Joss - Denmark, WA / Minang Country
“It is completely abnormal for children to be separated from their parents for long periods of time, day in, day out.”
Today I have the pleasure of sharing Joss Goulden’s reflections on her adult children’s natural learning life. As an aware parenting instructor and parenting coach, Joss is passionate about supporting children and parents to thrive and heal with compassion and connection. In this episode she beautifully espouses how much her family’s homeschooling journey has meant to her. Settle in, pour yourself a cup of tea and let the sage words of encouragement from Joss wash over you.
This is Episode 33 of the Australian Homeschool Stories podcast - Joss’s Story:
Summary:
Joss was born in the Phillipines but grew up mostly in the UK. Her father was a diplomat which meant her family travelled a lot and at the age of 8 she was sent to boarding school in the UK, where she stayed for the remainder of her schooling.
“Being separated from my parents at such a young age, being in an environment where I didn't feel very safe and where I didn't get the support I needed meant that it was a pretty traumatic time. And I didn't really learn very well in that environment either.”
Joss left school with a lot of trauma that she wasn’t aware of at the time but she was interested in people and psychology and how we work as humans and went on to study psychology, human communication science & counselling.
“I got really interested in attachment and the power of secure attachment, the need for secure attachment for children, what children need to be able to thrive, what adversity does to children. I wanted to learn more about how we are as humans and what makes us who we are.”
She and her husband settled in Australia after spending years travelling themselves, and when they decided to have children of their own, Joss dove deep into the attachment and aware parenting philosophies.
Her son began kindy at a small community school which was run by teachers who were well-intentioned and wanting to have an environment that was child-centered and meeting children's needs, but she felt that her son wasn’t ready to go to school.
“He didn't want to be separated from us and I wasn’t really ready for him to go either so I spent two days a week with him in school while he was at kindy and the more time I spent there the more I thought that there were lots of things about the school environment that I really didn't like.”
“I saw that it wasn't really meeting his needs and that it was stressful for him. He was coming home every day with big feelings about being at school and then I was sending him back a few days later, back into that same environment. So at the end of his kindy year, we pulled him out of school and we went traveling again for a while as a family and it was just so beautiful to all be together. I saw how much my children were thriving and enjoying being together, just living life and exploring and having adventures. So we decided to pull him out of school when we came back to Australia, initially just thinking it was going to be for a year and then we would put him back in again, but that just was the start of our beautiful journey with homeschooling which we've carried on with all the way through.”
Attachment is the first and most fundamental aspect of aware parenting.
“The need to support our children to feel safe and connected and loved and supported and to have this attuned relationship with a caregiver who is regularly consistent in offering that attuned and loving response. And that is what we come to the world expecting and that's what humans have always experienced when they've been supported in ways that actually help them to thrive. It's only been really relatively recently in our human history that children and parents have been separated by sending children away to school.”
What children need in order to thrive is this sense that they are safely connected with another adult who loves them, who cares about their wellbeing, who is tuned into them and is responsive to their needs. Where they feel safe and supported and loved.
“And that really only comes from a parent or from another significant figure in that child's life. It comes as a result of spending significant time together and when there is significant disconnection between parents and children, or when parents are not adequately supported to be able to be responding to children in this way, we can see that children suffer as a result.”
Attachment, relationship, connection and safety are vitally important for children's well-being.
“It's been absolutely beautiful and touches me to tears when I remember all the thousands and thousands of hours, I think it's 20,000 extra hours roughly, that you get with your children when they're at home. It's been astonishing and amazing and extraordinary to watch them, to be able to be a witness to them becoming who they are, to have so much time together, enjoying ourselves together, to go out and have so much fun and freedom and exploration and adventure, to really learn to trust each other, for them to trust themselves and to be able to trust me, for us to just have so much play.”
“There were times when I really wanted a break, I wanted more space. But on the whole, particularly now that that stage of their life is over, I look back and I'm just so glad that we made the decisions that we made. I can see that the quality of the relationship that I have with my children is just so beautiful and so deep and profound and that connection would not be there if we hadn't spent all of that time together, if we hadn't been on this beautiful journey together.
Even though it's been really imperfect and there've been lots of moments which were really messy and difficult and challenging and harsh, the result is this profound connection, this deep, deep love and this sense of trust and joy together. I mean, even all the times when it was really, really hard, if I could go back right to the beginning now, I would make exactly the same choices to do it all over again.
It's just been the most beautiful experience of my life.”
Homeschooling naturally evolved into natural learning for Joss and her children.
