Wherever you go, it is the staff who make a school what it is.  And the staff at Riviera PlaySchool are all grounded in the same philosophy — that of non violent communication, and mindfulness.  You will notice that every interaction between child and adult has a consistent and tangible feeling of respect and compassion.  And when any conflict occurs, it is a true learning moment, and teachers are on hand to hold space for the children to resolve their own conflicts.  We try not to rush to a resolution of our adult creation.  Sometimes children can take a while to sort a conflict out to a place they deem to be “fair.”.  And we give them space to take the time to do that, while offering support, and helping them keep bodies and hearts safe.  We pay particular attention to where we are during the conflict.  We stay on the sidelines, energetically.  We don’t jump into the fray reactively.  If we notice our speech becoming more rapid, or our voice becoming louder, then that’s a signal to us to take a step back and let them have their own emotions about the conflict at hand.  It’s pretty tricky, and it keeps us more awake as people.  It is an incredibly magical thing to witness a couple of small children figure out a workable solution to their volatile dilemma…and then walk away laughing together, more emotionally and socially intelligent than before.

Riviera PlaySchool is mainly child-directed.  In other words, the teachers at PlaySchool meet the children where they are.  Not just physically, by getting down on the same level when we speak, but also energetically, by being in the moment, and celebrating in their successes, and joining them in the joy of creation.

In the tradition of Reggio Emilia and Bev Bos, we know that the environment is also a teacher.   So in the classroom (both outdoors and inside) we facilitate enriching environments within which the children can learn through freely allowed exploration.  And we know that the very best “toys” and “tools” for this exploration are the ones that are open-ended and undefined.

We like to make opportunities to allow for magic in our teaching by providing lots of parts of things for the children: tape, boxes, spools, pipe cleaners, twine, wire, glue-paint, glitter, scissors, tongue depressors, yarn, pom poms, cardboard tubes, corrugated cardboard, glue guns for attaching heavy parts (when building spaceships, for example) ribbon, string, fabric …

And we then let the kids lead us, and devise their own creations.  Parts allow us to create fantasies. Today we had a big box at PlaySchool. The children first painted it, then another group made it into a car, and then it became a clubhouse…. the play was emergent, organic, and fantastic.

Magic can happen in any environment if you have a few elements:

- freedom to explore

- power; permission to create

- space to create in

(I think this is also the definition of how invention happens!!)

We follow the most current practices in Early Childhood Education: we embrace and nurture the “Whole Child,” and allow each child to learn at his or her own pace.  We believe an environment that provides children with the elements listed above is best suited for every child.  Any person feels good in an environment that empowers them.

The children leaving our program understand more than just 1 + 1, they understand that 1 weighs less than 2.

Our graduates are honed for primary school:  they are well developed in all realms, cognitive, emotional, and social; they are able to resolve their own conflicts peacefully, are well-grounded, sure-footed, confident, understand themselves well, and are able to self-regulate, and have incredible critical thinking skills.

Most importantly, we believe that each person is born with at least one special, particular gift, and an environment that allows them to focus on what enthuses them is best suited to help those individual gifts emerge and become honed and developed.

As Plato said:   ”Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

Riviera PlaySchool offers a humanistic, constructivist, and mindful program for the “whole child,” inspired by the best of Attachment Parenting, Reggio Emilia, and Non Violent (Compassionate) Communication.  We are also inspired by the fun and freedom to explore of Bev Bos, the beautiful and abundant nature of Waldorf, and Maria Montessori’s easily digestible, experiential approach to learning.

Come join us for a visit!

Linda Shannon

www.RivieraPlaySchool.com

Workshop Content:

This workshop will focus on gaining insight into the nature of early learning and how parents can nurture and encourage the natural abilities in their children. Discussion points to include:

• The nature of learning
• How parents can support children in building confidence in their capabilities
• Learning to trust your child’s innate abilities
• Differences in learning styles
• Multiple intelligences
• The risks of criticism and praise
• How unwanted help diminishes learning
• Distinguishing between being responsive and being intrusive (cuing in to your child’s signals)
• Supporting children’s natural curiosity of inquiry

Introducing Facilitators Laura Dotson and Melody Elder:

Laura Dotson M.A., LMFT, is the mother of 4 adult children and the grandmother of three.  Laura has had over 40 years of varied experience working with adults, children, families of all kinds. She was a long time staff member at Play Mountain Place (a humanistic preschool and elementary school) and currently is the Psychological consultant at Manhattan Beach Nursery School, working with parents, children, and staff members.  Laura is a Marriage and Family therapist; she holds a Masters Degree in clinical psychology and maintains a private practice in Hermosa Beach.

