Lael Stone is an Australian educator, speaker, author, mother, and parenting counselor who has been working with families for over 18 years. Her TEDx talk on how to raise emotionally intelligent children has been watched nearly 1 million times,  she is the co-host of a successful podcast, namely, “The Aware Parenting Podcast”, and she is the co-creator of an innovative new school in Australia based on emotional wellbeing and connection. On today’s episode Lael shares a very challenging personal experience of hers with the near-loss of her daughter during birth but how that led her to understand trauma & healing and how it shaped her career trajectory thereafter. We then discuss conscious parenting. What is it? What is involved in the art of listening? Why is it often so hard to meet our kids in their anger or in their tears? How important is it for us to heal our own trauma so that our children do not inherit our potentially dysfunctional emotional legacies? (PS: It’s bloody important). In the last section we talk about educational changes we wish to see in the world, and educational changes that Lael is in fact a real part of through her work with the school she co-created. What does it mean to nurture the whole child in education? Where are we going wrong in mainstream education? This was one of my favourite podcast episodes yet because Lael brought wisdom with such warmth in a true Aussie down-to-Earth fashion. You can connect with us on the links below: Lael’s websiteLael’s facebook Lael’s instagram Shannon’s instagram Shannon’s website