“Gradually, I learned to trust more and to see the value in everything that they were doing, learning wise, and to understand the benefit of natural learning more and more. And the more that I got that, the more that became the way that we were doing things in our family… it just became increasingly obvious that forcing them to sit down and learn was counterproductive. It was detrimental to our relationship and it was killing their joy of learning. Whereas when I let go of that and we just lived life and enjoyed ourselves and had fun and explored what they were interested in exploring, there was just so much, so much value. It was so much more enjoyable. And so it became really obvious fairly early on that that was how I wanted it to be.”
The importance of surrounding yourself with like minded community and how her community varied and evolved over the course of her journey.
“I think that's really, really important, particularly when you're doing something so different and when you're doing it in a culture that doesn't value it or understand it. And when you've been raised as part of a system, so you've still got all your own cultural conditioning from that system. It’s really, really important to have other people to connect with, to share with.”
“Once they are beyond the school years, even though sometimes when you're in the trenches that feels like so far away, it's over in a blink of an eye. There's still so much time in life to to do the things that you want to do. I think it's really helpful for people to have this clarity about why they’re making the choices that they're making. Why is this something that you really value? Why do you want to be offering this to your children? And just keep coming back to that again and again in those moments where you just think, ‘I can't cope’ or ‘I need more time for me’ or ‘I want to start a business’ or ‘I want to do my career’ or ‘I want more time for this.’ Just remember that there's lots of time coming for all of that.
Getting support for the feelings that are there so that you can come back to clarity about what matters most to you right now. If you're making this choice, it's probably your relationship with your children, keeping them out of the system and free to learn by themselves. If that's what you truly value, then even though it's hard, living a life that is aligned with your values is more important than all the other stuff.”
Joss’s guiding values and why behind it all:
“I wanted to prioritise my relationship with my children. That is the most important thing to me, having a secure, close, connected, trusting relationship with my children.”
Seeing the value of all kinds of learning equally.
“That required a lot of deconditioning on my part, but really getting to a place where I truly knew that whether they were reading a book or writing something or watching something on YouTube or having a conversation or playing or having direct experience or watching people, you know, all of those things were equally valuable when it comes to learning and seeing that there's learning opportunities and learning experiences in everything that my children were doing, absolutely everything.”
How Joss navigated the teen years and the natural separation process from the strong foundation of love and support that has guided them throughout.
The pathways her eldest took getting into TAFE and university.
“Whatever your children choose, there's opportunities for them to explore. I know lots of homeschool kids who've got to university in all kinds of different ways so if your listeners have got young children and are thinking, how will they go to university, there’s lots and lots of options for them to get in if that's what they choose to do.”
“I was so disconnected from my own needs as a result of my own childhood experiences at school. So whilst I understood intellectually the need to put my own oxygen mask on first, I didn't do that for many years. And then became burnt out and exhausted and angry. And then, you know, had to so slowly learn the hard way that I needed to take care of myself.”
“And as I said at the beginning, you know, there have also been lots of times that were really painful and difficult and stressful and overwhelming. But when I look back now, there are just so many moments of sheer love and joy and fun and freedom.”
In terms of highlights over the years, there aren't specific moments that jump out more than others.
“Every day there were moments of just absolute joy and love. I can't be anything other than so grateful and so blessed to have had the experiences that I've had and to have had the life that I've had so far with my children.”
It’s okay to take your children out of school. It’s okay to do things differently.
“It really is okay to trust your children to learn and to trust that they will get what they need and get where they need in life with your love and support.”
“I would say to try to learn to cultivate as much trust as you can, to trust yourself, that you know what's best for your children, that you are always able to facilitate their learning, regardless of what they’re learning, whatever your experiences are, whatever your professional qualifications may or may not be, you are the best person to be supporting your children.”
Inspiration
The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff
The Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate
Hold Onto Your Kids by Gordon Neufeld & Gabor Mate
Free to Learn by
Principles of Learning (article) by Aletha Solter
A Brief History of Education (article) by
Schooling the World (movie) by Carol Black
Marion Rose (website)
Episode 16 of the Australian Homeschool Stories podcast - Marion’s Story:
Connect
Instagram - @awareparentingwithjoss
Facebook - Aware Parenting with Joss
Website - awareparenting.com.au
Podcast - Aware Parenting Stories
Podcast - Aware Parenting and Natural Learning
Food for thought
This podcast is recorded on the lands of the Bunurong people of the Kulin nation. I pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty was never ceded. This always was, always will be aboriginal land.
Original Music by Daniel Garrood @garroodcomposer
Listen on Spotify here