How To Get Involved With Kindred World


Get Involved With Kindred World

Welcome Trance-breakers, Wayfinders, New Cycle Makers, Stewards, and Nurturers!

Kindred World (formerly Families for Conscious Living) began as a grassroots, consciousness-raising organization of parents and professionals in 1996, twenty-five years into America’s decline to the bottom of all international indicators for family, maternal, and child health. After a total fifty-year race to last place of every family wellness indicator, today, Kindred World’s mission and vision are more relevant and important than ever.

Today, Kindred World represents a living consciousness-raising movement begun forty years ago by many researchers, practitioners, authors, parents, and activists to bring attention to America’s dramatic abandonment of babies, children, mothers, fathers, and family wellness. Our expansive knowledge archives and oral histories represent the efforts of thousands to turn America away from an unsustainable Cycle of Competitive Detachment and toward a Wellness-Informed Society. We are still working to this end.

During the current climate crisis, pandemic, and political upheaval, Kindred World’s quarter century of investigating and sharing a New Story of Our Human Family is a blazed path to wholeness and wellness ready for others to follow. For a quarter century, we have explored the interconnectedness of all of the “categories” you will find on this website, and listed below. This holistic approach – looking for the connections between all of life’s interdependent and diverse forms – has allowed us to discover integrated insights into creating lifelong wellness.

Below you will find an overview of sections on the Kindred website to help you navigate our considerable archives, current features, news posts, videos and podcasts, as well as our educational and organizational resources. Our purpose with these resources is to provide you with a greatly, and carefully, condensed version of a twenty year process: our best insights and tools for authoring a New Story of the Human Family.

Please note: the Conscious Parenting Movement, and all of its families, activists, practitioners, professionals, researchers, and wayfinders, have held the counter-culture, wellness-advocating space for longer than Kindred World has existed. While America is waking up to the importance of creating a Wellness-Informed Society, the country’s colonizer mentality, of pretending to discover new territory while ignoring the original inhabitants and their struggles to hold onto and promote a sustainable worldview, is predictable. Please support our nonprofit work generously so we may continue to present Kindred’s chronicled wisdom archives and historical evidence of an indefatigable consciousness-raising movement – still alive and well – in America for over forty years.

You can participate in Kindred World’s work through subscribing to our newsletters and joining our Mighty Networks Discussion Groups.


SECTIONS BELOW


Frequently Asked Questions


Is Kindred a parenting magazine?

No. Kindred was founded by Kelly Wendorf as the first global eco-parenting magazine in 2002 in Byron Bay, Australia. Over the past two decades, Kindred’s vision for our human family evolved into a whole systems worldview. We look at issues from top down, how systems and stories perpetuate a mythology of rugged individualism in Western Culture. And from the bottom up – how can we create sustainable, compassionate human beings from the beginning of life.

As Kindred World’s president, Darcia Narvaez, PhD, founder of the Evolved Nest, writes, “In an individualistic society like the USA, it is sometimes hard to realize that disconnection is contrary to the evolution of our species.  We evolved to develop well when supported within a network of connections. Here is an ‘ecological systems theory’ that helps explain why we are all so miserable, and suggestions for what we can do.”

You can read more about The Layers of Structures That Support Individuals and Families here.

You can find out more about our Evolved Nest and its baselines for lifelong human thriving here on Kindred, and on the initiative’s website.

Why is your site different?

Maybe you’ve noticed something about Kindred’s website by now. We do not have ads on the website. As a holistic nonprofit, we understand the importance of your experience here. We understand that the digital world can be brutal on our most valuable possession: our attention. We’re not interested in making you run through a gauntlet of flashing or distracting advertisement. We’re interested in helping you find the information and inspiration you want. 

As an educational nonprofit, we are dependent upon our reader and donor support. Please consider contributing your tax-deductible donation here. You are also welcome to find other ways to support our work here.

Read over 88 five-star reviews of our nonprofit work on the Great Nonprofits’ website here.

