Solving the Puzzle of Parenting
A 7 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.
It all starts with a behavior. Or three.
Maybe it’s biting. Maybe it’s tantrums. Maybe it’s bedtime delay tactics. It could be a complete disregard for the urgency with which you need to get out the door in the morning. Or it could be sibling rivalry. Perhaps “sibling rivalry” doesn’t even begin to explain the kind of war that is happening in your house. Maybe it’s a constant need to be with one parent and only one parent and a total rejection/refusal to let the other parent do anything, at all, ever. Maybe it’s all of the above. Your child’s behavior is exhausting, irritating, and seemingly unchanging.
You’re no slacker.
You’ve read all the books, listened to the podcasts, followed the influencers on Instagram (or gotten the highlights from your parenting partner) and you’ve really tried to do what they say. But instead of walking away feeling like you’ve got this parenting thing down, you are still:
running low on patience
yelling more than you’d like to
feeling annoyed by your child, and then frustrated by your annoyance
constantly questioning your parenting decisions
looking for new books/blogs to read
Googling solutions at 3am
trying new strategies because someone suggested they might work
abandoning those strategies because they didn’t work
worrying, worrying, and worrying some more that you are doing something wrong, that the things you’re doing now are setting your child up for a life of anxiety, depression, loneliness, 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 also know in a couple months, there will be new ones. Because that’s how children work. Will you be up at 3am again doing more Googling, buying every book you can for that new issue? Or will you be calmly observing your child’s new behaviors and creating your own plan based on what you know has worked for your family?
You cannot change your child’s behavior without changing yourself.
You can be more confident about the way you parent
With frameworks for making sense of your child’s right now behavior and for understanding your own behaviors, 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, as you each develop a better sense of your own feelings.
Your confidence in your own skills as a parent will start to grow as you watch the ways that these small positive changes have huge impacts. And your increased confidence will mean you can handle a little discomfort and a lot of not knowing, all because you’ll be sure that discomfort or that not knowing doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong.
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! Before I became a parent I had participated in many courses on parenting topics and had led or facilitated dozens of parent workshops. I had done a lot of child development training, a lot of therapy training, and SO MUCH reflection. And then my kids came along and they tested every bit of knowledge I thought I had.
I know that a “parenting strategy” is only valuable when it works for parent and child, and no book or parenting expert is going to be able to tell you what’s right for you and your family. Instead, what you need is a way to understand your child and yourself better so you can stop searching and trust that you will be able to figure out today’s behavior crisis. And tomorrow’s.
I’ll show you how to understand your child and understand yourself so you can change your parenting game.
We’ll start with a dive into understanding the behaviors and developmental needs of your child and then move onto understanding you (the parents) and your behaviors and needs. In each of these modules, you’ll get some concrete information as well as a lot of questions for your own reflection. We’ll then put together what you’ve learned so far to develop strategies unique to your family, practicing the whole process along the way, and exploring what happens when things don’t go as planned. Finally, we’ll look to what you’ve heard and what you’ve tried already — what’s worked and what hasn’t, and use our process to understand why (or why not).
Here are a few more specifics on each module:
Module 1: Understanding Your Child
Don’t worry: you won’t be listening to long lectures on child development. I will give you some information on brains in young children and some basics behind a couple different theories of how children grow and change in the first five years, but I have found those details aren’t as important as having an idea of how to observe children, what to notice, and what kinds of questions to ask yourself as you see certain behaviors. For young children without as refined a language-cognition connection, there is great value in being able to observe your child and think through some possibilities for what might be happening, and this practice will continue to serve you even as your child graduates to elementary school and on. An example of the type of question we’ll use is: is this a behavior that you see in other children the same age? If it is, that gives us a clue that this is something developmental your child is learning. If it isn’t, it gives us a clue we need to look elsewhere to understand the behavior.
Module 2: Understanding Yourself AKA Did I Even Care About The Stupid Shirts?!
