Parenting + Child Development Support in Ohio
There is more than one way to parent. Every family has unique circumstances and faces ever-changing life demands. Each child is an individual with their own temperament, needs, and pace of development. You may find parenting each of your children calls for varying skills and approaches - this is normal and okay.
Parenting can be one of the most rewarding and challenging life changes. If you're having trouble regulating your own feelings, let alone helping your child to manage their emotions, then you might benefit from education and support in understanding child development and developing parenting skills that align with your personal values.
While coupling my training in family and child development with my experience counseling children ages 5-18, and adults, I will come alongside you as a nonjudgmental, supportive helper. There can be so much shame surrounding parenting. I'm here to help you dispel the shame and normalize the difficulties of parenting. I can equip you with education and support to empower you to show up for your kids in ways that build connection and promote health for your whole family.
Focuses in Parenting + Child Development Education
Coping Skills
As a parent, you will be faced with stressful and overstimulating moments. I will help you build your personalized coping skills kit so that you will be better able to regulate your feelings when the hard moments of parenting pop up in your daily life.
Boundaries
With a growing understanding of child development you'll gain insight to developmentally appropriate expectations for your kids. With this knowledge you'll learn to identify when and how to implement boundaries. Part of this work is learning to tolerate the discomfort of others' reactions to your boundaries.
Feel Your Feelings
When you learn to feel your feelings, you are modeling for your kids how to feel their feelings. When you feel your own feelings, you will be better able to show up for your kids as a safe harbor when they need help feeling and regulating their emotions.
Vulnerability
Parenting is a vulnerable life experience. You will learn how to show up as your authentic self, own your mistakes, and repair ruptures in your relationship with your kids. Your thoughts and actions will begin to reflect your sense of worthiness instead of shame. Your kids will have an example of healthy vulnerability.
Self-Awareness
You will be activated by your kid's feelings + behaviors. You'll learn to be a curious observer of your internal narrative and outward reactions that occur when activated. You'll learn to notice how your kid's feelings and behavior are a mirror to your own inner work to move through.
Connection
Moving through your own inner work will have ripple effects on the ways your family relates to each other. You will learn to allow yourself to be deeply seen and known by the people who are most important in your life. You will learn to cultivate love, connection, and belonging with family and friends.
Parenting + Child Development Education
While parenting can be one of the most rewarding experiences in life - it can also be one of the most challenging. It's often assumed that you'll just know what to do when you become a parent, but for many of us that's not true. It can feel isolating, discouraging, and frustrating when you don't have the education and support you need to show up for your kids and parent in a way that is aligned with your personal values.
It's common for many parents to experience shame when they don't know how to navigate the changes of becoming a parent and growing their family. Parenthood is a continuous stretch of change. As soon as you feel you've gotten the hang of one stage, your child continues moving on in their development and changes abound. Change is one thing you can count on in parenthood. Even when your children merge into adulthood, you'll continue to adjust and learn how to be the parent your adult children need. This continues even as your adult children may choose to form their own families. Your relationship with your kids will always be evolving - and while this journey is full of unknowns, it's bounding with beauty too.
In our work together, we will help you to take care of your own mental health as you pour into your family. We will help you learn to regulate your own feelings, and by doing so you will be equipped to be present with your children to help them regulate their feelings too. You will learn what is developmentally appropriate expectations for your children - and how to adjust accordingly. You will learn how to hold boundaries with your kids and how to tolerate the discomfort of their big feelings about your boundaries.
A big part of parenthood is taking care of yourself so that you can help care for your children - whatever their stage of development. It's normal for parenthood to stir up some things in your personal life. It's common for parents to experience unresolved hurts from their past coming to the surface when going through the parenting years. You may find you want to discover new-to-you ways to parent after your own experiences as a child. You may find you need to nurture and reparent your own inner child. This is hard inner work, especially when your healing coincides with trying to show up for your kids in a way that feels unfamiliar to you.
There is no such thing as a perfect parent, and there never will be. But there is hope to show up as an imperfect parent who seeks to cultivate self-awareness and growth. There is hope to approach your kids with curiosity and compassion. You can learn to practice generosity and love with healthy boundaries and developmentally appropriate support. You can learn practices to cultivate connection with your children at any stage of life.