A natural approach to family life

JUNO is a print and digital bi-monthly magazine which inspires and supports parents as they journey through the challenges of parenting. We have an ethos based on conscious parenting, sustainability, social justice, non-violence and a commitment to personal growth and spiritual awareness.

  • Family festivals and adventures for the year ahead

    Family festivals and adventures for the year ahead

    Wood Festival Like a seasonal awakening and injection of optimism, Wood Festival is an intimate and perfectly programmed festival of music and nature that sees people gather in a glade too small to get lost in, to live, learn, and have fun, enjoying the simple, beautiful things in life for a weekend each May. The music is largely folk and Americana. Local bands rub shoulders with international acts, though no one gathers a crowd like the legend that is Nick Cope! There is a full programme of free workshops for all ages, with activities ranging from bookbinding to yoga, whittling to harmony singing. The children’s tent hosts endless performances and activities; stalls are carefully curated (no flashing tat of questionable origin that you’ll be badgered to buy); the restorative healing area is full of people who genuinely care; the food is wholesome; the bar boasts locally sourced beverages; and a...

    Family festivals and adventures for the year ahead

    Wood Festival Like a seasonal awakening and injection of optimism, Wood Festival is an intimate and perfectly programmed festival of music and nature that sees people gather in a glade...

  • Ideas for celebrating Winter Solstice

    Ideas for celebrating Winter Solstice

    Celebrant Lu Garner has been celebrating the winter solstice for many years. Here she shares some ideas for creating your own celebration. I don’t know about you but my daily family life is a hectic affair – and never more so than in the run up to the festive season. At the best of times it seems that life travels past so fast – children seem all grown up before my very eyes, new directions abound in my personal and work life, world events take my breath away, and literally I can be gasping for air, for the chance to make sense of it all. That is what ceremony or ritual is all about – creating a space to make meaning of the cycles of our lives, whether we are honouring a birth, a death or the turning of the year. Eight years ago I co-created a group in Derbyshire...

    Ideas for celebrating Winter Solstice

    Celebrant Lu Garner has been celebrating the winter solstice for many years. Here she shares some ideas for creating your own celebration. I don’t know about you but my daily...

  • How to make family board games festive and fun

    How to make family board games festive and fun

    Playing board games at Christmas is as traditional as fairy lights and stockings. We look forward with anticipation to long evenings around the table, mulled wine in hand and carols on the radio. But the reality doesn’t always match our glossy, idyllic Christmas vision. Here are some ideas to help bypass the messy explosions, arguments and tears and to help keep family board gaming positive and harmonious this festive season. Choose the right games. Not all games are created equal. You may inadvertently launch into a game that brings out the worst in your family. If the children are easily upset, look for cooperative games, where everyone plays together to try to beat the game. Avoid long periods of downtime by picking games with quick turns or simultaneous play. If conflict on the table causes conflict between players, opt instead for games where each player is working on their own...

    How to make family board games festive and fun

    Playing board games at Christmas is as traditional as fairy lights and stockings. We look forward with anticipation to long evenings around the table, mulled wine in hand and carols...

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  • The Story Behind the Cover – Early Spring 2024

    The Story Behind the Cover – Early Spring 2024

    For the first 6 months after my third baby, Faye, was born, I could muster absolutely no creative motivation. Or at least, no motivation to make art. I would land on the idea of making something for a split second and then immediately feel deflated. I might have worried, but having been through these early days of baby a couple times already, I had the sense it would return. And sure enough, right around 7 months, I started to feel the glow return to my fingers.  Usually, I work quite small. Little snippets, fastidiously pieced together, a complex challenge in a small space. But the creative energy that returned needed something different, something more expansive and fresh, that reflected this bright new life we were nurturing and learning to find space for. I bought a huge sheet of oak ply and had it cut into large rectangles and began to...

    The Story Behind the Cover – Early Spring 2024

    For the first 6 months after my third baby, Faye, was born, I could muster absolutely no creative motivation. Or at least, no motivation to make art. I would land...

  • Lou Harvey-Zahra offers simple ideas for nurturing kindness

    Lou Harvey-Zahra offers simple ideas for nurtur...

    Have you ever pondered that the word ‘valuable’ stems from the word ‘value’? It is worth considering the key family values that are the foundation of our homes, because what we focus on truly does grow. Our family values are valuable for us: they help us to live happy, healthy and connected lives. My children are now 20 and 23 and, looking back at our key family values from toddlerhood to now, there have been three simple things: to be safe, to be healthy and to be kind (to each other and to belongings). Rather than teaching kindness as right and wrong or reinforcing morals, we can model kindness and encourage it through simple everyday family activities in which it will naturally arise. I am really excited to share 10 family values in my new book, The Connected Family Handbook: Nurturing Warmth, Wonder and Kindness in Children. As well as...

