This week on the Podcast I have the honour of talking to Pam Leo. Pam is the author of the wonderful book “Connection Parenting: Parenting through Connection instead of Coercion, through Love instead of Fear”, first published in 2005. She has worked for over 30 years as a childbirth and parent educator, grief work facilitator and parent mentor. She is a writer and has taught her Connection Parenting series “Meeting the Needs of Children” for many years. She is a founding member of the Alliance for Transforming the Lives of Children and is a family literacy activist and the founder of the Book Fairy Pantry Project, a not-for-profit grassroots project that advocates for literacy and aims to provide books donations for high risk families. They are hoping to reach the 10 million children in America who are living in poverty. She is the mother of 2 children, 5 grand-children and now a great-grandchild. Please note that this episode is not about Aware Parenting but rather Pam’ Leo’s approach - Connection Parenting.

In today’s episode we talk about Connection Parenting and how to focus on building and maintaining strong, consistent loving connections with our children. We talk about the need to treat children with respect. We discuss how to listen to children’s feelings in a way that allows them to release and heal from stress and trauma. We discuss how to see our children’s behaviour as a communication of unmet needs and how to decode their behaviour when it is challenging. She shares lots of ideas on how to fill children’s ‘love cup’, how to communicate in ways that strengthen connection and how to ensure we meet our needs as parents too. Pam shares her wisdom and knowledge to encourage us to “raise children who won’t have to recover from their childhood”.

To find out more about Pam Leo, please visit www.connectionparenting.com or www.bookfairypantryproject.org . Pam is also on Facebook as Pamela Leo and BookFairyPantryProject and on Instagram bookfairypantryproject.