parent beyond coercion

… and it is difficult or confusing to actually do this. Especially if a child your behavior was often controlled with rewards and punishments and that is often what you see other parents doing.

• If you are dreaming of having children of your own…

  • You may fear harming them — What if I make the same mistakes as my parents?  What if I over-correct and do too much of the opposite?

  • You may also feel confused — How will I know what to do or who to trust for guidance?

• If you already have children

  • You may still hold these fears and confusion and you may also feel overwhelmed and brittle from not knowing what to do with your own big feelings when you are with your children. 

  • You may also feel guilt for the times when you fell back on coercive parenting strategies.

Parenting advice often starts with the caveat, “make sure you’re grounded” before going on to give you a set of steps to take.  But what if you don’t really know how to “ground”? 

This advice makes our own emotional regulation sound simple.  Yet some of us never learned how to do that ourselves, and now we’re supposed to regulate for ourselves and our children.  When our children are angry, disappointed or inconsolable, we might be flooded with their feelings, roiling in anger ourselves having never learned healthy ways of expressing it.  And the advice is to ground ourselves.  It’s like telling someone who’s drowning and never learned how to swim that they just need to breathe.  

I can help you learn how to regulate your own emotions so you have plenty of capacity to support your child and stay in relationship with them, even in the hard moments.  

• Understand your own emotions (maybe for the first time ever) and how you can regulate and express them

• Feel confident in your ability to be a respectful parent without burning yourself out or sacrificing your other relationships

• Appreciate your child’s expression of emotion as beautiful and healthy (even those big feelings).