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How to parent young children in a conscious way

Feel empowered by empowering them

Let Conscious Parenting create more joy, confidence, and calm in your home

Creating The Future

If all you ever are is a present parent, that will be enough.

A Conscious Parenting Coach is someone that has been extensively trained in child development, psychology, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence. As a Conscious Parenting Coach, my focus is the relationship, either between the parent and the child or between both parents. Because our children’s behavior is their best attempt at getting a need met, undesired behavior from the child most often points to a parent who, for some reason, isn’t able to tune in to the child’s needs.

My job as a Conscious Parenting Coach is to identify what is blocking the parent from tuning in, and guide them to resolve it so they can fully connect with their child. The theory behind Conscious Parenting is that we all have at least one child that will “trigger” us, meaning they awaken some unresolved emotional pain from our own childhoods and that, by healing those pieces of us as they arise, we can actually use the relationship with our child for personal growth.

Parenting in a conscious way is not hard. You’ll simply Empower, Understand, Calm, and Teach. Keep reading to learn more and access all of my blogs on parenting!

Step 1

Empower

Step 2

Understand

Step 3

Calm

Step 4

Teach

Step 1: Empower

The ultimate goal is raising a successful adult

Unlike old parenting paradigms that used fear to condition children and attempt to control their behavior, Conscious Parenting focuses on empowering not only the parent but the child as well. In this way, we give them the tools to function as successful, smart, well-liked, respectful adults.

 

Recommended Reading: The Authentic Wife, Quantum Love, The Untethered Soul, The Conscious Parent, The Awakened Family, What Happened To You, The Four Agreements, Eastern Body Western Mind, How Toddlers Thrive, Unconditional Parenting, The Gift of Fear, Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, Superpowered: Transform Anxiety into Courage, Confidence, and Resilience

What You Should Know About Inauthentic Shame

What is inauthentic shame and how can we get rid of it? Inauthentic shame is when another person shames you, yet you haven't done anything wrong. By WRONG I mean that you haven't done anything that hurts nature or humanity. You haven't acted out of integrity. Your...

What is a Conscious Parenting Coach?

A Conscious Parenting Coach is someone that has been extensively trained in child development, psychology, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence. As a Conscious Parenting Coach, my focus is the relationship, either between the parent and the child or between both...

Then and Now

I sat down the other night to write up a table of how I've transformed since I started on this Conscious Parenting journey.It's hard sometimes to remember where I was, what I was like, what my struggles were.It's easy from this place to forget the past, push it all...

Lessons on Trust From the Larry Nassar Case

I read a piece Glamour did, compiling parts of all of the victims' testimonies in the Larry Nassar case.  It was heartbreaking.  What struck me over and over was that of what I read, with the exception of one girl that screamed as loud as she could, the...

The Blame Game – Saber Tooth Tiger Edition

Just a little bit ago I got up in my dark office and headed toward the kitchen.  Suddenly I tripped on a package of boxes that someone must have knocked over and BEFORE MY FOOT EVEN HIT THE FLOOR, I was looking for someone to blame.That got me thinking, why do we...

Five Key Practices with Children Ages 0-6

You may know that as a parent, ages 0-6 are the most important years for you.  Like a computer programmer, you are writing your child's future operating system.  Their brain is essentially in hypnosis and everything they learn about life or themselves during this...

He’s Making a List..

Next Friday, the frenzy begins.  Holiday shopping season is officially upon us. Parents are scrambling to discern their children's wants and needs, scouring ads and collecting coupons, desperate to make sure our idea of a picture perfect Christmas comes to fruition. ...

Judge a child by its mother

I feel like almost every parenting wrong move is predicated by one thing: fear of judgement.  Whether it's from your spouse, your mom, your Facebook friends, imaginary people in the future, or just your fellow Target shoppers, every parent has some kind of voice in...

Shame, Blame, and Anger: How We Set Our Kids Up for Failure as Adults

"Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is “I am bad.” Guilt is “I did something bad.” How many of you, if you did something that was hurtful to me, would be willing to say, “I'm sorry. I made a mistake?” How many of you would be willing to say...

The BS of Belief Systems

Did you know that our kids are basically in HYPNOSIS from ages 0-6?  That's right - anything and everything you tell them and expose them to while their brain is in mostly Alpha and Theta waves will be stored in their subconscious for LIFE and become part of their...

Meal Planning for Dinner With Kids: My Short-Order Cook Experiment

How are moms supposed to feed our kids? Well, everyone tells us to do healthy meal planning for dinner with kids. They tell us to carefully organize recipes, buy fresh foods, and create a new meal every night (because we've got oh so much time between working,...