Melody Elder M.A.Ed., the mother of an adult daughter, is a teacher and parent educator with over 40 years experience working with families in nursery school, elementary school, and home-school settings.  She has taught parenting classes for both South Bay Adult School and the Center for Positive Parenting and currently works part-time teaching and directing at Manhattan Beach Nursery School.  Melody maintains a private coaching practice in the South Bay where she works individually with parents and facilitates parenting support groups.  She holds a Master’s Degree in Education and in Spiritual Psychology and is a credentialed teacher in Early Childhood, Elementary, and Special Education.

RESERVE YOUR SPOT EARLY!

Date: Tuesday, May 29

Time: 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Cost: $10 per person for enrolled families; $25 per person for general public  (100% of this donation goes toward supporting our school.)

Location: Riviera PlaySchool

 Setting boundaries that work with children 

Parenting is a life-long learning process of nurturing our connection with our children.  Parenting is “messy” business.  There is no “prescription” for dealing with the day-to-day challenges of raising children.  There are however, basic communication tools that can assist parents in dealing positively with challenges, while deepening the relationship between parent and child.     

Workshop Content:

This workshop will focus on limit-setting techniques which support children in developing the ability to set safe limits for themselves. Discussion points to include:

• The risks associated with punishment and reward
• Why limits are important
• Preventing conflict
• Self-regulation
• Problem-solving

DETAILS:

Date: Thursday, February 23

Time: 7:00 to 9:00 pm

Location: Riviera PlaySchool

Cost: $10 each for RPS parents/ $20 each for general public

RSVP: RivieraPlaySchool@gmail.com

Introducing Facilitators Laura Dotson and Melody Elder:

Laura Dotson M.A., LMFT, the mother of 4 adult children and Ruby’s, Hyla’s, and Ayro’s grandmother, has over 35 years of varied experience working with adults and children.  She was a staff member at Play Mountain Place for 10 years, and for the past 15 years has been the Psych. Consultant at Manhattan Beach Nursery School.  Laura maintains a private practice as a Marriage and Family Therapist in the South Bay, and holds a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology.

Melody Elder M.A.Ed., the mother of an adult daughter, is a teacher and parent educator with over 35 years experience working with children and parents in nursery school, elementary school, and home-school settings.  She has taught parenting classes for South Bay Adult School and the Center for Positive Parenting and works part-time teaching and directing at Manhattan Beach Nursery School.  Melody maintains a private coaching practice in the South Bay where she facilitates parenting support groups as well as 1:1 coaching.  She holds a Master’s Degree in Education and in Spiritual Psychology and is a credentialed teacher in Early Childhood, Elementary, and Special Education.

Contact Information:

Contact Laura at: lauradotson@adelphia.net

Contact Melody at: melody.elder@verizon.net (www.awakenedheartparenting.com)

I just have to say that “helicoptering”  is not only unnecessary, but it steals your child’s confidence….it damages their connection to their personal “inner compass”  (that thing that allows then to learn through pure observation)…and replaces it with a radar that tunes to us for their navigational information.  You see the dillemma, right?  If they defer to our lead and fail to develop their own inner guidance, then they will defer to someone else’s lead when they leave our nest.

We all know that our children are not reflections of us, but every once in a while we get tricked into that lie again! It sneaks in, and we spring into RE-action, rather than mindful response. That way of “reflective” thinking is a trap that often leads us to seek approval from the random parents around us. It can throw us into a tizzy of self-judgment: Oh my gosh my child is screaming (at me)! What is that father/store clerk/woman thinking about us/me?! Instead of, “Oh my gosh my child is screaming… what does my child need that I can give him?” The irony is that those parents who we are trying to please in that hot moment of crisis don’t actually matter to us as much as our own children do, nor are they even in line with our own core values!

That self-judgment is probably the most difficult thing to overcome in being parent. It seems we are never enough: we never do enough for our children, we don’t do it well enough, we don’t love them enough, we aren’t patient enough with them, we aren’t energetic enough for them, we aren’t sweet enough for them. That condemning JUDGE inside us tells us in so many ways how we simply aren’t enough for our children.  How do we quiet that voice once and for all?

Perhaps the most important thing about being a parent is to know that we are mentoring all of the time. As Joseph Chilton Pearce says, “We must be the person who we want our child to become.” So if we want our child to love themselves as they deserve to be loved, and to respect themselves with the respect they deserve, and to be OK with being “less than perfect,” then we have to offer that same regard to ourselves first. Ease up on yourself when you are less than “perfect.” (What is, IS perfect, because it IS!)

