me deeply over many, many years, and that is there are misconceptions. So well meaning parents and well meaning educators and well meaning caregivers. I mean, we've worked with social service agencies, of course, and anyone who caregivers for children. And they have a misconception of what's necessary. So if you take just a simple example of isolating a child by saying to time out, for example, then that's a misconception because the child's yearning for belongingness.
Ba Luvmour:They're yearning for connection. If you're stuck with your science comment to Max, then it would have been, Look, Max. I science is pretty cool. Whatever however you might say that, he would still be confused because he's not moving into science. He's moving into trust.
Ba Luvmour:And science is for you is just a way of developing a cultural skill. What the meaning skill is, what the well-being skill is, what the human skill is trust. And all the way through, I mean, you can see it's especially egregious around teens. It feels that how many parents have said to us, oh, no. My kid's gonna be a teenager.
Josette Luvmour:Oh, yes. A lot of people are fearful of the teen years because the child is now in a decision making position, and a lot of their decisions are not very
Ba Luvmour:experienced. Learning.
Brandy McCray:Yeah. They're learning.
Ba Luvmour:Well, they're learning. Yeah. That's Penny.
Josette Luvmour:To put it correctly. So, yeah, teen and they can then when teenagers make mistakes, some of those mistakes could be life changing. So parents get nervous and difficult. But if we know what's developing in the child, if we understand how to help guide them through the desire for thrills, through the desire for thrill seeking, and into more careful choices and decision making. And if we understand development, we would have a much less fearful and much easier time of communication, for example, through inquiry rather than through telling.
Josette Luvmour:Boundaries that are cocreated rather than top down delivery and things like that.
Ba Luvmour:Are these misconceptions? And by the way, they go all the way through. I mean, there's a large field of knowing shift when kids are 18 or so. Ages are always approximate because there's environmental factors. There's individual human talent factors, etcetera.
Ba Luvmour:But the at 18, there's a huge developmental opening that happens, and the kids are as confused. I've had 18 year old kids who sit on my sitting on the counter in the kitchen and saying, it's not that I don't I don't even know how to think. I don't even know why forget meaning. What does thinking have to do with life? I mean, it's that profound question of reorganizing my whole perspective of the way I engage and organize the world.
Ba Luvmour:And that's why we have so many late high school and early college dropouts because that sense of that wonder and that complete shift from the previous field of knowing isn't being respected as an open hesitant as an open hesitancy, as an open reorganization that's profound within the child. So when these misconceptions happen, even well meaning people are re are actually creating unnecessary suffering for the children.
Josette Luvmour:Well, I think you've opened a couple of topics that we should talk about in future podcasts, such as transitioning between developmental moments and what that looks like and why, and how to make our shift as an adult to create an environment when we have it all organized to one aged child who sees the world a certain way, and then boom. They're often another a whole another way of seeing, and we get somewhat blindsided by the shift. So transitions is something we should talk about. Competencies, how we go from trial and error to competencies in each developmental moment. There's a lot of things you brought up there that I think we should would expand on in the future.
Ba Luvmour:Yes. And I just do an I need to say it again and again and again. We're not saying that there is such a thing that most 99% of the parents that it's not bad, but there's misconceptions. It's been a world drilled in by behavior, by progress, and by expectation rather than a world which, as you put it, Josette, sees through the child's eyes, feels through the child's heart, and understands and can participate in the way they organize their world without losing our adult perspective.
Brandy McCray:Well, I really appreciate all that's been shared today. And I I'm taking away this feeling and this knowing of that well-being is the root of what's organizing our development. It's not just an outcome. It's not just a behavior outcome. It is what is organizing.
Brandy McCray:And as a parent, as a teacher, we can shift our lens in the moment in our relationships with children, and that perception changes everything of how we're perceiving a moment. So thank you. Thank you both.
Josette Luvmour:It's a pleasure.
Ba Luvmour:Of course.
Josette Luvmour:I look forward to more conversations.
Ba Luvmour:Our friends, we've come to the end of the podcast. As you may know, we're going every other week. So two weeks from now, the subject of our podcast will be as above, so within natural learning relationships in the cosmos and in the human nervous system. We're going to explore how patterns of interconnectedness show up at every level of life from relational dynamics to embodied experience. This episode situates natural learning relationships as both a practical approach to daily relationships and a reflection and participation of larger organizing principles in all living systems.
Ba Luvmour:In the meanwhile, visit our webpage, www.transformativedynamics.org, to learn more about natural learning relationships and our dual certificate program. There, you can learn all you need to know about joining our new cohort. So this is Ba Luvmour
Josette Luvmour:And Josette Luvmour.
Brandy McCray:And Brandy McCray.
Ba Luvmour:Wishing you optimal well-being for you and your loved ones, dedicated to all children everywhere and always. See you in two weeks.
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