Survival Swim Lessons: Paying for Trauma

  "Survival" swim lessons can be traumatic experiences for a child and do not drown-proof them. Developmentally-appropriate alternatives include layered play-based training with a trusted caregiver involved. Children are typically only ready for this training around...

Behavior: How Not Using Stoplight Charts Can Improve It

The use of stoplight charts negatively impact the child at worst and are an ineffective tool in managing classroom behavior at best.  There are a variety of different evidence-based programs that teachers can utilize instead, and some that encourage the added component of mindfulness to take self-regulation and cognitive ability a step further.   Work with your teacher and school to help them help your child today. 

You’re a NBI (Need Behind It) Detective!

As a parent coach, I specialize in ages 0-6, those super important programming years. Everything the parent does and says while the brain is still in those Theta and Alpha brainwave cycles is SO critical because it stays with them for life! It becomes their Operating...

Five Key Practices with Children Ages 0-6

You may know that as a parent, ages 0-6 are the most important years for you.  Like a computer programmer, you are writing your child's future operating system.  Their brain is essentially in hypnosis and everything they learn about life or themselves during this...

10 Alternatives to Time Out

Drum roll please!  Presenting.... ... 10 Alternatives to time out! So we all know by now that spanking is essentially assault (don't believe me?  Try to hit anyone other than your own child!)  No judgment to anyone that has done it, but now we know that it is...

Do You Have a Sippy Cup Launcher?

My favorite approach to solid foods after 6 months is called "Baby Led Weaning".  Have you heard of it? It's a fantastic way to introduce solid food in a way that matches their developmental level.  Babies that age are putting everything in their mouths so they...

The Great Binky Debate

While parenting has been such a beautiful awakening since I read The Conscious Parent when my first child was so young, it is rare that I have nagging challenges where I feel as lost as I did around The Great Binky Debate. There was pressure from my husband to get rid...

Graded Through Childhood

From the time I was about four years old, I was homeschooled by my mother.  She had always hated school and when she put my older brother into kindergarten at a private Catholic school, her childhood experience was brought to life again when he refused to attend, even...

Step 2: Understand

What Stage of Development Is Your Child In?

While babies in the animal kingdom seem to jump up and move on after birth, human babies have complex brains that develop over the first 25 years of their life.

Unless you’re a pediatrician or psychiatrist, chances are you don’t actually know what exactly is happening in your child’s beautiful head and how this manifests in their sometimes frustrating behaviors.

Understanding child development, attachment science, nervous system science, emotional intelligence, and brain science empowers you to support your child where they are and not second-guess your own choices or behavior.

Recommended Reading:  Eastern Body Western MindThe Language of EmotionsHow Toddlers Thrive, Unconditional Parenting, The Gift of Fear, The Whole-Brain Child, The No-Cry Sleep Solution, Why We Sleep

Recommended Videos: How To Reprogram Your Mind by Bruce LiptonWhy Do We Lose Control Of Our Emotions, The Parenting 3.0 Show

 

Step 3: Calm

Harnessing the powerful influence of your body’s energy

Using knowledge of brain science, emotional intelligence, and nervous system science, we can help our children understand the wisdom of what they’re feeling and feel safe and in control of their bodies.

When you’re stressed, your brain is in high beta brainwaves. You can change these to more soothing alpha or delta brainwaves through meditation, which helps you get out of the primal part of your brain that reacts so you can choose a response instead.

Likewise, your heart moves into erratic heart rhythms under stress which depletes your energy AND causes your loved ones to match the erratic energy of your body.

Energetic coherence is a smooth, steady rhythm needed for optimal function.

Recommended Reading: The Science of HeartMath, Science of the HeartThe Language of Emotions, Mind to Matter, The Emotional Intelligence and Power of Our Hearts, The Gift of Fear, The Motherhood Evolution, Calming a Wigged Out Autonomic Nervous System Using the Vagus NerveChildren, Emotional Regulation, and Polyvagal Theory – Dr. Arielle SchwartzNeuroception: A Subconscious System for Detecting Threats and SafetyThe Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe

 

What is Authenticity?

The Authentic Choice is never about what you SHOULD do, what you've been conditioned to do, about a Book of Law rule or about past traumas. It's about following what your HEART tells you to do. It's being present to your emotions and allowing THEM to guide you moment...

Why You Can’t Cry

Maybe as part of al-anon, therapy, or another intervention, you learned about boundaries and cut people out of your life that felt toxic. There's a good chance when you did that you shut down your feelings as well, and now are wondering why you can't cry, can't love,...

Fear as the Barometer of Soul-Alignment

I had a gut feeling from the time I read the email. Something was just off. I didn't care for the tone, the lack of personal greeting, the demands. My gut said no. Then I listened to others. I knew it was what I SHOULD do. On the day of the meeting, I learned more...

