I just had a wonderful conversation with Ted J. Rau. He has been raising his five children in cohousing and agreed to be my first podcast interviewee. I have to learn more about the technology but I hope it will sound okay being recorded off of a computer.

He is a consultant on sociocracy and governance for schools and cohousing communities and anyone else interested. He has at least two books published: Who Decides Who: How to Start a Group so Everyone has a Voice  and Many Voices One Song: Shared Power with Sociocracy.  I will share the links.

In his experience, he wanted to raise his children in cohousing so they could know other adults. I find that interesting since most people want their children to play with other children in cohousing and that’s the motivation. We lost one family, in part, because another family with a child the same age couldn’t move in so they never moved in either.

I did love the fact that my children knew all the adults by name and even what some of their interests were. 

I will post the interview but another good piece of information is that they include children in discussions on common grounds and noise level at common houses.  So true – the offenders are not always children.  The children and adults are learning and using Nonviolent Communication (NVC).  In fact, one of his neighbors trains children. That’s what I had started – teaching the children NVC just as I was learning.  I was looking for material and now I have that too –  Gina Simm’s website – teaching from the heart.

I am thankful to hear of their community. He also said that their community started in 1994 so they have seen children grow up and a new “crop” come along so they are good at this. That’s hopeful for new communities!

https://www.sociocracyforall.org/who-decides-who-decides/

https://www.sociocracyforall.org/mvos/

http://www.teachingfromyourheart.org