The Puzzle of Parenting
A 5 week confidence-building program for parents of toddlers and preschool-aged children
You’re a high-achieving, successful adult, but somehow, your small child knows how to make you feel like a total failure.
Your child's behaviors are exhausting.
Maybe it’s biting or tantrums. Maybe it’s bedtime delay tactics or refusing to get out the door. Perhaps “sibling rivalry” doesn’t even begin to explain the kind of war that is happening in your house. Or maybe a need to be by your side ALL THE TIME. Your child’s behavior is irritating and unrelenting. And worse, you're completely drained by it.
You’re no slacker.
You’re used to getting things right, mostly. But this parenting thing has thrown you for a loop. You’ve read all the books (or at least bought them), listened to the podcasts, followed the influencers on Instagram (or gotten the highlights) and you’ve really tried to do what they say. Still, instead of walking away feeling like you’ve got this parenting thing down, you are:
running low on patience
yelling more than you’d like to, and feeling bad about it
feeling annoyed by your child, and then frustrated by your annoyance
Googling solutions at 3am
trying then abandoning new strategies that didn’t work
constantly questioning how your parenting decisions might set your child up for a life of anxiety, depression, loneliness, or unrealistic expectations
trying to reassure your parenting partner (and yourself) that it can’t really be that bad, can it?
You’re ready for a change
You want to know what to do to change these stressful behaviors right now. And you know in a couple months, there will be new and different ones. Because that’s how children work.
Instead of the 3am Googling, you can be calmly observing your child’s new behaviors and creating your own plan based on what you know has worked for you already.
Instead of resorting automatically to either recreating or rejecting the ways you were parented, you can consciously choose to break multi-generational cycles, and feel confident you are responding effectively to your children’s behaviors,
Your child's behavior will change when you know how to change yourself.
You can transform your parenting patterns.
Once you understand your child’s needs, as well as your own, you will see changes in how you parent. You’ll notice your relationship with your child (or children) feels better. Your relationship with your partner will feel better, too.
Imagine feeling relaxed and reassured as you watch the ways that these small positive changes have huge impacts. Your increased confidence will mean you can handle a little discomfort and a lot of not knowing. These are healthy patterns you’ll be happy to see carry on in your children.
Hi, I’m Sarah
I have over a decade of experience working as a therapist and consultant with children aged 0-5 and their parents and caregivers. And I have children of my own -twins!
When my kids came along they tested every bit of knowledge I thought I had. They didn’t always seem to do what the books said they were “supposed” to do. And they found loopholes in every “strategy” I tried to employ.
I had to take a step back and reassess what I thought I knew, about my kids, about parenting in general, and most importantly, about myself.
I know that a “parenting strategy” is only valuable when it works, and no book or parenting expert is going to be able to tell you what’s right for you and your family. Believe me, I’ve read a lot of them.
What you need is a way to understand your child and yourself better so you can stop Googling and trust that you will be able to figure out today’s behavior crisis. And tomorrow’s. All while you're raising confident and empathetic children.
I’ll show you how to become a more confident parent.
Together, we’ll practice the process of observing behaviors and emotions in your children and in yourself, we’ll develop strategies unique to your family, and we’ll explore what happens when things don’t go as planned. You will walk away with a clearer sense of what you can expect from your child and just how much you can handle.
Here are a few more specifics on each module:
1: Reflection and Understanding Yourself
Why focus so much of our time on you when this course is about your children? Because children exist within relationships. It’s how they learn, it’s how they live. When your child does something, you react, your child reacts to that, and the cycle continues. Your child’s behavior doesn’t exist separately from you, and your understanding of that behavior doesn’t exist separately from you. For parenting pairs, we’ll also think about how you each influence each other and how that impacts your relationships with your child.
2: Observation and Understanding Your Child
A crucial step for parents is learning how to observe their young children, what to notice, how to notice, and what kinds of questions to ask about their behaviors. As parents, we are not objective observers, so (with insights from module 1) you’ll practice observing yourselves while you observe your child. Throw in a little child development info, and you’ll be well on your way to knowing what that tantrum is all about.
