Podcasts Health Creating Space With Christine Kathryn EP45: Spacious Parenting: ReWilding our Children with Alexandra Kogen

EP45: Spacious Parenting: ReWilding our Children with Alexandra Kogen

Published: March 26, 2018, 7 a.m.

In this episode, we continue our series on Spacious Parenting. For the month of March I\u2019m\xa0talking with inspiring Mamas who are creating safe spaces for their kids as they navigate challenges they\xa0feel they either weren\u2019t prepared for or chart courses they didn\u2019t necessarily expect to take and have since ended up paving the way for others in similar situations.\xa0

Today I\xa0welcome Alexandra Kogen, wife, Mom to Aiden, founder of Mountain Tots, Tinkergarten leader and Marine biologist turned\xa0mountain lover.\xa0Alexandra shares how she and her husband decided to move\xa0from the west coast to Colorado specifically so they could parent their son in the environment they felt was most conducive to the\xa0rewilding parenting style.\xa0

Alexandra shared that play is the #1 way kids 0-8 learn. She talked about some of her core beliefs in how kids learn and grow best such as the importance of finding and delighting in the child\u2019s strengths, allowing the child to learn at the pace they choose, and celebrating their learning style and choices each day. She shares a specific instance in how she plays out her role as guide in suggesting safe ways to experience risk, implementing\xa0caution in adventure, and fostering curiosity and healthy problem solving.

We talked about the wisdom that lies in allowing our kids to initiate more of the structure or the\xa0\u2018how\u2019 of each day instead of parents initiating it solely. Alexandra talks about honoring your child\u2019s desire to explore and letting go of our desire for them to have a\xa0\u2018perfect experience' which\xa0often excludes natural consequences or organic results.

Learning to move through life with a learning disability and\xa0knowing she thought and learned differently than her counterparts in school fueled her interest to pave the way for a different way of raising her son.\xa0Mountain Tots was born out of her and her son\u2019s need for community as well as a way to get their daily dose of Vitamin N (nature). The group has become quite popular offering toddler led walkabouts and camping trips along with socialization and adventure. Her dream is to nurture in the kids a foundational loving\xa0relationship with the\xa0environment and offer opportunities to engage all of the children's senses. I am inspired by all that Alexandra is doing for her son and the community of families she is building and I think you will be too. Join us now as we begin to create space\u2026

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