Integral Parenting (IP)
News: Read published introductory article on Integral Parenting by Miriam Mason Martineau >>
How might we accompany a child if no ceiling is put on the human potential? We are interested in discovering what foundation during the initial years of life would be most conducive toward a child growing into an integrated adult. What content would meet the child’s intent, so that each developmental stage is fully reached, lived and flourished in, and then moved through and beyond? In exploring how to parent our children so that they live into and fill out their potential, we seek to increase the chances of optimum and integral development.
All our research on this topic, both in application and in theory, lead us at Next Step Integral to believe that an integral approach to parenting holds essential keys to answering these questions. In addition, all the dimensions, challenges and opportunities that come alive in looking at the parenting journey through an integral lens make it one of the most radically transformative experiences available.
We are interested in parenting within an evolutionary context, in other words, lifting the bar of what parenting can be by bringing evermore consciousness to the task of parenting, while not creating more stress, guilt, or self-doubt in parents about their ability and capacity to parent. So, can we face who we are, aspire to grow more, and hold kindness toward ourselves all at once? We at Next Step Integral believe so, and that holding the tension between what is and what could be both lightly and seriously creates fertile ground for growth and evolution.
Miriam Mason Martineau, vice-president of Next Step Integral, is currently writing a book on an integral approach to the initial years of life, the culmination of over a decade of research on this topic, and aiming to have it published by the end of 2010.
As you will see, the content of this site is at present primarily geared toward the infant and young child; much of it can, however, also be applied and adapted to parenting older children.