In this session we explore how we might match our cultural imperatives to the child’s biological imperatives. This alignment avoids the damage that non-alignment visits on the children in our care.

Just as any understanding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and te Ao Maori asks that we who are Tauiwi get very conscious of the stories, beliefs, values and practices in our own culture first, we need to undergo a similar exercise around our stories, beliefs and values in relation to children. Out of those ‘unseen cultural quantum packages’ has grown our disastrous treatment of children (and their families), both within families and in/by institutions: Oranga Tamariki, in state care (‘rescued’ from families), childcare centres, schools, the courts, correctional facilities.

We bring you this webinar with Pennie Brownlee who is known and loved in New Zealand for her books, her residential retreats for parents and teachers, and for her straight talking, passionate approach to early childhood education.The biology of babies hasn’t changed over the eons, and neither have their biological needs, but cultures have changed dramatically.

Babies and young children thrive in cultures that respond to the actual needs of the child, rather than to ‘cultural-made-up’ ideas of that they need. According to the research from neuroscience and ethnographic-paediatrics, traditional Western cultures have strayed (more than nearly all other cultures) from what children actually need in order to unfold optimally.