Our Approach

Watch and Wonder is based on Dr Karl Heinz Brisch’s attachment focused, relational way of observing a parent and a baby’s attuned, sensitive, reciprocal relationship as it unfolds and develops over time.  Children are encouraged to watch by a facilitator and to wonder, about the behaviour, the feelings, what it would be like to be the parent or the baby.  

If the program has a ‘live’ volunteer, the children are encouraged by the Facilitator to become guardians of the safe space that they co-create together for the parent and baby.  At all times, whether ‘live’ or through watching the video resource, the Facilitator remains a curious guide to the children’s exploration and discovery.  The environment created during Watch and Wonder incorporates PACE (Hughes) and Rogers core conditions to create a safe space for this curiosity and exploration.

During the minimum of two terms of watching, having feelings named and accepted and seeing how a parent soothes, the children gain a deeper self understanding of their own emotional world, are able to identify their own feelings and those of others with greater accuracy and empathy, understand the fundamental building blocks to build successful relationships and have better communication skills and increased mentalisation capacity.  The program very gently works with children’s internal working models (Bowlby), enabling those with less positive experiences to see how relationships can be different. 

There are resources to encourage ongoing reflection, post sessions, but the actual delivery remains purely experiential.  The experience is therefore constantly attuned to the children ‘in that moment’.  It is a whole class experience and transforms the class culture as the children and adult’s way of relating is changed.

What we do

We watch together in a group, how a parent and their baby communicate and relate to each other.