It’s sometimes hard to remember that our children are our people. They are the ones we are tending to now as small children, and the ones too we’ll want to spend time with later, as adults. And, though it’s hard to remember sometimes, in the thick of early parenting, our relationships with them as adults will be for a whole lot longer than our relationships with them as children.

This realization is one of the very founding reasons we created Slow Family Living. Our goal is not to tell people how to parent, but rather to offer ideas, tips, tools  and inspiration for finding ways to build that sustainable connection with your children; with your people.

While Slow Family Living is about offering lots of ideas, it is not about offering more dogma. It is not about supplying one way of doing things.

It is about slowing down long enough to find ways to build connection.  And it is about encouraging families, parents, children to see that family life can be enjoyed, not merely endured. Here is a very simple list from our Slow Family Living workbook of what we think Slow Family Living is…

• Continuously asking “Is this working for us?”
• Finding ways to live the life you love
• Knowing you have choices
• Consciously making decisions
• Doing things because it feels right for your family
• Taking into consideration each member of the family and their stage of development
• Making the family unit your priority
• Sometimes taking a stand against the status quo
• Possibly doing it differently than the way it was done for you
• Trusting that what you have to offer your family is enough
• Seeing, hearing, appreciating each other as individuals while seeing the family as an entity
• Believing that there is no right way, just the way that feels right for your family

Sometimes it’s about checking out. Other times it’s about joining in. And it’s always about slowing down, connecting, and finding ways to enjoy family life, now and for the life long haul.

That’s the topic of On Point Radio today featuring our own Carrie Contey. And she is, without a doubt, on point for Slow Family Living!!! If you have 45 minutes, go ahead and have a listen whilst you make that Thanksgiving pie.

In an interview recently we were asked, “What is slow parenting?” Here’s how I see it…

Slow parenting means finding presence and connection in your family life. It’s about pausing on a regular basis and asking yourself, “Is this working for US?” It’s not about doing nothing. Rather it’s about checking in with your own self, your partner, your kids and the family as a whole, and determining whether this particular schedule, activity, arrangement, is working for the family. And it’s about asking that question continuously, “Is this working for us?” If the answer is yes, keep doing what you’re doing. If the answer is no, figure out a way to change it.

Slow Parenting is about understanding too that in order to process all that is seen, felt, learned and heard in a day, there needs to be that pause. Pausing now and again is a surefire way to integrate each day’s information into the whole being and into the whole family. Slow Family Living is about finding the presence and connection in your family life that works for now and helps build a sustainable connection that will last a lifetime.

What do you think about that?

There was an article in Sunday’s Newark Star Ledger about the move toward Slow Parenting and Slow Family Living. I am excited to get the nod from my beautiful motherland where I still have great attachment and many friends and family. You can read the article here…

The one thing that was missed in the story is the fact that Carrie and I are not two moms, as was stated. Rather we are one mom of four kids and one pre- and perinatal psychologist. I say this because I think this combination is really the heart of our collaboration. This blending of our experience and training offers the collective knowledge we hold of both the scientific and the practical sides of childhood development and family life. From our passion for all our work encompasses, came the formation of Slow Family Living.

When we sat down together to determine just what it was we were offering with Slow Family Living we came up with this…

We are offering a way of thinking about, seeing and implementing family life. We provide the science, the practicals and the lens for understanding, believing and appreciating the richness of building and maintaining lifelong family connections. We want people to see that family life can be the well where members can go to fill up and to have fun. We offer tools, support and inspiration that guide people in slowing down, connecting and enjoying life as individuals and within the family.

If this is your first time on our site, we hope you will browse around and see what we are offering and why. If you are interested in finding out more about your own Slow Family Living, please download our free Slow Family Living workbook or our Family Mission Statement workbook – both available by clicking the buttons in the sidebar.

If you need guidance or inspiration in working through the Slow Family Living workbook, please join us Monday night, April 20th from 8-10 pm central time via teleclass. We’d love to have you.

We are both extremely passionate about helping families truly find the goodness in family life. We strive to help families live an intentional family living that resonates with how they envision a connected family life to be. We could not imagine more heartfelt work. We are grateful you are here and we’d love to hear your thoughts on ways you have found to slow down, connect and enjoy your own family life.