KinderVision for Families

Read all about us on our website. We are for families only :)
We would be open to singles or couples staying with us on a volunteer basis short-term, but after we are more established.
We are 1 family at the moment, with a couple of families potentially joining us already. We only recently went public with our intentional community idea.
As a community our focuses can be summed up in connection, autonomy, and play.
To be clear, autonomy is merely a mutual respect for each other’s control and ownership over their own bodies, minds, and spirits. This includes even the smallest children- and responding to their, sometimes masked or haphazard, communication with connection and respect :)
We value autonomy for children and adults alike, likeminded people having easy access to other likeminded people (including children), children being involved in daily activities as equal participants (with appropriate changes and accommodations for their size and ability). We value gentle and curious approaches to anyone’s behavior and needs- seeing emotions as valid and always with reasonable cause. We have a Waldorf-style, Sudbury-style perspective toward education, and value risky play in nature (as we learn to personally let go more and more of our in-built desire to emphasize caution and control). We do not think having an “educational” backing for activities for children is helpful, for example, “today we’re going to stack cups in color categories to work on hand-eye coordination and color recognition”. That works against our relationships with children and has proven to be a waste of time. We value play as work and work as play. We value “teaching”, but in a myriad of ways that only occasionally use direct verbal information-giving. Teaching looks like a million different things, and often, its indirect lessons over a long course of time. Kids only listen and truly learn from the people they respect and want to emulate in one way or another, so before we value teaching, we value being an admirable, respectable person ourselves, first. Living in community gives innumerable opportunities for everyone to greater embody clear and nonviolent communication, consideration for others, generosity, FUN, mature conflict resolution, and so much more. This might be the best “lesson” we could ever give our children… Additionally, we think children have a lot to teach us as well, maybe more than we have to teach them, if we are truly present with them and engaged.
Our goal here is to create the healthiest environment for families to thrive. Basically, re-villaging with a consideration for the decades to come and what sustainability actually means as we set up the community… i.e. maybe it’s not the most sustainable to focus on the Earth before humans. Maybe we can’t and shouldn’t do it all alone or within our own strict property lines. Maybe everyone is burnt out and stressed out for a deeper reason. If we focus on each other, consideration (and a true feeling of time and spaciousness) for the place will naturally follow because we are all being genuinely cared for within trusted and proximally close relationships. We believe this is especially so for people with a forethought and care towards the next generation
Secondarily, we value the natural world, as we are personally invested in natural building and interested in growing our own food, permaculture, food forests, incorporating ancient ways of living and working, wearing/using natural materials, maybe living off-grid, etc., BUT those things are only considerations after valuing connection, relationships, and humans as medicine for each other. Food is medicine, of course, but human connection is way better.
We value primitive, ancestral skills and moving like our bodies are made to- primitive to homesteading hand skills, parkour, climbing, dancing, wrestling, “human movement” based on things like “Evolve, Move, Play”, group games, making music and singing together. For us, its obvious that these activities naturally build up community ties and trust and lead to a peaceful community culture.
We are not a spiritual/religious group. We have a Christian upbringing, but have worked hard to deconstruct that. Nia leans European pagan with an emphasis on her Welsh and Germanic heritage and Sylas is interested in what different philosophers have to say throughout time, currently looking through Jung’s work.
Here is an excerpt from our home page on our website,
“Since our daughter was born several years ago we’ve been on a passionate mission to find or create a village of like-minded families; a close-knit, fun-loving, committed community that respects children’s autonomy, nurtures their whole being, models healthy relationships for them with peaceful and open communication, creates easy access for children to be with other children, encourages them to have full participation in community life, builds together, grows together, explores ancient ways of living and crafting together, occasionally travels together, and invests in our children’s futures together.
​Don’t get us wrong, we don’t want to do everything together (we like alone time too), let’s just be really incredible neighbors that decide to stick together and work (play) towards a common vision.
​Grab a warm drink and have fun dreaming with us.”
We initially had the website focusing on connecting with people first before deciding on a place, which is still partially accurate, but we really couldn’t imagine a better place on earth for this than northern Idaho, if we were going to stay in the United States. We have scourred the globe, physically and virtually, to find this exact place. Nia has contacted the most obscure people on facebook comments and lonely places of the Earth for anyone who could connect us with anything they know, similar to what we’re envisioning. We’ve found specific cultures that do a good job at respecting children’s autonomy and including them in daily life and 3 potential intentional communities that are similar to this in Europe and India. Lots of underground workings of unschool networks around the globe, especially in places that don’t allow that sort of thing. If you don’t jive with our vision, we most likely have a good place in mind for your family if you contact us. Personally, we ultimately felt such a burden for the future of the Western world, America specifically, and the plight of children here that we decided we needed to start something in Europe or America. We are between the options of Sandpoint, ID or joining efforts with the Revillage project in Europe (whose location is TBD). Both have massive pros and cons, which are outlined on a page on our website. Let’s talk if you feel the same about the Western world or if you’re looking into other parts of the globe and would like some resources/connections.