5 Ways to Fit in Self-Care When You Have Little Kids

Read more about Parenting. What is self-care? Self-care means taking care of yourself to refuel, or replenish your own energy. It starts with the basics like sleep, eating, and hygiene, but we often forget that mentally, emotionally, and spiritually we need to do...

Mom, I’m Not a Crybaby

Imagine you're watching a child struggle at the playground. Tears start to fall as his big sister pushes in front of him. His mom pulls the phone away from her mouth to tell him to stop crying right now, that she's "not raising no crybaby." What she doesn't know is...

Survival Swim Lessons: Paying for Trauma

  "Survival" swim lessons can be traumatic experiences for a child and do not drown-proof them. Developmentally-appropriate alternatives include layered play-based training with a trusted caregiver involved. Children are typically only ready for this training around...

M.O.M. (Master of Meditation)

  The four year old is screaming because she wants my help and her "legs are too tired" to walk the four feet over to me.   I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at her genius of picking up the same excuse I've used with her. Meanwhile, the two year old is...

Watch Now: Mini Masterclass from Fearless Parenting: Separation Anxiety at Drop-Off

Handing over my crying baby to a person I barely knew and having to leave her to go to work was a source of major anxiety for me as a new mom.  The guilt at having to do this was unreal.  I was such a mess that I barely knew which way was up that first year. I created...

Responding to Tantrums

  My daughter was screaming, crying, sobbing.  "I want to watch Dory in the basement!" she repeated, over and over again.  My dad and his wife were in town and about to leave - as in their whole visit of a few days was over. I had just turned on Dory on the TV in...

Using Play to Teach Self-Soothing, Impulse Control, and Motor Planning and Sequencing Skills

One of the reasons why I love talking about using play with children is because it's such a BOGO.  It moves the energetic state of parent AND child, which changes the situation just by the power of the parent's energy shift.  We're so closely connected to...

Here’s The Difference Between Boundaries, Limits, Natural Consequences, and Punishments

A boundary is what we need to love ourselves. Example: respect for our body. A limit is when we stop something that’s happening before the natural consequence can occur, because it would affect their health or well-being. Example: bedtime. A natural consequence is...

How to Have a Difficult Conversation With Your Teen with Guest Parenting Coach Laura Lyles Reagan

In this episode, I quiz fellow Conscious Parenting Coach and one of my Family Alchemists, Laura Lyles Reagan, on what it takes to connect with a teenager who's shut down and doesn't want to talk, how to deal with teen attitude and disrespect, and how to connect and...

How to Level Up Your Voice Health to Connect With Confidence

In this interview with voice health expert and Speech and Language Pathologist, Brienne Hennessy, we cover all of my questions about voice health, like: Where do speech issues come from? What causes mumbling? What happens if kids' voices aren't respected, heard in the...

What You Should Know About Inauthentic Shame

What is inauthentic shame and how can we get rid of it? Inauthentic shame is when another person shames you, yet you haven't done anything wrong. By WRONG I mean that you haven't done anything that hurts nature or humanity. You haven't acted out of integrity. Your...

Embracing Your Feminine Energy is Not Submitting to a Gender Role

Picture it: Sicily Frigid Ohio, five years ago. The bottom of my stainless steel sink is buried under a layer of baby bottles that must be washed tonight or her 3 AM wakeup is not going to go well. Tears stream down her face as soon as I walk away to do anything. The...

Angry? Where Are Your Boundaries?

If you’re an empath, having kids revealed any way you gave too much of yourself to the more narcissistic partner. Whatever imbalance existed--in meeting their needs over meeting your own--will be revealed because your kids don’t have an alternative; they depend on you...

The New Food Rules for Kids

Do you have anxiety around your child's eating habits?   It's really no wonder: from the second they arrive, what and when they eat begins to take up almost all of our mental space.  I remember being shocked when, while in the hospital after having my first and...

Five Key Practices with Children Ages 0-6

You may know that as a parent, ages 0-6 are the most important years for you.  Like a computer programmer, you are writing your child's future operating system.  Their brain is essentially in hypnosis and everything they learn about life or themselves during this...

10 Alternatives to Time Out

Drum roll please!  Presenting.... ... 10 Alternatives to time out! So we all know by now that spanking is essentially assault (don't believe me?  Try to hit anyone other than your own child!)  No judgment to anyone that has done it, but now we know that it is...

When One Parent is Behaving Badly

 I have seen this question from parents countless times:  My spouse is not a peaceful parent, what do I do?? I'm going to generalize here, as I know this is not always the case, but typically out of a child's parents, one (typically male), is unlikely to want to learn...

