Biography

Jan Hunt, B.A. Psychology (Magna cum Laude), M.Sc. Counseling Psychology, is the Director of the Natural Child Project, the B.C. Coordinator for the CSPCC (Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children), a member of the CSPCC Board of Directors, and Editorial Assistant of the Society's quarterly journal Empathic Parenting. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for Attachment Parenting International and the Advisory Board of The Child-Friendly Initiative. Jan has published articles in that journal, The Times-Colonist, Monday Magazine, Nelson Daily News, Growing Without Schooling, Reader's Digest, Compleat Mother, and numerous other periodicals in Canada, Australia, and the USA.

Her parenting column "The Natural Child" appeared in Natural Life Magazine from 1989 to 1998. One of her columns, "Ten Reasons Not to Hit Your Kids" was selected as an appendix to Alice Miller's book, Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (New York: Penguin USA, new edition 1997). Jan is the parent of a 19-year-old son who has homeschooled from the beginning with a learner-directed approach.

Published works

• A Gift for Baby (The Natural Child Project, 2005)

• The Natural Child: Parenting from the Heart (New Society, December 2001)

• "Ten Reasons Not to Hit Your Kids", Appendix D in Alice Miller's Breaking Down the Wall of Silence, (New York: Dutton, 1991).

• Newspaper column: The Natural Child: Parenting and Education that Respects Children, 1989-1998.

• "Nurturing Children's Natural Love of Learning", Foreword to Homeschooling in Oregon, Ann Lahrson, Portland: Out of the Box Publishing, 1994.

• "Ten Reasons to Respond to a Crying Child", Empathic Parenting, Journal of the CSPCC, Summer 1996, pp. 7-8.

"I consider Jan Hunt's writing as exceptionally clear, based on facts, and coming out of her own experience. Parents rarely find in the press the essential, precious information her work could give them. I very much hope that her strong voice will become more and more known in the world through her lucid, well-informed writing."

- Dr. Alice Miller
author of Breaking Down the Wall of Silence and Thou Shalt Not Be Aware

"Jan Hunt is a most diligent, energetic, and well-informed person with regard to children's issues. She is one of the few people who understands and can write about the real needs of children as opposed to the rationalized needs of parents in relation to their children. Moreover, she can do this in an engaging fashion that does not put parents off. For the sake of children everywhere, I hope that her Internet columns are widely read and taken to heart."

- Dr. Elliott Barker
Director, Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children

"Jan's writing is insightful, carefully thought out, wonderfully readable, and very useful. I wish for her writing to have as large an audience as possible. Adults all over the world need to hear the ideas she expresses so well."

- Rick Lahrson
Executive Director, The Kids' Project