Learn More About Our Grassroots History

You can visit our About Us page here, to learn more about the founding of Kindred World a quarter century ago and in the middle of America’s 50-year fall to the bottom of all international indicators for children and adult health and wellness. As the only developed nation, and one of six developed and undeveloped nations, to not support mothers and babies after birth with an appropriate amount of time for recovery and bonding necessary for infant brain development and maternal mental health, America is perpetuating a Cycle of Competitive Detachment, an epidemic of mental illness and violence, and maternal and infant morbidity rates. At Kindred, we have explored the path out of this cycle and toward healing and wholeness with hundreds of contributors, thought leaders, researchers, and activists. Here are a few resources to help you discover our history as a nonprofit, and our vision for creating a Wellness-Informed Society.

Watch the New Story of Childhood, Parenthood, and the Human Family presentation by Lisa Reagan, Kindred’s executive editor, to the prenatal students of the Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health.

In this presentation, Breaking the Cycle: The Grassroots History and Award-Winning Science Behind the New Film, Lisa Reagan shows how uniquely positioned Kindred has been to contribute to the grounded vision of the new Breaking the Cycle film and resources.

What have we learned in a quarter century of grassroots activism for family wellness? Discover our history and its context in America’s 50-year decline to the bottom of all developed nations’ health indices for wellness

So, How Do I Use This Website?

Kindred Media and Community is a nonprofit educational initiative of Kindred World. We are parents, professionals, grown children (by now) and seekers trying to wake ourselves from an enculturated trance. We are cycle breakers, new cycle makers. There is something here for you in this decades old treasure hoard, compiled for you by hundreds of contributors and editors. We hope you will allow yourself to spend time feeling what you are drawn to explore on the website, and let us know how it is going when you get stuck. Here’s a big button you can push to send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you. Happy seeking…


RESOURCES


Kindred has archived a variety of resources on our website from nearly 20 years of thought leader articles and interviews, activist reports, and editors committed to chronicling the Conscious Parenting Movement. Our website materials are used frequently in educational settings and with our blessing. Please contact us if you have requests or suggestions for more resource developments at info@kindredmedia.org.



Our most popular post categories are below. Click on a category title to go to that collection. You are welcome to print out and share the articles with full attribution to the author and Kindred.

ACES, Adverse Childhood Experiences Caring Economy Indigenous Wisdom
Attachment Parenting Childism Neurobiology and Wisdom
Black Mothers Conscious Activism Social Justice
Breastfeeding Dominator System Sustainable Wisdom
Evolved Nest Education Thinking Global
Midwifery Family Literacy Mindfulness
Parenting for Social Change Racism Nature Connection
Pregnancy/Birth Spirituality Play
Worklife Law Environmental Justice Relationship Literacy
Democracy at the Crossroads Food and Food Sovereignty Trauma-Informed

Breaking the Cycle Film

https://youtu.be/d_f4fzzFc8A

Breaking the Cycle illustrates our capacity for breaking our current Cycle of Competitive Detachment and returning to the pattern of 95% of our human history: a healthy, peaceful Cycle of Cooperative CompanionshipBreaking the Cycle is based on the multi-award-winning book, Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality: Evolution, Culture and Wisdom, by Darcia Narvaez, PhD. 

Breaking the Cycle contrasts the two basic ways societies can function: the optimal approach, which most human societies through time have followed, is the Cycle of Cooperative Companionship where children’s basic needs are met; they grow into well-functioning, cooperative community members (from neurobiology and on up); and as healthy adults, they maintain the cooperative system.  Currently in the USA, the opposite pattern is in place: children’s basic needs are not met, ill-being and dysregulation ensue, creating adults who are detached and distracted and keep this Cycle of Competitive Detachment going. The United Nations ranks the USA as 41st out of 41 developed countries for child and adult wellness.

Visit the website and discover the film guide and resources.

Read the press release.

Watch and share the Spanish version of the film here.


KINDRED WISDOM ARCHIVES


During America’s slide to the bottom of all international wellness indicators during the past 50 years, a grassroots movement of researchers, scientists, practitioners, parents, caregivers, and activists served the human family, pioneered new fields of science and advocated for nurturing our species as a way to create sustainable humans. Here are Kindred’s interviews, podcasts, and features with a few of these wayfinders.

Learn more about America’s last place rankings for international health indicators, and Kindred’s quarter century history of educating and empowering families, on our About Us page.