In this module, we’ll explore what having our children brings up for us, whether that’s something about what it feels like to be an adult or something we’re reminded of from our own childhood. You won’t be “on the couch” exploring your relationship with your mother, but you will be noticing what feelings come up for you and when as you connect with your child. This module is critical because the relationship you have with your child is transactional - in other words, 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. For those parenting pairs in the group, we’ll also think about how you each influence each other and how that impacts your relationships with your child.
Module 3: But What Do I Do?
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 can give ourselves some leeway around the mistakes we make, the frustrations we have, and the moments when we completely lose our cool. We’ll talk about why that’s happening (again, based on what the understandings we’ve gained from modules 1 and 2) and what kinds of opportunities there may be to make amends. Our goal is not to completely eliminate mistakes, or rid your house of yelling, or do away with child (or adult) tantrums. As amazing as that all sounds, I don’t believe it’s real. Instead, we’ll practice prevention (as much as possible), fixes for these things when they do happen, and patience with ourselves throughout.
Module 4: Behind the Parenting Expert Scenes
This module comes not from all my formal training, but instead from the much more rigorous training called firsthand experience. One of the lessons I’ve learned through becoming a parent myself is that understanding the why of behavior helps to understand the why of strategies, but “experts” often explain their why as if it’s the same for everyone, and that makes it hard to know how to best adjust them to fit your family, and leaves parents feeling like they’ve tried and failed. Sure, consistency helps children feel safe, and for many kids that can look like a routine, but if you’re a parent who is stressed out by routines, guess what? When you impose a routine, you’re going to be less consistent. So we’ll pick apart the suggestions you want to understand better, whether they’re ones that have worked for you, or not. After all, the strategies you invent will be more meaningful than the ones you’ve read in a book, because they make sense to you and you will actually use them.
A few logistics…
I believe strongly in the value that can come from meeting in community with other parents. (You can hear me say something is common 100 times, but it means a lot more coming from another parent who is right there with you.) And I appreciate that each family will have unique questions and needs. In order to create the highest value for you and your family, we’ll do both! During this program you’ll get:
1 individual video call (me and you - whether that is one single parent or parenting partners) the first week so we can together assess your specific needs and I can help you plan how to make the best use of your time in the group.
6 one-hour group meetings online (once a week for 6 weeks).
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), the other group members, and me.
Coming Fall 2021!
The cost for the 7-week program including 1 individual session, 6 group calls, and email contact between sessions is $1200.
Dates for the Fall 2021 program are coming soon. Click below to be added to the email list so you’ll get all the information delivered directly to you!
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 self-reflection 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 are a family with two parents parenting together
you are 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 and your parenting partner are actively separating or going through a divorce
you have a newborn (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 learn the process we’ll work through in this program, the tantrums will be both less intense and less bothersome to you. But they’ll still happen, and we’ll talk about why.
What’s your philosophy on time outs?
Rarely is there one right answer when it comes to parenting. Throughout the program I will certainly 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?
If your family includes two parents, I strongly encourage both parents to participate. This work is most effective when both parents are committed to doing their own reflection and participating themselves.
What’s the time commitment for this program?
There are 7 hours of live interaction (1 individual call and 6 group calls). It is up to you to decide how much of your time beyond that you’re interested in investing. I will provide some opportunities for reflection or reading outside of the group calls, but this isn’t school and none of the “homework” is graded or even seen by me.
What if I need to miss one of the calls?
While I encourage you to block out the time to attend the group calls, I know things come up unexpectedly, and you’ll have access to recordings of the group calls while participating in the program. Still, there is something extra participants get out of being present that does not translate to recording, and the decision not to join a call may be an important one to examine yourself.
What’s the refund policy?
There are no refunds after the sessions have begun. Here’s why: 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), and if it’s feeling hard to do that, that’s also worth discussing because it’s probably part of how you’re parenting as well. Similarly, it’s important to our group to know that we’ve all made the same commitment. The no refund policy also allows me to ensure a small group and more direct attention for each participant.
Details on specific dates are coming soon! Get yourself on the list.
Have questions that weren’t answered here? I’d love to hear from you! Send me an email.