Special Event: Commencing at Southside in February 2009 “Parenting Heart to Heart” Groups for Mothers and Fathers With Robin Grille, Psychologist Author of Parenting for a Peaceful World (Longueville Media) and Heart to Heart Parenting (ABC Books)

In these groups you will be supported to:

• Understand your child better, from the inside
• Free yourself from repeating old inherited behaviour patterns
• Intuit what your baby and child is asking for and know how to meet his/her emotional needs
• Help your child to trust you and listen to you
• Help your child to feel heard, seen and secure
• Heal old emotional wounds and bring more joy to parenting
• Deepen your sense of connection to others and to your community

Our Team at Southside have been deeply inspired by Robin Grille’s work, and are delighted that Robin has accepted our invitation to provide his new parenting groups at our practice.

Group 1: Joyous Connection with your Baby from Conception    

(five three-hour week day sessions, plus one weekend session at end of course)

This group is for fathers and mothers with babies up to 18 months old, as well as for expectant parents and parents planning to have a child. Parents attend sessions with their babies.

This course includes:

• Leading-edge information about early childhood emotional development from gestation, through birth and the first eighteen months; and what babies need before and after birth for optimal emotional health (perinatal psychology, attachment).
• How to increase parents’ capacity for healthy attachment (emotional nourishment for parents) – based on the reality that parents can hold their babies to the degree that they themselves have felt, and continue to feel held.
• How to take care of our own (parents’) emotional wellbeing (safe exercises for emotional release, giving and receiving emotional support).  
• Understanding how the emotional memory of having once been a baby affects our perception of our babies. Understanding projection, and how to free ourselves of negative projections.
• Parents will be supported in forming connections with other parents and/or extended family and community, to partake in supportive and loving co-operative parenting groups (isolation and insufficient emotional and practical support are the greatest risk factors for depression and neglect).
• Exercises for tapping into the potential for deeply pleasurable and joyful experiences of pregnancy, birth and care of babies.

Group 2: Joyous Connection with your Toddler & Child

(six three-hour week night sessions)

This group focuses on parenting of toddlers and young children, from 18 months old onwards. Much of the material will however also be applicable to relationships with adolescent children. Parents attend these sessions without their children, and therefore will need to arrange childcare for these evenings.

This course includes:

• Leading-edge information about emotional development beyond symbiosis in the baby stage. Healthy differentiation, developing autonomy and personal power, interpersonal boundaries, the importance of unstructured play, the impact of TV.
• How to increase parents’ capacity for patience, tolerance of children’s emotionality – based on the reality that parents can listen to their children and be a holding presence to the degree that they themselves have experienced empathy and connectedness.
• Understanding tantrums, supporting children without punishment, shaming or manipulation.
• Practical guidelines for setting boundaries assertively (non-punitively).
• How to take care of our own (parents’) emotional wellbeing (safe exercises for emotional release, giving and receiving emotional support). 
• Understanding how the emotional memory of having once been a toddler and child affects our perception of our children. Understanding projection, and how to free ourselves and our children from negative projections.
• Parents will be supported in forming connections with other parents and/or extended family and community, to partake in supportive and loving co-operative parenting groups (isolation and insufficient emotional and practical support are the greatest risk factors for depression, abuse and neglect).
• Making the parenting journey more joyous and rewarding through the creative use of music, ritual, play and by connecting to a supportive parenting community. 

To register your interest and obtain further information:

Speak with your therapist or our reception staff at Southside
Phone: 95792480     Email: enquiries@southsidehealth.com.au

Your investment for the 6 session program:

$396 for individuals 
$660 for couples

Places are very limited so book early

At Southside we have copies of Robin Grille’s books Heart to Heart Parenting and Parenting for a Peaceful World for our clients to borrow or purchase. Our Team have been deeply inspired by Robin’s work and we are not alone, as you will see in the reviews below. Robin Grille; father, psychologist, psychotherapist, author and musician.

Heart to Heart Parenting (ABC Books)

Parenting has the potential to be the most fulfilling thing we will ever do. Our children challenge us like no one else ever will, yet, if we let them, they make us better people. Even the mistakes we make as parents, if acknowledged honestly, can bring us and our children towards a closer and more trusting relationship. Heart to Heart Parenting is about developing a joyous connection with our growing babies, toddlers and children in the precious early years of their developing personality and emotional make-up. A very different how to book for parents, Heart to Heart Parenting is about more than just tips for raising happy and responsible children, it aims to encourage parents create a lasting relationship with their children.