Visit Kindred’s Wisdom Archives.


NEW STORY GLOSSARY


As an educational nonprofit and alternative media platform, Kindred’s mission is to Share the New Story of Childhood, Parenthood and the Human Family. This means attuning our efforts to stories and concepts as they emerge, as our new story needs new language! This New Story Glossary will help us navigate and author/become the authority of a narrative that serves our highest good, as interdependent and evolving individuals, families, communities, and nations.

The New Story Glossary terms appear throughout the website in articles. Readers can scroll over the terms to see a short definition or click on the term to visit the term’s page in the glossary.

You are welcome to contribute your terms to the glossary as well!

Visit the New Story Glossary.


SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS


Kindred works with a number of sister-initiatives from our parent nonprofit, Kindred World, to create integrative, dynamic social media educational campaigns. Here are a few of our growing collection.


The Eco Attachment Dance

You, your children, your family are invited to discover ways to connect with nature, renew your ecological attachment, and restore your living connection to the Earth. 

Dr. Darcia Narvaez and her students did an experiment to increase ecological attachment—nature connection—through small daily practices. Each day participants practiced one activity that increased attention to and being grateful for the natural world. See here for the press release about the study, published in EcoPsychology

Take up the Eco Attachment Dance to expand your own ecological attachment through an Instagram challenge. Each day for 28 days an activity will be posted for you to practice that day. Each activity takes about 5 minutes (though you can go longer).

If you would like to take the anonymous pretest (and later a posttest) you can see how your attitudes and behaviors change after participating in the Eco Attachment Dance.


28 Days of Self-Calming

Why is it important to be calm and learning self-calming away from fear, panic, anxiety or anger? Fear, panic, anxiety and anger are survival-oriented emotions that we are born with but can take over our personality, making it hard to get along with others or even feel well. They are distressing emotions and can put us in mindsets that leave us vulnerable to harmful attitudes and behaviors toward ourselves or others. They are also not good for physical health as they promote inflammation, an underlying cause of many diseases.

These daily practices are intended to give you ways to calm yourself down. You may find that some work better than others. These are ones that you should continue to do.

There is a pre- and post-test available, as well as resources for further reading on self-calming practices.

Visit the webpage for the full 28 Days of Self-Calming campaign.


28 Days of Baby Care

NOTE: Babies are children under about age 2.5 years.

NOTE: The terms motherlinessmotheringmother lovegood enough mothers refer to empathic care or nurturing that mothers and other adults can provide. 

The Evolved Nest is happy to launch the 28 Day Baby Care campaign in celebration of Attachment Parenting Month, in October 2020. You can find out more about support for your attachment parenting choices on our Evolved Nest Components page, and on the Attachment Parenting International website.

There is a lot of misinformation about babies and their needs, and parents are often encouraged to ignore baby’s signals. Bad idea. Babies are “half-baked” at birth and have much to learn with the help of physical and emotional support from caregivers. Taking care of baby’s needs is an investment that pays off with a happier, healthier child and adult. Here are 28 days of reminders about babies and their needs.

The full 28 day card campaign can be found on the Evolved Nest’s website here under Self-Nesting Tools here


PRINT MATERIALS


These are materials created to help you navigate between the Old and the New Story, and empower you to author your own story of wholeness. They are also intended to be practical, like the Child Care Check List from the Evolved Nest Initiative. Let us know what else you would like to see in this section at editor(at)kindredmedia.org.


Wordview Chart

Kindred’s Worldview Chart, designed by Four Arrows, author of The Red Road. This chart helps us to see, at a glance, the values and manifestations of our Western, Dominant Culture versus our original programming as an indigenous earth species, or our Indigenous Worldview. When we talk about authoring a New Story on Kindred, and how we’re living in the space between these stories at this time, Four Arrows worldview poster helps us to understand what we mean with words like decolonization and indigenization. You can read Four Arrows work discussing these terms on Kindred.

