My Philosophy

My goal is to help families find a greater sense of calm and confidence, and embrace more moments of joy as they continue doing the hard work of raising their ever-changing kids.
Parenting is never easy, but I believe that together, we can find more ease.

Positive Parenting

My coaching work is deeply rooted in the work of Positive Discipline; an approach that acknowledges that our kids’ behavior is telling us something; our job is to listen. Positive Discipline is a curriculum developed for parents and teachers by Jane Nelson and Lynn Lott and is based on the work of Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikurs. The heart of this work is that human behavior is always based on our beliefs about our own belonging and significance (i.e. Do we feel connected? Do we feel important?)

By using what we know about the brain science, child development and our most powerful parenting tool, our relationship with our children, we can respond to our children’s behavior in a way that’s more helpful and that builds the skills we want to see showing up in our families.

We can’t change our kids. We can only change ourselves.

I don’t have any “quick fixes” or magical strategies that will “make” your children do what you want. That being said, I do believe that this work can be magical.

I define "good parenting" as interactions that feel good to you, feel good to your kiddo(s) and that are effective and build skills for the long-term. There are a million different ways that this can look. My goal is to help you define what this looks like for your family.

Kind & Firm… at the same time

My teaching and coaching is based on the belief respect is a two-way street within a family (and in life). We give respect to our kids (by being kind, loving and connected), and we give respect to ourselves (by being firm in our boundaries, having clear expectations and follow through, and by teaching and modeling skills that will help our kids be successful). When we focus on kindness and firmness at the same time, we are deeply loving and connected to our kids while also having a family structure that allows our kids to take responsibility, be a part of finding solutions to mistakes and encourages them as they build life skills. This is the heart of authoritative parenting.