Category Archives: Parenting

The Elders have left the Village…

..and we hardly noticed their departure.

This exodus wasn’t marked by ceremony or collective grief—it happened gradually, invisibly, as the perfect century-long storm of wars and progress transformed the landscape of ageing in the West into some kind of an endless summer for the soul. The result? We’ve inherited a cultural wound so profound that many of us approaching our autumn years can scarcely recognise it, let alone name it.

Disrupted Lineage

Stephen Jenkinson names this wound precisely: we’re facing not just a crisis of elderhood, but its near-complete annexation by a culture of age without ageing, retirement without ripening. The post-war generation, our Baby Boomers, inherited a fractured lineage. Their own elders, shaped by depression and war trauma, often carried a stoic silence that masked deeper developmental arrests. These were men and women who survived by compartmentalising, by pushing forward, by refusing to look back—a psychological strategy that served them in crisis but failed to nurture the soul-making necessary for true elderhood.

Difficulty in Accepting Transitions of Aging

James Hollis reminds us that this developmental crisis stems from our culture’s profound misunderstanding of life’s second half. We’ve created a society that promises endless youth, endless consumption, endless distraction—anything to avoid the necessary descent into what Richard Rohr calls the “second simplicity.” Sharon Blackie suggests this avoidance manifests differently yet devastatingly across genders—while men flee from the confrontation with mortality, women are often denied even the cultural space to age authentically, pressured instead to maintain a perpetual spring in defiance of their autumn wisdom. This has produced what might be history’s first elderless generation: the Boomers, caught between their traumatised parents and their own unmetabolised youth, never witnessed genuine elderhood in action. Instead, they saw retirement—that peculiar modern invention that transforms the autumn and winter season of life into an extended adolescence, complete with its focus on leisure, consumption, and self-referential pleasures.

Lost Connection to our Earth

The consequences of this developmental vacuum are far-reaching. Bill Plotkin’s work reveals how this absence of authentic elderhood has ruptured our relationship with the very planet which our souls are soul of, creating generations of developmentally arrested adults who mistake financial security and environmental dominance for psychological maturity and progress. We’ve lost the ecological consciousness that traditionally emerged through the ripening process of genuine elderhood, replacing it with what Jenkinson calls “elderly idealism”—a state of perpetual youth-mindedness that refuses the gravitational pull toward genuine maturity.

A Wound and an Invitation

For those of us now crossing the threshold into life’s autumn season, this inheritance is both a wound and an invitation. We stand at a crucial developmental crossroads: we can either perpetuate the pattern of arrested development that has characterised recent generations, or we can choose a more challenging path—one that requires us to rebuild and reimagine elderhood and the very practice of eldering. This is no small task, because like most of those born in the 20th century, we must learn to elder without elders.

Courtesy of David Tensen from his book “Decentre Everything….The Unconvential Approach to Eldering in an Age of Immaturity”

Early years support sets a child up for life. It should be a national priority

Guardian Article: In these precarious times, we need something even more ambitious than Sure Start

“What we need, to ensure the mental and physical health of future generations, is something far more radical and far-reaching than Sure Start – nothing less than a revolution in public policy on the early years. We need parenting classes for girls and – crucially – boys built in to the education system; and psychological support for all new parents, to stop damaging patterns being repeated”

Divorce: The Four “Must-Dos” for Parents

Writing in his Book “The Boy Crisis”

For Couples that are separating as their best option, Author Warren Farrell lists the following 4 points for parents to consider in order to minimise the impact on Children:

1)Equal Time: (Children have equal time including overnights with each parent)

2)No Bad-mouthing: (this includes non verbal signals like eye-rolling, huffing and sighing)

3) Proximity:(Parents live close enough to each other that the child does not have to give up friends or activities to see a parent)

4)Counselling:(“Consistent Couples Counselling occurs even when there is no emergency”)

Perhaps Point 4 is the most contentious.