About the Worldview Chart

This chart is not intended as a rigid binary, but a true dichotomy best viewed as a continuum. It is meant to encourage seeking complementarity and dialogue. Absolutism is discouraged with the realization we are all participating in DW precepts to some degree. The chart assumes that all diverse cultures, religions, and philosophies can be grouped under one of the two worldviews. “Indigenous Worldview” does not belong to a race or group of people, but Indigenous cultures who still hold on to their traditional place-based knowledge are the wisdom keepers of this original Nature-based worldview. All people are indigenous to Earth and have the right and the responsibility to practice and teach the IW precepts. All have the responsibility to support Indigenous sovereignty, dignity, and use of traditional lands.

For non-Indians who are concerned about misappropriation, see the peer reviewed article,

“The Indigenization Controversy: For Whom By Whom.” 

Worldview Chart and introduction by Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows), a.k.a. Don Trent Jacobs, Ph.D., Ed.D. Originally published in The Red Road (chanku luta): Linking Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives to Indigenous​ Worldview2020Featured inRestoring the Kindship Worldview, 2022, by Four Arrows and Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D.  Find Four Arrows and more on Indigenous Worldview at www.KindredMedia.org

Download your Worldview Chart poster or graphic below:

Kindred Worldview Chart Starry Night Background in PDF format: Download

Kindred Worldview Chart Starry Night Background in PNG format: Download

Kindred Worldview Chart in black and white for printing in PDF format: Download

Kindred Worldview Chart in black and white for printing in PNG format: Download


Childcare Check List

We are excited to unveil Evolved Nest’s Child Care Center Checklist. The Checklist has been created to help parents and guardians determine how well a child care center matches up with the components of the Evolved Nest.

The checklist is intended to be supplemental to the other protocols a center has (e.g., infection prevention, abuse prevention, diaper change frequency).

Click here to access a PDF to download.

Please share widely.

Visit the Evolved Nest’s website.


Evolved Nest Flyer

The Evolved Nest’s nonprofit mission is to:

•  Restore human nature to its cooperative orientation, its original and “normal” human heritage.

•  Cultural Imperatives of the industrial era have undermined child development so much we think disregulated people are “normal.” A return to and honoring of our Biological Imperatives, especially in child development, will help us shift culturally toward wellness and wholeness.

•  Restore humanity’s connection to nature.

•  Honor the primal continuum for wellness and wholeness that starts in pre-conception and babyhood.

•  Honor the needs of the mother, father, providing community support systems that optimize normal psychosocial development.

•  Become aware of the damaging, culturally accepted ideologies of nuclear family parenting by moving toward village-mindedness.

DOWNLOAD THE EVOLVED NEST FLYER TO SHARE HERE.


EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES


Conscious Parenting News

Conscious Parenting News seeks to gather the best headlines, studies and videos every month and present them to parents and professionals as a free nonprofit educational initiative.  CPN is a nonprofit initiative of Kindred World. You are welcome to embed The Conscious Parenting Newspaper to your own site by using the following code:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://widgets.paper.li/javascripts/sr.iframe.min.js”></script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
Paperli.PaperFrame.Show({
domain: ‘consciousparentingnews.com’,
pid: ‘b7e6b022-e9ee-42ea-9e54-f9d9f3df7726’
});
</script>


The Parent Liberation Project

The Parent Liberation Project and Alliance is based on Teresa Graham Brett’s seminal book, Parenting for Social Change.

PLA is an evolving, cross-cultural program that provides parents with the science behind child brain development along with insights and tools for reflecting upon cultural norms as a conscious move toward building the emotionally intelligent families and compassionate communities. 

The Parent Liberation Alliance has partnered with international parent nonprofits and NGO’s to bring the Parent Liberation Project and facilitator training to their communities.

Find out more about this global outreach and how your international organization can participate. Visit the website here.


ORGANIZATIONAL RESOURCES

Here are pages and pages of local, state, national and international resources to support your conscious living and conscious parenting choices. If you see a missing organization, please let us know at info@kindredmedia.org.

ACES and Trauma Recovery Environmental, Toxin-Free Living
Birth and Pregnancy Equity-Diversion-Inclusion
Black Mothers and Fathers Resources Food and Farming
Breastfeeding Mindfulness (Self-Regulation) Practices
Circumcision Play
Cultural Transformation Resources Worklife Law
Education Reform and Alternative Education Resources Vaccine Safety and Informed Choice