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.

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Family Time

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  • 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...

  • Reconnecting with the joy and magic of the festive season

    Reconnecting with the joy and magic of the fest...

    Sometimes rediscovering the true roots of a festival can help remind us why we are celebrating, readjust our priorities and reconnect with the natural forces evident at a particular time of year. Christmas has been so seized upon as the primary festival we all celebrate in such a homogenous, material way that much of the magic of the season is lost. Rather than resenting the commercial influences which put boxes of Christmas biscuits on supermarkets shelves the day the school supplies come down in September, why not develop your own family traditions, reclaim the festival, and practice celebrating the aspects which really speak to you and your family? If you can make the space and time and find the peace to cultivate the festivals of December with your family, the transition from the old year to the new can be one of restoration for your inner forces. Beginning with Advent...

    Reconnecting with the joy and magic of the festive season

    Sometimes rediscovering the true roots of a festival can help remind us why we are celebrating, readjust our priorities and reconnect with the natural forces evident at a particular time...

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Parenting support

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  • How to find a balance with weaponry in play

    How to find a balance with weaponry in play

    Parenting a young child who wants to play with toy guns has been an unexpected challenge for me. My preference is to completely ban all toy weaponry. My partner, who enjoys combat-based stories and games, thinks that is unrealistic. So we walk a tightrope of compromise. When my son was around 3 years old, he asked what a tank was. He had seen a photo of one at a friend’s house and had played with mini army figures. At that time we had no toy weapons in the house, and he didn’t watch films or cartoons that included battles. It saddens me to have to acknowledge that many people feel the need to carry weapons, whether for personal safety or for ideological reasons. So it sometimes feels as if my desire to help, even in the tiniest ways, to create a more peaceful world jars with my son’s interest in...

    How to find a balance with weaponry in play

    Parenting a young child who wants to play with toy guns has been an unexpected challenge for me. My preference is to completely ban all toy weaponry. My partner, who...

  • Celebrating twenty years of JUNO!

    Celebrating twenty years of JUNO!

    JUNO’s founding editors and early contributors reflect on two decades of JUNO and natural parenting Patricia Patterson-Vanegas and Emma Jennings on the birth of JUNO and where they are now The world is very different now to when JUNO was conceived and birthed. However, the editorial we wrote in our launch issue twenty years ago is as relevant today as it was then. We parents can use a reassuring voice to help us create our path and value our intuition, while knowing that we are not alone. We also need, probably more than ever, the space to be able to bounce ideas without being judged or cancelled. JUNO was Emma’s idea. I remember her telling me that she wanted to create a magazine that she herself would love to read, with the values that were important to her. She wanted people to share their stories and she had a vision...

    Celebrating twenty years of JUNO!

    JUNO’s founding editors and early contributors reflect on two decades of JUNO and natural parenting Patricia Patterson-Vanegas and Emma Jennings on the birth of JUNO and where they are now...

  • One family’s story of autism and the journey to diagnosis

    One family’s story of autism and the journey to...

    It was September 2018. Llewelyn was 2 years 9 months and his journey into part-time education was about to begin. Like every parent, my husband and I were filled with excitement – so many adventures awaited him. But, deep down, I was anxious. I remember the other children as we stood in line waiting for the nursery doors to open. Some were playing happily together in the playhouse – shouting, laughing and singing nursery rhymes – each one acutely aware of the others. How I longed for Llew to join them. There was nothing glaringly wrong when Llew was born, but on numerous occasions, my gut told me something was ‘off’. To this day, I cannot pinpoint what it was, but I felt it. As the weeks went by, it was not long before his differences became apparent to his teachers. He was the child who was always running out of...

    One family’s story of autism and the journey to diagnosis

    It was September 2018. Llewelyn was 2 years 9 months and his journey into part-time education was about to begin. Like every parent, my husband and I were filled with...

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Education

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  • Alice Ellerby speaks to space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock

    Alice Ellerby speaks to space scientist Maggie ...

    Maggie Aderin-Pocock is an award-winning scientist. She has had a fascination with space for as long as she can remember and one of her earliest dreams – which she still hopes to fulfil – was to travel to space. Over the course of her career, she has spoken to over 400,000 schoolchildren to share her love of space, inspire the next generation of scientists, and to give all children, no matter what their interests, an awareness of science and the critical role it plays in enabling humans to make good decisions about the way we live on Earth and how we take care of our planet. In her latest book, Am I Made of Stardust?, Maggie answers some of the brilliant questions children have asked her over the years as a way of introducing young readers to the Universe, our solar system, and human space exploration. The book is fascinating,...

    Alice Ellerby speaks to space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock

    Maggie Aderin-Pocock is an award-winning scientist. She has had a fascination with space for as long as she can remember and one of her earliest dreams – which she still...

  • 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...

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Explore more articles

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Complete your collection

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A Chance to Win

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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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