You have all of the answers your family needs. When in doubt, tune into your your inner compass. You are the guiding light of the house; “mother (father) knows best.” Your child chose you for the answers you have for her. Your child chose you for the parent you are right now — not some perfect parent you will become someday. So the great news is that you get to relax and trust yourself! You ARE enough!

Our children are here to teach us as much as we are here to provide guidance to them. Who else in your life has the ability to take you deep within yourself on a journey of self-discovery and re-ignite that fire within?

Parenting from balance is as simple as taking a step back, and responding to life. How refreshing and so much easier it is to relax into your own family groove, than to keep a stiff upper lip and stay in that grueling race with the Jones’es!

Parenting Workshop: Oh Siblings!

“I secretly believed that sibling rivalry was something that happened to
other people’s children.  Somewhere in my brain lay the smug thought that I
could outsmart the green-eyed monster by never doing any of the obvious
things that all the other parents did to make their kids jealous of each
other.  I’d never compare, never take sides, never play favorites.  If both
boys knew they were loved equally, there might be a little squabble now and
then, but what would they really have to fight about?

Whatever it was they found it.”

PARENTING SIBLINGS with MELODY ELDER M.A. Ed. of Awakened Heart Parenting

Tuesday, July 19th, 7pm-9pm

Feeling a little challenged (OK, FRUSTRATED) by sibling relationships?!  We
invite you to join Melody Elder, Parenting Support and Coach for a Parenting
Workshop focused on the following topics:

*       Introducing the new sibling
*       Relationship building between siblings
*       Sibling rivalry: what is the role of parents in children’s conflicts
*       Dealing with age and skill differences–younger child/older child
*       Parental expectations

For Additional Information, visit http://www.awakenedheartparenting.com
<http://knowinggarden.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=21157942244ebcd67b59
0c151&id=6f800a5d9b&e=8ee1cfa401>   The quote referenced above is from Faber
& Mazlish’s Siblings Without Rivalry.

This workshop is in cooperation with The Knowing Garden Elementary School:
THE KNOWING GARDEN is a community Elementary school for the children and
families of the Greater South Bay area. Slated to open this September, our
school supports the development of the whole child through constructivist
philosophy and the understanding that humans generate knowledge and meaning
from an interaction between their experiences and their ideas. We believe
that a project-rich curriculum anchored in academics, hands-on experience
and social plus emotional development will prepare our students to be
critical thinkers who become lifelong learners and active contributors to
the global community. With credentialed teachers, utilizing principles of
democratic education, low-ratios and developmentally appropriate guidelines,
our learning plans will be generated in partnership with each child. Our
students, from diverse backgrounds, become part of a greater community that
values respect, mindfulness, creative expression, confidence, risk-taking,
and concern for the Earth.  THE KNOWING GARDEN is a non-profit private
school with a public purpose.  www.knowinggarden.org
<http://knowinggarden.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=21157942244ebcd67b5
90c151&id=8c0283bab5&e=8ee1cfa401>

Date

Tuesday, July 19, 2011 from 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Location

Private Residence

Address will be confirmed upon registration

Torrance and Prospect Blvds.

