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And finally, I became a teacher, with degrees in Educational Psychology, Special Education, Elementary Education, and School administration. I taught all ages from preschool through high school, general and special education. I mentored teachers, coached them, and trained them.
Then I adopted my children. And I figured parenting would be a piece of cake, I had worked with hundreds of kids, in classes as large as 58 first graders (that's New York City, for you). I knew kids, what makes them tick, and how to work with them--how hard could this be? And then I met my daughters. One of them was afraid of everything. One example was when she watched a Curious George episode where George gets stuck in an elevator. That was the end of her ever using elevators. The other one proved everything I knew about kids to be wrong. The standard rewards had no effect on her, she loved disappearing in crowded places, and she showed no fear of anything. She had tantrums like I had never seen before and a spirit that was both wonderful and exasperating. My standard bag of tricks was clearly not going to work with her. School was not a good match for either of our daughters as we found out that one had a reading disability that was not being addressed, and the other had a severe auditory processing disorder, as well as severe executive management dysfunction, which we had been interpreting as stubbornness. Oops. Okay, really big oops. My partner and I agreed that we should take the kids out of school and I began to homeschool them, both in order to meet their learning needs, and to build up their self-confidence. As I began to work with them all day, everyday, I got the gift of seeing the full range of their emotions, the good, the bad, and the really unexpected. I know I sound sarcastic here, but it really was a gift--it was the gift of seeing how their needs and their feelings were behind all of the big emotions and behaviors. I found that through gentleness, acceptance, and empathy, not rewards and consequences, I was able to connect with each of my daughters in a deeper, more individual way. This in turn built up their confidence and allowed them to be the free spirits they each are. Soon after this, I became a certified parenting coach through the Jai Institute of Parenting. I found that they had the tools that would have spared me a lot of trial and error, and I knew that I wanted to help other families find the shortcuts to this deep and loving connection with their children. |
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Connect more. Play more. Love more.
Make the connection to your child and to the way you want to parent. Contact me for a free exploration session. You and I will explore where you are with parenting and where you might like to go. Absolutely NO obligation. Just a chance for you to talk and find out what is possible for your family. Click here to schedule your exploration session. |
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