Courses & Training
We offer parenting courses known as our Freedom Parenting Course with Therapeutic NVR as well as Professional workshops.
FREEDOM PARENTING ~ THERAPEUTIC NVR
CHANGING THE LENS OF PARENTING WITH NVR PRINCIPALS
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Group Course / 6 sessions / 1.5 hrs per session
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Our Freedom Parenting Flagship Course with Therapeutic NVR (TNVR) principals aims to support families and professionals with the knowledge and skills to implement non-violent strategies in managing challenging behaviours and conflicts within the home or school environment.
This course aims to promote a safe and inclusive culture within the home or school, improve relationships between adult and child, and reduce the use of punitive disciplinary measures.
This 6-week course is about changing the lens through which you view parenting, family, children and relationships in general.
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Does this sound like you?
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You have reduced all demands, but you still feel like you are walking on eggshells
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You’ve given up on them showering, doing homework, or even going to school
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You have tried reward charts and consequences
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You have been at the receiving end of rage or shutdown in the face of ‘positive praise’
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You have even tried bribing and pleading and shouting and crying
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And none of it seems to work. Not for long anyway. It seems to make things worse.
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... it’s time to try things differently ...
What you will achieve by completing this course ...
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An understanding of what is important to you and why it’s important to ensure the needs of all the family are met.
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How to develop a mutual understanding within your family unit to ensure everyone feels safe.
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To understand how to set necessary boundaries in a healthy way that isn’t activating our young people’s nervous system or making anxiety in us or the children, worse.
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Day to day strategies of how to set, implement and manage those boundaries to create a place of safety.
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How to work with your child to see everything as a shared problem, and how to look for shared solutions to implement.
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Ensuring everybody’s rights within the family are protected without activating anxiety and nervous systems
Course overview:
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This courses aim to equip parents or professionals with the tools and strategies needed to create a safe, supportive, and nonviolent home/school life. By promoting positive relationships, empathy, and collaboration, NVR courses can contribute to improved child behaviour, increased engagement, and a more inclusive approach.
SESSION 1: Overview of the course The founding principles and concepts of Freedom Parenting, which include non-violent de-escalation, empathy and relationship building. We will look at the key differences between ‘traditional’ NVR and Freedom Parenting, which takes a therapeutic approach to NVR. An introduction to each element of Freedom Parenting, each of which will be explored in more depth during the rest of the course. What to expect during the Freedom Parenting course: the journey for you and the journey with your child.
SESSION 2: Understanding anxiety and the crisis arc. Boundaries Understanding ways to de-escalate situations that arise from anxiety in children. A guide on what to do before, during and after a meltdown to keep everybody as emotionally and physically safe as possible. Briefly thinking about the nervous system and how it can drive particular anxiety responses. Boundaries: defining boundaries and identifying how we place boundaries around ourselves to keep ourselves emotionally, physically and mentally safe.
SESSION 3: The wish list and the letter from the heart Wishlist: Making your own wishlist and starting to prioritise into the red, amber and green behaviours. Letter from the heart: What qualities have supported your children with navigating challenges and what would you like to be different?
SESSION 4: Sit-withs What they are and when to use them. Understanding the importance of noticing and responding to our own nervous system reactions and those of our children.
SESSION 5: Connection gestures and supporters Planning connection gestures that will support your relationship with your child. Identifying your supporters.
SESSION 6: Deepening Understanding Go through each of the elements of Freedom Parenting, reflecting on your understanding, clarifying any misconceptions and queries, celebrating triumphs, identifying barriers.
Session 7: Over to you – how are things going? Reflecting on your own journey as you implement the elements of Freedom Parenting. Reflecting on your child’s journey through the process.
Why Raising a Wild Child?
I am one of the wild children, diagnosed at 40 as Autistic with a heavy sprinkling of PDA and hefty dose of ADHD to complete the potion. School stopped being an option for me at 11, I was angry and afraid, but most of all, utterly exhausted by it.
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What do you do?
I am the CEO at Raising a Wild Child. I work alongside families to navigate the journey of discovering and understanding their child’s neurotype… finding ways together to ensure that every member of the network around the child feels understood and empowered to create a harmonious home.
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Could you sum up the course in one sentence?
It's NVR done as a relationship building, connection building, collaborative strategy with your child.
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What would you say to someone who is not sure whether this is right for them?
This course is not about shame or blame. There are limited spaces available to ensure a small community of families with the opportunity to support each other.
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We are all here to achieve our own version of success.
We're still allowing our children the space to be autonomous human beings that they have every right to be and we're just there to guide them along the way. So, they don't get hurt and nobody else gets hurt in the process.
ABOUT OUR FOUNDER – SUZAN ISSA (SHE/HER)
“Things are really really good. Like we’ve turned a significant corner. She is back in school and it’s going well. Thank you for everything. There are a million other smaller wins, too many to mention but I wouldn’t be where we are today without you.”
"We all know that parenting our wild spirits can be a crazy, challenging, adrenalin fuelled rollercoaster of a ride and you appear to have developed a unique, compassionate, intelligent and effective approach which is robustly underpinned by neuroscience and psychology - and it works! It really work"
Thank you for the training this morning, I have learned more from you than any other book or training session in the last 8 years. Not only for my future patients, but also for me and my family!