Step 4: Teach

Boundaries, communication, and values

Teaching children isn’t hard or even a mystery. Why? Because all we have to do to teach children is be the people we want them to be.

It really is that simple!

When we’re not caught up in fight or flight and dysregulated nervous systems, we can easily empower our children and model for them the way we hope they’ll grow up to “be” in the world.

Recommended Reading:  The Art of EmpathyNever Split The DifferenceBoundaries*, Nonviolent CommunicationHow to Talk So Little Kids Will Listen, How To Win Friends & Influence People, Methods of Persuasion, Playful Parenting, Unconditional Parenting, Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids, The Positive Parenting Framework

*This book condones spanking. I don’t! There are great lessons in it outside of the parenting sections

Here’s What I Know To Be True

About Parenting & Parent Coaching

Parents have the power to give the world a hero or a villain. It depends which one they are in their own home. And historically, every hero has a guide.

Being a parenting coach is about helping a parent re-parent themselves even more than it's about raising the child. Once the self is raised, relationships come into balance and harmony.

We aren't born knowing how to parent when we live in a world divided, at war, in poor health. The model will be reflected back to us in our external world. If you aren't happy with it, your power is in learning a new way to parent.

Parent coaches must remind their followers often that the problem is childhood conditioning, which can be fixed. The problem is not the parent.

Re-programming your brain from its childhood conditioning doesn't mean you'll always get it right from now on. It means that you have the right foundation from which to work.

There's no outside influence more dangerous in a child's life than having a parent too busy to be PRESENT with them

Whatever you think you're protecting your child from is only an old wound you haven't faced yet

I believe a return to firmness in parenting is coming, but from a place of not letting a child experience people, places, or situations that don't align with their worth.

Even if you think you are a detached, conscious parent, if you still struggle with anger then at some point you have bypassed the imperative need to take care of yourself first.

In five years, I believe almost everyone will have a coach or mentor just like they have a smartphone they carry everywhere. Soon everyone will want a guide on tap who knows them and can help them get where they want to go.

We're no good to anyone else unless we take care of ourselves first.

We allow others to grow when we ask them for help

But I Turned Out Fine?

Understanding the importance of empowered parenting

So often we think that because we aren’t in jail or hurting others, our childhood didn’t affect us. We “turned out fine”, or at least that’s what we tell ourselves.

The truth of the matter is that most of us living with parents who were raised with the authoritarian parenting paradigm experienced something called Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

According to the CDC, “ACEs can have lasting, negative effects on health, well-being, as well as life opportunities such as education and job potential. These experiences can increase the risks of injury, sexually transmitted infections, maternal and child health problems (including teen pregnancy, pregnancy complications, and fetal death), involvement in sex trafficking, and a wide range of chronic diseases and leading causes of death such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and suicide.

ACEs and associated social determinants of health, such as living in under-resourced or racially segregated neighborhoods, frequently moving, and experiencing food insecurity, can cause toxic stress (extended or prolonged stress). Toxic stress from ACEs can change brain development and affect such things as attention, decision-making, learning, and response to stress.

Children growing up with toxic stress may have difficulty forming healthy and stable relationships. They may also have unstable work histories as adults and struggle with finances, jobs, and depression throughout life. These effects can also be passed on to their own children. Some children may face further exposure to toxic stress from historical and ongoing traumas due to systemic racism or the impacts of poverty resulting from limited educational and economic opportunities.”

We may feel “fine” but may have no awareness of healthy boundaries, be unable to feel and trust our emotions, be unable to regulate our nervous system and stay calm during arguments, and have a lack of empathy for ourselves and others. We may work ourselves to death and appear successful, but always feel like something’s missing in our lives. 

The good news is that our children don’t have to recover from their childhood. We can change things starting today.

 

 

Resources & Offerings

So You Can Be the Mom You Needed

Free Download: Quick Reference Child Development Guide

This Quick Reference Guide Contains Child Development Sections On Brain, Sleep, Travel, Nutrition, Play, Abilities, Physical, and Safety for Children Ages 0-18

Free Download: Stop Sibling Hitting

A 6 Step Guide To Help Moms Stop Hitting, Kicking, Biting, and More Without Dividing Your Kids or Creating Resentment

Course + Coaching Package: Ultimate Parent Success

This 12-week program gives you access to an online course created by the Jai Institute for Parenting plus private coaching from me to support you in your newly empowered parenting journey.

Online Class: Getting The Love You Deserve

Understand how to set and hold boundaries and limits with your husband and your children. This online course is for women whose boundaries weren’t respected in their family of origin. Help your family to love themselves without feeling guilt for loving yourself.

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