Couples might say: But we are separating! Why do we need Consistent Couples Counselling? This is the last thing i want! I can’t stand this person! I’m so angry/upset/out of love with them that I can’t bear it

A Couples Counsellor might say: Even during/after separation:

-I don’t mind whether you separate or stay together, but you might want to make sure that you are making your decision from a Conscious position

Each of you is still in Relationship with each other because of the Children. You will need to discuss their future and your continued need to co-parent

Passing Wisdom through generations

How good are we at passing between generations our learning though experience ?

We are great at documenting and passing material, scientific, technical, and factual information between generations. Year on year more discoveries are made and progress is made as a body of wisdom is generated…..

Or is it?

How good are we at passing between generations our learning though experience, our learning about things that can’t be measured….things like

-Feelings, Thoughts, Intuition, Perception….our Psychology or

-Experience in Relationship, Marriage, Choices, Life, Vulnerability, Daring to tell someone how we feel, taking a risk, opening our hearts?

Alain De Botton in this article likens this absence of sharing of the latter things to being similar to asking each generation to discover the Laws of Physics for themselves…..How crazy would that be?

Passing wisdom through Generations
Alain De Botton, Why are we so selective about sharing our learning?

Counselling can be one way to learn the type of Wisdom that is harder to measure and harder to pass from one generation to another

If you’d like to organise a first session please click here

Ways to Counter the Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences

If “Adverse Childhood Experiences” (ACES) are a ‘Risk’ factor then ‘Counter ACES’ are ‘Protective’ Factors that can balance the impact of ACES.

New study finds positive childhood experiences are crucial for adult health

Article from Psychology today goes into greater detail

Please contact me if you would like to discuss this further or add a comment in the sections..

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Counter ACES

Attachment Style in Relationships

Attachment Style in Relationship. What is your style?

Article from the Guardian “The attachment secret: are you a secure, avoidant or anxious partner?”

Attachment Style in Relationship. What is your style?
Do you reach out or retreat?

Do you sometimes find yourself feeling Anxious or Avoidant in company or in Relationships? There are many many ways to consider this. One possible way is using the idea of “Attachment Theory”.

Your Attachment “style” influences how you are, conciously, or perhaps also unconciously or just in the edge of awareness.

There are 3 major “styles” of Attachment: Anxious, Avoidant, Secure.

Your attachment style evolves as a result of several things like, how you were related to throughout your life starting with pre-verbal times. It is influenced by your experiences, ie ‘nurture’ but also perhaps by “nature” ie how you were born.

How we relate to someone and feel in someones company can change from one person to the next ie it is person and situationally specific.

“Earnt Secure” is another Attachment Style. This means that you “Earn” this way of being/Attaching. For example, it can be possible to change your Attachment style (eg from “Anxious” to “Secure”) by working for/earning this transformation . This can be achieved by any sort of inner or soul or reflective transformational work, whether it be counselling, retreats, reading, journalling etc.

However I’d argue that to change an Attachment Style that was formed “through relationship” (ie as a result of early relational experiences, ie experiences with another) , it is also more likely that your attachment style can be changed more quickly if the work you do to change it, involves relationships or ‘Relational Work’.

Getting to know your Counsellor and working in depth with them is an example of the sort of “Relational Work” that has the potential to change your Attachment Style.

Please get in touch if you wanted to discuss this further

What a connection to parent means to a child….

Parent Child Connection is illustrated as 11 year old boy shows Stepdad a video he made of their time together

2 minute video that hints at a childs desire to belong, to be part of something, and hints at the joy the 11 year old feels when in the company of his step-parent. Even when a family still lives under the same roof, it takes some effort, awareness and availability on the part of the parent or caregiver to create a relationship with their children like this. Sometimes there can be reasons why this sort of connection isn’t possible.

Parent Child Connection

What was your experience like of being parented or looked after by a guardian?

What was your Parent Child Connection like?

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