Redondo Beach, CA 90503

~~~

Recommended by: Riviera PlaySchool pre kindergarten program in Redondo Beach, California

An organic, nature-ful, and mindful program for the whole child.

Riviera PlaySchool pre-kindergarten program in Redondo Beach, CA www.RivieraPlaySchool.com

“People are people no matter how small.” ~ Horton

Qualifications:

Teaching Credentials, AA or bachelor’s degree, earned ECE certificate or ECE units in progress, or experience.

You love being with and playing with children.

You love hiking, animals, art, music, and creating and building projects.

Plusses:

Experience working in a non-traditional, emergent, constructivist preschool environment, or

If you understand what Attachment Parenting is, or if you have experience with NVC (or even know what it is!), Reggio Emilia, Alfie Kohn, or Bev Bos, you may be a ringer for this position!

Teacher/Facilitator, Assistant Teacher/Facilitator, or substitute teacher/facilitator.

Up to 24 hours per week. We offer free training, and a fun and rewarding position in an incredibly peaceful environment full of nature and great energy — for the right person.

We offer a very competitive, generous Compensation depending upon experience and qualifications.

PLEASE DO NOT CALL.

Please send your resume to us at the email address below if you feel you are interested in and qualified for this position.

RivieraPlaySchool@gmail.com

My husband (my best buddy and also nemesis, at times) and I went out to see Shutter Island last fall.  Oh my gosh it was shocking.  I was not up for it.  But very well done.  If you love superbly fine actors like Leonardo DiCaprio, and Ben Kingsley, and you crave the psychological thrill of Alfred Hitchcock, the cinematography of Stanley Kubric, and the drama of Martin Scorsese, then this is for you.

Ben Kingsley, always amazing, played a sinister-looking yet surprisingly humanitarian head psychologist in a cutting edge psychological institute for criminally insane people.

And this brings me to why I would be writing about a movie on this blog: I was surprised to find that his character was an advocate for something resembling non violent communication!  He said in one place in the movie (to paraphrase) ‘All these people need is someone to listen to them.  They just need to be heard.  And through being heard, they will hopefully arrive at a place of taking responsibility of their actions.  They will do away with the blame.  And thus they can live life fully, here, and in the now.  In the present.  In reality.’

And if you haven’t heard of non violent communication, then maybe you’ve heard of The Four Agreements.  It is basically just another way to express non violent communication.  There are many ways to describe that way of being in the world.

At Riviera PlaySchool, we have all of our teachers read “The Four Agreements” to read, and we let them know that this is how we want to operate within our community.  We also send them downtown (Los Angeles) to train with Ruth Beaglehole at the Echo Center (formerly the Center for Non Violent Education and Parenting.)

If we could all just try to come from that place, then the world would instantly shift to a much more peaceful and welcoming place to be.

Riviera PlaySchool is mainly is child-directed.  In other words, the teachers at PlaySchool meet the children where they are.  Not just physically, by getting down on the same level when we speak, but also energetically, by being in the moment, and celebrating in their successes, and joining them in the joy of creation.

The best “toys” for this are the ones that are open-ended and undefined.

We like to make opportunities to allow for magic in our teaching by providing lots of parts of things for the children: tape, boxes, spools, pipe cleaners, twine, wire, glue-paint, glitter, scissors, tongue depressors, yarn, pom poms, cardboard tubes, corrugated cardboard, glue guns for attaching heavy parts (when building spaceships, for example) ribbon, string, fabric …

And we then let the kids lead us, and devise their own creations.  Parts allow us to create fantasies. Today we had a big box at PlaySchool. The children first painted it, then another group made it into a car, and then it became a clubhouse…. the play was emergent, organic, and fantastic.

Magic can happen in any environment if you have a few elements:

- freedom to explore

- power; permission to create

- space to create in

(I think this is also the definition of how invention happens!!)

I think that an environment that provides children with these elements is best suited forevery child.  Any person feels good in an environment that empowers them.

The children leaving our program understand more than just 1 + 1, they understand that 1 weighs less than 2.  They are ready for first grade:  they are well developed in all realms, cognitive, emotional, and social.  Our graduates are able to resolve their own conflicts peacefully, are well-grounded, sure-footed, confident, understand themselves well, are able to self-regulate, and have incredible critical thinking skills.

Most importantly, we believe that each person is born with at least one special, particular gift, and an environment that allows them to focus on what enthuses them is best suited to help those individual gifts emerge and become honed and developed.  Like Plato said:  ”Do not train children to learning by force and harshness,but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.”

Riviera PlaySchool in Redondo Beach offers a humanistic, constructivist, and mindful program for the “whole child,” inspired by the best of Attachment Parenting, Reggio Emilia, Montessori, Waldorf and Compassionate (Non Violent) Communication.  Call today for a visit.

Linda Shannon

Founding Director

Riviera PlaySchool

310-408-5616

When I was a child, we had a couple of special things in my house: so many kids around all the time that we always had enough people to play monopoly with, and the freedom to explore pretty much on our own.  There were 6 of us, 3 girls and 3 boys, each 2 years apart.  It was a lot for my parents to handle, and so they would often divide us up into 2 groups of 3: the big kids, and the little kids.  As a result, we each had 2 ordinal positions in the family.  Since I was child number 4, I became the oldest of the little kids, and with that title came a certain responsibility and trust.

