About Growing Kind
We are focused on promoting creativity, kindness, mindfulness and resilience through play.
Our journey began in 2018
with the release of our first product
Hello and welcome to Growing Kind – an amazing community we have been nurturing and shaping online and here in Brisbane since 2018 when our first product Nature Play Prompts was created.
We are focused on promoting creativity, kindness, mindfulness, and resilience through play. Yes, we provide some of the most stunning and developmentally appropriate toys and resources in Australia, but that is not all we do.
We also create unique and relevant content; supply to early childhood centres; talk about the difficult topics and have those hard conversations; and try new things like our pop-up store in Morningside during 2020 that we had originally set out to be for 30 days but ended up staying for an amazing 6 months!
“If you can be anything, be kind.”
Who are we?
meet the faces behind the brand
We are an Australian owned, family business, run by Amie with the support of amazing Warehouse manager, Sarah.
Inside the walls of our family home in Loganlea is where Growing Kind began. The result of late nights, exhausting days, postage miracles and an ambitious dream. Quitting a very stable and well-paying teaching/directing position seemed crazy to most, but Amie had a vision and was determined to make it work. With 24-hours in a day, she was maximising every hour!
Being a small business owner means I wear LOTS of hats from sourcing new and current products, to packing and deliveries, to creating content and so much more. This on top of our most important role of all – parents to our very own influencers, our two spunky kids. Life is busy, messy, loud and full of boxes, but like most hard-working families we’ve learnt to juggle, share the load, and make it work.
We love what we do, and we love that we get to do it every day.
Amie's Story
my why and my vision
I’m a mother of two beautiful girls who are my biggest teachers and a survivor of post-natal depression and anxiety. As a new mother I soon realised the immense complexity and vulnerability of the job, and I searched desperately for my village, but was left short and alone too often. Drawing on my early childhood education background I decided to share my knowledge with other mothers and educators. Growing Kind became the community I had yearned for, and one that I am extremely proud of.
My vision for Growing Kind is not just to sell beautiful toys. I want to change the world through play with our children. I want to change the world for the better by encouraging more kindness, more inclusion, more acceptance and an unstoppable resilience. I want to encourage people to love themselves more, love others more and be conscious of their own trauma and biases.
As a qualified early childhood teacher, I’ve worked in management, as a curriculum advisor and mentor, and taught in some of Brisbane’s most elite and well-reputed childcare centres. Also certified in life coaching and mindfulness-based stress reduction, I draw on not only the breadth, but the depth of my experiences and knowledge.
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all” – Aristotle
We’re just getting started
the best is yet to come
I’m a huge advocate for PLAY, with a love for AUTHENTIC learning experiences, and a huge appreciation for the raw beauty of NATURE. My parenting and teaching philosophies take on a holistic approach to educating the ‘whole child’. A holistic approach to education views children as unique and whole beings; each with varying physical, intellectual, social, emotional and spiritual qualities.
I use this platform to connect with other parents and educators whilst sharing my love for personal development and early childhood education. My personal belief is that kindness triumphs any other skill, quality or value.
“If you can be anything, be kind”
Amie is absolutely amazing to deal with and provides endlessly for her customers and her community. We also love following along all the adventures on their Instagram & Facebook accounts too.
Thankyou for always being a breath of fresh air on social media and when sourcing amazing play resources!
And the toys, gifts, art and craft pieces we ordered we're such amazing quality and all environmentally and child safe. I really love what you are doing at Growing Kind.
Thankyou for providing us with such a wonderful space to buy gifts and pieces for our children to learn, play and grow with.
As Featured In
Our Core Values
- Enhance the social and emotional wellbeing of our next generation
We share open-ended resources to help stimulate children’s creative play. We foster play-based learning practices in all our activities and encourage positive values and dispositions rather than traditional letter and number learning.
We aim to empower this generation of learners to be self-aware, kind and competent.
- Empower Parents and Educators
We acknowledge and respect that families are their child’s first teacher. We help guide, support and educate families on latest early childhood research. We share inspiring quotes and spread kindness across our social media platforms.
We aim to support other mothers and educators to create like-minded villages that empower one another. After all, we are all on this sleep-deprived, caffeine-restricted, supervised-toileting-trips journey together right? It takes a village to raise a child. Come join ours and let Growing Kind support you!
- Care for the Environment
We use recycled or reusable packaging wherever possible.
We take time to learn about prospective new brands and makers including where they source their materials, and how their products are made and by whom.
- Give Back to the Community
We make monthly donations to Babe Give Back. We have also donated prizes to charities and events including PANDA, The Big Latch On, Fire Victims Australia and Warrior Mail.
