Childhood Connection and Empathy for a Harmonious Society with Robin Grille

Feb 5, 2020

Robin Grille is a Sydney-based psychologist in private practice and a parenting educator. His articles on parenting and child development have been widely published and translated in Australia and around the world. Robin is the author of three books: ‘Parenting for a Peaceful World’ , ‘Heart to Heart Parenting’ and his newest title: ‘Inner Child Journeys’. Robin’s work is animated by his belief that humanity’s future is largely dependent on the way we collectively relate to our children. 

Robin’s experiential, skills-based and informational parenting courses have helped many people to embrace parenting as a transformative, personal growth journey. Drawing from 28 years’ clinical experience and from leading-edge neuropsychological research, Robin’s seminars and courses focus on healthy emotional development for children as well as parents; while building supportive, co-operative parenting communities.   

 

• Robin Grille was always interested in human behaviour and although disillusioned by a lot of academia, he returned with a passion following his own personal growth
• As guitarist with stage fright, he explored counselling, which opened up an interest to understand himself and relationships
• In the 1980s in Sydney there was an explosion in the human potential movement, that sparked his interest in psychotherapy
• “When people in a room are intentionally vulnerable with one another, it creates belonging, closeness and realness”
• Robin initially immersed himself in body-centred psychotherapy including bioenergetics vegetative therapy and biodynamic massage, related to our body structure and how we breathe and move. He found this interesting because it is connected to how we relate to one another
• Robin experienced high school in Australia as a shame-based culture
• Permission to show your heart, let go of control. It was immensely liberating and healing
• One of the drivers for him exploring psychology was following a personal family tragedy
• The importance of community 
• Western Psychology is the psychology of the individual - we’ve lost the thread of connection
• “It’s a cliche to say ‘it takes a village’, but it’s not a cliche, it’s a must” 
• It’s a system that brings up a child, not just a mum and dad. At least 4 people are needed, to strengthen and support
• Interrelationships with one another and with nature
• The general evolution away from violence towards children over the last century
• To create a violent society, you have to treat children badly
• Conflict doesn’t have to be violent, it can be very creative
• “War is a psychological issue”, Alice Miller
• We change the culture by rejecting the authoritarian and over-medicalised styles of parenting and old-fashioned styles of education
• Democratic nations don’t go to war with one another- there’s a peace dividend within democracy
• empathy and heart-centred

• brain development according to our relationships 
• we are because of tribe
• emotion is the pathway of connection
• emotions are contagious 
• constant state of communication, even when we’re unconscious of it
• “families and tribes are the empathy farmers of the next generation”
• teaching the power of listening and curiosity and giving the time to be still
• “our real language is not words but body language”
• there’s a brain in the human heart and gut
• when somebody says “don’t let the heart rule the head, that’s a biological impossibility”
• we are part of nature
• Michael Leunig, Australian cartoonist, philosopher and social commentator said: “love cannot happen at speed” 
• we’re entirely impoverished with time and connection
• being listened to: “we need empathic witnesses to who we are. It’s not the fixing that fixes us, it’s everything to do with nature”
• It’s important to have a full cup and be held by the village, as the nourished parent has a different presence for their child: they feel more nourished when you are nourished
• The body can’t lie
• All of us can be sensitive to emptiness, and need connection with ourselves, the nonhuman world and one another to nourish ourselves
• It often takes just a moment of quiet or touch to reconnect
• dance and song are essential. 
• One of the ways of dominating a populous is taking away their dance
• The map of psycho-emotional development of childhood- science endorses what psychotherapists have seen
• The right to exist in utero, in birth and the perinatal period
• The right to need (attachment stage) : being held, carried, breastfed and co-sleeping, which gives the fundamental sense of reaching out and trust
• The right to have support (toddler years)
• The right to freedom (later toddler years): stepping away from the orbit of the adult and exploring our own way, expressing emotions. Most of us carry a deep sense of shame of who we are from this stage of development
• More aware at the genital level, pleasure, curiosity, passion, binary in terms of right and wrong, (5-7 years)
• Primary school years relate to competancy- vulnerable to feeling ashamed about learning. Children learn best when they’re not being forced to learn, and instead encouraged to follow their passions
• Identity, sexuality, the right to diverse and unique
• The right to create and express
• Wounding causes a development arrest, and healing reignites the development that was halted 
• Parents, when understanding child development, get paralysed by a sense of guilt and fear of damaging their child. It’s important to consider that nothing is permanent in terms of wounding. Repair is possible
• “Human beings are breathtakingly resilient”
• Every family has conflict
• “We don’t thrive from perfect safety. We thrive from risk and experience, and sometimes from pain”
• Our wounds give us our wisdom
• Leonard Cohen “There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in”

To find out more about Robin Grille’s work, his books, articles and seminars visit:   robingrille.com