Nancy Lee Koschmann, M. Ed., Ph. D., CEC, is a retired professor of child development and long-time childbirth and parenting educator. She was in one of the first certification classes run by what is now Lamaze International, and has taught in both the United States and Japan for the many years since. She was a co-founder of Parentcraft Japan, one of the earliest childbirth and parenting organizations in Japan. She has educated more than 200 couples about healthy pregnancy, safe and comfortable labor and delivery, and how to parent wisely with mindfulness, equanimity and joy. She was a La Leche League counselor for many years, a labor coach (doula) for foreign women giving birth in Japanese hospitals and has also worked as a family therapist. Nancy taught Human Development and Counseling courses at Sophia University (Tokyo), TC3, and Elmira College where she taught for twenty years and helped found the Women’s Studies Program. Nancy has worked with single mothers, couples, non-native English speaking families and foreign students in her effort to empower people as they experience birth, parenting and family life. Recently she created Open Path, a life coaching and life enhancing consulting service based on the principles of personal empowerment and mindfulness. Mindful Parenting classes are offered for parents and parents-to-be who wish to bring more mindfulness and joy to their family lives, relationships and work experiences.
Nancy’s Personal Statement: Mindful parenting is about being truly present to and for the child. Such mindfulness, profound care and concern for the child, and attunement to the child’s needs begins during pregnancy, continue throughout labor and delivery, and deepens throughout the parenting processes and the child’s growth. Mindful parenting is a life-long endeavor, and is built on an on-going awareness and a deep desire to hear and offer understanding to the child. It is based on a willingness to be aware and alive every monent, to pay attention to what is hapening here and now, and to be deeply appreciative of the miracle of our own and our children’s presence. This is not possible without a certain commitment to altering priorities from consumption, over-activity and competition to a more healthy life style of putting interpersonal relationships and inner peacefulness first. If we want to raise kind, thoughtful and non-violent children, we must create our lives in such a way as to engender compassionate, empathy, insight and gentleness. Children do as we do, not as we say. If we nurture well, they will grow up to nurture well, and who knows, maybe the world will become a better place!
Nancy is the mother of three children, now grown, and the grandmother of three more children, all in Ithaca (lucky Nancy!). She is partnered with a professor of Japanese history at Cornell University. In her non-professional life, she volunteers with the Cornell Prison Education Program and teaches child development, writing and meditation to the men incarcerated at Auburn. She grows flowers and veggies, and tries to provide a safe habitat for the small and sometimes larger creatures on her land. She writes when the muse calls, collages with Japanese hand-made paper, canoes as much as she can, and meditates in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh. She does yoga and tai chi and encourages her students to take up some sort of meditative practice for mindfulness as a buffer against the stress of parenting, work and modern family life.