    Lou Harvey-Zahra offers simple ideas for nurturing kindness

    Have you ever pondered that the word ‘valuable’ stems from the word ‘value’? It is worth considering the key family values that are the foundation of our homes, because what...

  • How to create a consent-based environment around food

    How to create a consent-based environment aroun...

    Sophie Christophy answers your questions. How can I create a consent-based environment around food and eating, when I want to also ensure that my children eat a healthy balanced diet? I worry that facilitating the children’s wants and preferences is going to mean that they won’t necessarily eat the things that they need to be healthy, and that they are too young to make informed independent choices about their diet and what their body needs. When it comes to food, there are a number of ways in which you can work towards a consent-based way of being together as a family, and away from the traditional patriarchal/dominator type of dynamic. One significant way is to give children agency over the process of eating itself. Eating is an intimate act – we are putting food into our bodies, after all. With that in mind, for children to experience bodily autonomy in...

    How to create a consent-based environment around food

    Sophie Christophy answers your questions. How can I create a consent-based environment around food and eating, when I want to also ensure that my children eat a healthy balanced diet?...

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  • Naturally Talented: reframing dyslexia as an advantage

    Naturally Talented: reframing dyslexia as an ad...

    What if we could remove the stigma associated with a diagnosis of dyslexia? What if we could get people to see it as a potential advantage, rather than a setback? What if, in the process, we could vastly improve our children’s experience of their dyslexia?  A diagnosis of dyslexia is too often a cause of great concern and worry for both parent and child. Why? Because it is seen as a ‘difficulty’; a ‘disadvantage’ or a ‘disability’. Even the word ‘dyslexia’ translates as ‘a difficulty with language’! It stems from the combination of two Greek words: ‘dis’ meaning ‘lack’, and ‘lexi’ meaning ‘word’. So, dyslexia means ‘to lack words’. Hardly surprising then that in a society which relies heavily on written communication, ‘lacking words’ has been seen as a definite drawback. Historically there has been very little support for those with dyslexia. It has often been misunderstood, overlooked or misdiagnosed. No...

    Naturally Talented: reframing dyslexia as an advantage

    What if we could remove the stigma associated with a diagnosis of dyslexia? What if we could get people to see it as a potential advantage, rather than a setback?...

  • An introduction to Steiner Waldorf early childhood education

    An introduction to Steiner Waldorf early childh...

    Steiner Waldorf education is founded on the work of the Austrian philosopher and educator Rudolf Steiner, who wished to create a form of education that would help pupils achieve “clarity of thought, sensitivity of feeling and strength of will”. After listening to Steiner’s lectures to the workers at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory in Stuttgart, Emil Molt, the director, asked him to form a school for their children, and in 1919 the first Waldorf school was founded. Today there are more than 1,000 schools and almost 2,000 kindergartens in over 65 countries, serving children from birth to 18 years of age. Steiner spoke about the developmental stages spanning 7-year periods. The phase of early childhood (the first 7 years) includes parenting, home childcare and pregnancy, baby groups – which may include the Pikler approach – parent-and-child groups (birth to age 3), playgroups, nursery groups (ages 2 to 4), and day care...

    An introduction to Steiner Waldorf early childhood education

    Steiner Waldorf education is founded on the work of the Austrian philosopher and educator Rudolf Steiner, who wished to create a form of education that would help pupils achieve “clarity...

  • Deschooling and the transition to home education

    Deschooling and the transition to home education

    As regular readers will know, I decided upon home education very early on, dabbling in organised education only very briefly at a Steiner Kindergarten. I have never had to say goodbye to my 4-year-old at the school gates, or fight the school system on my children’s behalf, or indulge in mild skulduggery to ensure a place in the best local school. From the start I elected to home educate and did so from a philosophical and pedagogical standpoint. I am aware, though, that many home educators come to their decision after first giving school a try. Some of them will have been in two minds and have decided to try what school has to offer before committing to home education. Others will have become home educators only reluctantly: their children may have been bullied out of the system, or the school may not have been able to meet the special...

    Deschooling and the transition to home education

    As regular readers will know, I decided upon home education very early on, dabbling in organised education only very briefly at a Steiner Kindergarten. I have never had to say...

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  • Testimonials

    "I love knowing I'm not the only one who parents this way." - Mayita


    "Reaffirms and inspires our natural way of parenting and living. Absolutely love JUNO!" - Emma

  • Published with the seasons 🌱

    Early Spring - 1 February

    Spring - 1 April

    Summer - 1 June

    Late Summer - 1 August

    Autumn - 1 October

    Winter - 1 December

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