Welcome to Fiddleheads!

Studies show that being in nature on a regular basis improves individual’s attentional capacities, increases empathy, and induces the calming and regulating functions of the parasympathetic nervous system.

Nature is healing and calming, and helps us to feel more connected and alive. Fiddleheads provides an environment where creativity is fostered, natural aliveness is amplified, and children are able to unplug from an increasingly digital world.

Our ratio is small: one counselor per three children. And we cap our group size at 6 to 8 children so that each child feels seen and understood.

Fiddleheads is a screen-free environment with the exception of cell phone and radio usage for safety and communication with team leaders.

Modeling empathy is a key mode of fostering social-emotional growth at Fiddleheads.. Inquiring into feelings of others, asking them to embody their feelings, naming our own feelings, and making sense of others actions and connecting them to feelings. Children begin to internalize the framework of Feel it, Name it, Tame it. Our goal is that children move from pushing, hitting, running, or yelling “I am so mad at you!” to (over time) naming or otherwise communicating feelings as they arise, establishing a deeper head-heart connection.

Attunement is a powerful biological and psychological phenomena that occurs as our mirror neurons attune to those around us. The therapists leading each Fiddleheads group bring a presence that has the potential to regulate, inspire, and nurture the children.. Through our daily meditation practices, inner work, and self-care, our team brings a cultivated caring and love to the work that serves to benefit the children in Fiddleheads care. Our goal is for the children we work with to feel genuinely cared about and unconditionally listened to and loved. The result of this unconditional love is allowing children to feel that they belong.

Routine, consistency and predictability: These three tenets of ritual establish safety for children and also serve to calm the nervous system. Children on the spectrum, with sensory integration challenges, with impulse control, who are emotionally stressed or dysregulated, benefit from the calming effects of ritual and routine. Routine allows relaxation into the ritual of the group and removes worry about transitions that inevitably occur. When children know what is happening next, their nervous systems are cued to relax.

Mindfulness, which is shown to decrease stress, improve executive functioning, promote overall well being and happiness, is woven into our work at Fiddleheads. We promote activities that help children connect to their senses and regulate their bodies and minds. By intentionally focusing on hearing, breathing, seeing, walking, tasting, feeling, smelling and moving, children are exercising areas of neuro pathways that will allow for greater regulation and focus in their lives. When we induce states of calm in time there are profound benefits on the nervous systems of children and adults alike.

Didactically teaching social skills is useful, and at times, crucial, for the development of children we are working with. Simply following, reflecting, mirroring and accepting behaviors is not always enough. Interwoven with embodied empathy, Fiddleheads counselors lead circles where children are taught what empathy looks like, how to actively listen, what taking turns communicating is, how we say please and thank you, and about behaviors that turn others away and are offensive. Some children benefit from the clear explanations of social skills and having them spelled out directly and repeated. We take opportunities to emphasize this education during circle time, story telling, and reflection upon it at our closing circles.

We look for the behaviors we want to help children develop and fan those sparks with all our might. We remain patient and ignore the negative behaviors if there is no immediate harm being caused so as to not give the children attention. We look to build a positive relationship with Fiddleheads participants so they can internalize “I am actually lovable and good. I am more than my negative behaviors. Just because at times I act bad does not mean that I am bad.”