Heart to Heart Parenting will help parents to trust their in built parenting wisdom; gain insights into how they can use their own experiences of childhood (both painful and happy) in their parenting; develop an understanding of their babies and toddlers needs; and how to set boundaries with their children without resorting to shaming, manipulation or punishment.

Reviews for Robin Grille’s Book 'Heart To Heart Parenting’

Robin’s timely work provides a vital and highly usable tool kit for parents and professionals alike to support children to grow up in ways which will support humanity to greater peace and sustainability and give to back to us all more happiness, wellbeing and security.
Adam F Blakester; advocate and change strategist for social wellbeing and environmental sustainability. Adam is a Director of Families Australia, former CEO of the National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, and former Finance Director for Greenpeace Australia Pacific.

Parenting Heart to Heart talks warmly and straightforwardly to the parent. It powerfully supports the reader to access the deepest love and connection that comes from nurturing relationships.

This book has given me a simple yet invaluable process to live by, and pass on to the many generations of parents and children in my life and beyond.
Sofi Thomson; C.A.R.E. Parent Support Program, Byron Shire, Northern New South Wales

Heart to heart parenting is an exceptional book. Rather than tips and one-size-fits-all advice, Robin Grille offers a gentle guide to the authentic heart of parenting. His step-by-step approach supports parents through each stage to find the joy, fulfillment and immense personal growth that the ordinary task of parenting promises, for parents and children alike.
Dr Sarah J Buckley; GP/ family physician, Author of Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: The wisdom and science of gentle choices in pregnancy, birth and parenting.

Inside every parent is the blueprint to intuit exactly what is right for their children ­ beyond formulas and fads. Robin Grill ignites that blueprint, validates its wisdom and provokes it into action in a book that dares to give parents back their dignity and their sovereignty. In so doing, Heart to Heart Parenting is a journey into meaningful, authentic connection with ourselves and our children, and a discovery of our human birthright ­ peace and love.
Kali Wendorf, Editor, Kindred Magazine

Parenting for a Peaceful World (Longueville Media)

Read ‘Parenting for a Peaceful World’ and learn:

1. the five stages of core emotional development in early childhood.
2. how your early childhood experiences have affected your emotionality, your behaviour and your relationships.
3. how to promote your children’s emotional intelligence so they can grow to have the most healthy and rewarding relationships with others, and fulfil their potential.
4. up-to-date research into child development, heredity vs environment
5. new understandings about the causes of childhood disorders (behavioural and psychological)
6. what leading-edge child-development research implies for early childhood education philosophy
7. new and exciting innovations in the philosophy of early childhood education
8. how child rearing practices have affected societies and international affairs throughout history.
9. how our child rearing choices can be the most powerful agents for positive social change and planetary healing.

Whether you are a parent, a teacher, a health professional, or just seeking to better understand yourself and your relationships so you can heal and grow, this book is for you.

Reviews for ‘Parenting for a Peaceful World’:

‘I believe that the framework for change provided in Robin Grille’s book will become essential reading’.
Victor R Evatt, President, Australian Association of Infant Mental Health, NSW branch.

‘Here is the 'how to do it' path to a fairer, more egalitarian society. If you aspire to a future of happy children raised in a happy society, this is the book for you. Passionate, eloquent, scholarly yet accessible--in a word, brilliant!’
Dr John Cunningham, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Australia

‘Robin’s reverence for children and sincerity about seeing their needs are met makes this a very important book. In particular, the practical childcare information in this book is not readily available to parents and carers. It is unfair for such information to be confined to academic realms - we need it now. Fortunately, Robin is able to present academic information in a readily accessible way.

Robin Grille does not “sit on fences” – his passion is compelling and convincing. I would love anyone who cares about, or who is entrusted with the care of children to read this book, to learn from it, and to help promote the vision of healthy children in a healthy world’.
Pinky McKay, author of: ‘100 ways to Calm the Crying’ and ‘Parenting By Heart’.

‘Reading ‘Parenting for a Peaceful World’ rekindled my desire to change how we treat children (and ourselves) and it excites me that Robin's vast knowledge and resources are now available in print’.
John W. Travis, MD, MPH, co-author of Wellness Workbook, co-founder of Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children.

Robin Grille’s book is filled with gems for anyone passionate about our future. This book should be required reading for all parents, politicians, social change activists, teachers, leaders and visionaries.
Kali Wendorf, editor, Byronchild magazine, Australia

What a marvellous parenting book! The message of Robin Grille’s book is instructive, timely, and vital. As well as for parents, politicians, and the public generally, ‘Parenting for a Peaceful World’ is a must read for anyone and everyone in the child development profession.
Stephen Juan, Ph.D. Faculty of Education & Social Work, The University of Sydney. Author and syndicated columnist.