Hi Atina! Thanks for your request. Please respond to the questions in this post (above) and send them in an email to me at janet@janetlansbury.com with the subject line: Consult. Looking forward to speaking with you!

I’d love to do a 30 minute consult with you. My schedule is fairly open every day the next few weeks in the morning, especilly. please let me know how to proceed.

Best,

Ati

I am a stay at home mom of two girls ages two and four years old. I attend college full time online. I am considering quitting school, which I have been attending for a year now and I really want to get my bachelor’s degree in early childhood education however, I feel like all of my time goes to my schoolwork and I do not have much time to spend with my children. We do go to the playplace at McDonald’s, the park, Chuck e cheese, look at the toys and purchase toys at Wal-Mart, but I do not have a lot of one on one time with them and I feel like even if I did have the time I do not really have the desire to play with them that much. I do tickle them and play tumbling with them, I chase them around when we play outside, they color and paint while I supervise. These things that I do with,them are not everyday they are a couple times a week but is this enough or do I need to do more. I just feel guilty all the time. I do not want to quit school, I love it but I am just tired of the guilt. Also I have no support with this subject, no friends and no family whom can give me advice on what I should do. I know you are extremely busy and this is a long shot but I need an answer right away cause I am thinking about quitting school today and I am already behind in my schoolwork. I want to save enough money to set an,appointment to talk with you over the phone but I do not know if I have time to do that. Maybe I should hang in there with school until I can save the money to talk to you. Anyway I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you for your time.

“Im sat here writing with a very heavy heart. Even though to the side of me is my first (and for reasons I won’t go into) and last born who I am obviously completely obsessed with. He’s is 11 months old and sat playing beautifully by himself, enthralled with his wooden stacking donuts.

My journey with RIE is even newer than my baby. I found it as if by magic via an Internet article on Facebook. After an unimaginable first 4 months of ptsd, colic, allergies and hourly breastfeeding day and night… I was exhausted to say the least and my high needs bundle of ‘joy’ not only needed regular basic needs tending to but was now also demanding more and more entertainment in order to prevent crying, whinging and flailing limbs. What was a poor broken mother with no experience of babies to do.

RIE thinking has saved my sanity. And I also truly believe is allowing my child to ‘be’. I really believe our babies arrive perfect.. They are already people. They don’t need forming, shaping, coercing or punitive discipline to mould them into viable members of society. They just need love, safety, security and consistent boundaries in a space that allows them to ‘unfold’.

The Greek philosopher socrates was reported to have a particular style of questioning when engaging in philosophical debate. The magic of which was the presumption that the enquirer already possessed the answers to the questions they asked. The socratic method focused on asking the right questions to help the enquirer find their own answers.

This is how I want to be as a parent.

7 months after my pretty horrendous start, I feel proud. For the progress iv made, the soul searching iv done and the way my little boy is proving to me everyday that he is indeed a very capable individual.

I’m still learning and that will never stop. I make mistakes and get it wrong.. A lot. And that will never stop either. But I will keep trying.

My sadness comes from knowing that at the moment my real life journey is quite a lonely one. Not in the sense of people around me. I am blessed with an abundance of them. However finding people who see parenting from this standpoint is difficult.

I have spent time on online forums which are sometimes fantastic support. But many of the mum’s are from the US. And in the UK the networks seem to be so small it’s hardly surprising that this style of parenting is basically unheard of and if witnessed is often (in my own experience) viewed as hippy mumbo jumbo.

I have just spent an incredibly stressful weekend with my best friend from school who now lives on the other side of the country. when her and her two small children eventually packed up and left, I felt relieved, exhausted and very very sad.

My sadness comes from knowing our friendship can never be the same again now I have a child. She advocates a punitive parenting style and uses the phrase ‘i need to control them’ often. ‘Play’ happens at lightening speed with each game directed by her with micromanaged precision and children are expected to fit into whatever multiple activities she deems fit for that day. The irony for her is her children’s behaviour is exhausting, for both them and for those around them.

Their days are a constant battleground. The children test more and more creative and energetic ways to connect with their mother and she becomes increasingly stressed and punitive as the day progresses. This constant state of ‘check’ takes a remarkable amount of energy and effort to maintain on her part, and it turns out toddlers are pretty good a thinking a few moves ahead. It’s excruciating to watch.

I now realise that people like my friend have very entrenched ideas about what it means to be a good parent. In her own mind I know she truly believes she is doing things the right way. She has read many books, bought many toys, attended many many baby classes and litterly never ever stops.

But the most heartbreaking thing for me and the reason I have decided to minimise our time together is that she can not comprehend the notion of respect for her children. In my attempt to engage her in discussion on this subject she laughed and said; ‘you wait till he is a toddler’. And she has a point…I really don’t know what it is coming until it happens.

She makes the argument that when things need to get done or a child has behaved inappropriately, fear, in the form of shouting and threatening and shaming, in the form of daily discussions about what ‘mummy is not proud of you for’ are legitimate tools for immediate control. Her eyes widened slightly when I asked her how these tools might manifest when the children became teenagers. But I doubt that seed will even take root in the midst of her flurry for instant gratification.

But for me what I will hold onto in the moments of toddler intensity is the word respect. If I get my words wrong or maybe even loose my temper sometimes. If I loose my way with activities or potty training. I hope above all hopes that if I can hold onto a basic respect for my child as human being, all those things can be worked on, by us, together.

As for my friend all I can do in the short times we might spend together in the future is to model by my own behaviour. And I hope as time goes on I find Friends and other mums who might share at least some of my leanings towards parenting so doesn’t feel so lonely”.

Laura Yes! There are two books in spanish!! I’m from México and i just finished my first book of Janet y just bought the second. I founded it in iBooks and Amazon.