My mother was always home and available for us, but never “in our space.”  She was very good at providing rich environments for our self-directed discovery, and yet she never crowded us.  She was great at providing interesting gadgets and materials from which we could create and build.  The Christmas that I turned 6 was monumental: our big gift for the holiday was building supplies!  Mom got us hammers, saws, Montessori-style rotary drills, a sack of nails, and a pile of wood.   We spent weeks just attaching one piece of wood to another, with no method or plan.  It was all process and no product; the fun was simply about hammering the nails into the wood.  Since it was winter, and we lived in Michigan, all of this hammering took place in the living room. Could you imagine allowing your 6 children to hammer and build in the living room of your house?  I couldn’t!  My mother was great in that way.  We all knew that our house was our house.  Once in a while we would go right through the wood and into the floor, but she didn’t get angry.  She showed us how to take the nail out using the claw, and then how to put a second piece of wood below to catch those errant nails.

We also had plenty of physical freedom.  Because we were from a tiny village in the countryside of southern Michigan, we had the freedom to move about on our own.  We knew everyone by name, and they knew us, too — at the very least they knew which family we belonged to : our eyes gave us away.  It was ultra safe for children, and when we had a plan, Mom let us travel downtown to fulfill it.  The appliance store down town, 3 blocks off in our 6-block square town, always had their deliveries on Thursdays.  We would go down right after school and check for a big box.  We loved boxes, the bigger the better.  Give us a refrigerator box and a steak knife, and we would be off in our own land of deep play for the week.

Sometimes on the way to the appliance store we would see Butch the policeman, or Mr. Brown, the butcher, who would paint our noses on the window as he created his new advertisement for the week in white paint.  Mr. Kirby, the shoe man, would say hello, and Mr. Bailey would always have a new birdcall to whistle at us as we passed by his drug store.  Finally we would reach Mr. Newman’s appliance store, and we would go in through the front door, us 3 grown up people, very much in charge of our own undertakings,  and we would march right back to his sales counter, where we would wait for our turn in line to ask whether we could have a box that day.  Not one of us could see above the counter, so Mr. Newman would lean over to accommodate our request. We were in luck!  It was Thursday, and a new shipment had just arrived that morning!

We would drag our treasure ship back home:  8 year old me commandeering at one front corner, 6 year old Wayne at the other, and 4 year old Judy pushing in back.  We would pull and push that box back home and right into our driveway.  We would then grab steak knives and crayons, and start working.  We would collaborate on window and door placement, and Wayne and I would start cutting with the knives, while little Judy colored and designed the sides with flowers and curtains and scrolling patterns.  Finally we were done, and we would begin our play — bringing over furniture from our other play house, and dolls and bears, and dishes from mom’s kitchen.  We would stretch a blanket on the floor and start with a picnic.

The three of us were constant companions, even though at times it was a little challenging to accommodate each one’s wishes.  Judy and I might be quite  interested in playing house or school, but Wayne would usually want to spice things up with something involving a battle, or a gun fight.  We would often accomplish this by creating a new role — Wayne would become the policeman, or the hunter, the mean principal, or the postman.

One box would last almost a week, and accommodate a motley variety of play.  Starting as a house, the structure would metamorphosize into a bus, and as the week progressed it would slowly transform into a fort that hosted a huge battle, and then a trampoline, and from there the structure would quickly deteriorate into a slide.  Finally someone would grab the paints and dump them out on the flattened cardboard, creating a sliding rink for our slithering bodies.

And all of this spontaneous change and cooperation would happen without the aid of an adult urging us to compromise.  We would come to our own resolutions, and everyone involved would be content with the result.    I remember arguing a lot with my brothers and sisters, but we were given the space and power to work things out on our own, and we usually did.  Through our play we learned how to compromise, and how to get along as a member of a group.  We also gained a lot of confidence in our ability to navigate the world on our own.

We had freedom in our community, too. On our block, none of the neighbors had fences, and all of the back yards came together in one unending play space.  Each yard was defined by whatever personal equipment and gardens each family had, but we were free to visit each other spontaneously, and often.  Talk about freedom!! After dinner, we were usually turned out and told to be home when the street lights came on.  We would usually run out to play hide and seek with all of the neighborhood children.  4 year olds would play together with 8, 9 and 12 year olds.  Many an argument and tussle occurred, but we worked it out among ourselves.  We didn’t want to go home and bring a parent into the argument for fear of being told to stay in.  When we couldn’t work it out, we sat on it, eventually bringing it up to Mom or big sister, but only well after the street lights came on, when there was no longer any danger of our evening play being cut short.

Though times have changes, and most of us can no longer can allow our children to play outside until the street lights come on,  we can still provide our children with freedom to explore and think and resolve on their own.  Even in the close confines of a living room parents today are still able to provide their children with the freedom to work things out on their own.  It just takes a little trust, and a willingness to take a step back, and allow our children to have their own experiences, rather than inadvertently forcing them to relive ours.  I like to think of it like this: I want my son to have his own relationship with my mother, rather than my relationship with my mother…so I consciously take a step back and give him the freedom to interact and create his own relationship, good, bad, and richly conflict-ridden as it may be.   I don’t want to take a thing from him.  The world is his oyster….

“People are people no matter how small.”
~ Horton