3: Responding and Putting the Pieces Together
Module 3 is all about what you can try! You’ll take some standard parenting strategies and personalize them based on the information you’ve learned about yourself and your child in the first half of the program. This module is also about coming to terms with being imperfect parents, the ways we must give ourselves some leeway around the mistakes we make, the frustrations we have, and the moments when we completely lose our cool. Because, let’s be real, that will happen sometimes.
A few logistics…
During this program you’ll get:
5 individual video calls (me and you - whether “you” is one single parent or parenting partners)
resources and “homework” (not required), like reflective questions and exercises to try throughout the week
access to me by email to check in around what kinds of questions might be coming up for you through the program
To participate, you’ll need to bring an open mind, all your questions, and a willingness to be honest with yourself (and your parenting partner, if applicable) and me.
The cost for the 5 week program including 5 individual calls and email contact between sessions is $1350.
Click below to complete a brief interest form (or application). Once you’ve submitted your answers, we will be in touch with information on how to complete your purchase of the program.
Is this the right program for me?
Yes! This is for you if…
you want to understand yourself and your child/children better and you’re willing to do some work to get there
you and your parenting partner are in slight disagreement about your approaches to your child’s/children’s behavior
you have more than one child in toddler/preschool age range
you have a toddler/preschooler who is having a strong reaction to a brand new baby sibling
you are a family with two parents parenting together
you are a single or only parent
No, you’re not a good fit if…
you’re positive you’re doing everything right as a parent and you never make mistakes
you know you’re fine, the problem is only with your child
you are looking for a diagnosis for your child
you and your parenting partner are actively separating or going through a divorce
you want to work on things related to your newborn baby only (now may not be the right time for this program, but I’d be happy to chat with you and think about other resources)
FAQ
Will you be able to stop my kid from having tantrums?
Nope. My sincere hope is that as you work through this program, the tantrums will be both less intense and less bothersome to you. But they’ll still happen, and we can talk about why.
What’s your philosophy on time outs?
Rarely is there one right answer when it comes to parenting. If you're interested, I am happy to share different perspectives on topics like time outs (or other punishments) and sticker charts (or other behavioral incentives/rewards), but I find it is more important to understand the parents’ drive behind wanting to use one strategy over another and to understand each individual child’s response. The way a time out or sticker chart is used can vary significantly between families, as will the parent and child needs for a particular tool.
Do both parents have to participate?
It is not required for both parents to participate. If your family includes two parents, there are advantages to having both parents join together, but I get that finding time away from children is difficult to coordinate, and I know that often one parent is more inclined towards this kind of reflective work than the other. If you have specific questions about joining together or individually, send me an email.
What’s the time commitment for this program?
There are 5 hours of live interaction included in the cost of the program. It is up to you to decide how much of your time you're investing. I will provide some opportunities for reflection or reading outside of our calls, but this isn’t school and none of the “homework” is graded or necessarily seen by me.
What if I need to reschedule one of the calls?
Together we will determine a regular and consistent time for the 5 weeks we meet. Still, I know things come up unexpectedly, and you’ll have the option to reschedule up to 2 calls. If you're finding it difficult to schedule and commit to these 5 hours, the challenge of reserving this time for yourself is an important one to examine.
What’s the refund policy?
There are no refunds after the sessions have begun. This policy allows me to ensure focused attention on you throughout your time in the program. But the more important reason is you: to make a change for your family, you’re going to have to commit to the work of examining yourself, and by signing up for this program, you are making a commitment to doing this work. You will only observe changes if you show up (here and at home). If it’s feeling hard to show up, that’s worth discussing because it’s likely part of how you’re parenting, too.
Are you ready to find more joy and less struggle in parenting? Ready to feel confident being imperfect?
Have questions that weren’t answered here? I’d love to hear from you! Send me an email.