Parenting: Finding Our Centers
"Stress can push children along the behavioral spectrum. When you simplify a child's life on a number of levels, back they come." -Kim John Payne
So many of our children's issues and problems (tantrums, argumentativeness, agitation, attention problems, nervousness, social withdrawal, oppositionality, disorganization, food pickiness) can be softened or even resolved by centering and grounding our parenting. The culture in which we are raising our children these days is filled with exciting opportunities and activities, but trying to juggle it all is truly dizzying. Parenting and family life often feels closer to a pinball game than a clear sailing journey. I am interested in helping parents respond to these pressures with confidence, clarity, and intention, rather than worry, apology, and strain. I work with parents to help them identify their own values and hopes for their children and family, and examine how much their day-to-day parenting reflects those intentions, whatever those may be.
I am a certified Simplicity Parenting* leader. Working step by step, with support to identify and follow through on clear goals, we can accomplish amazing transformations in our homes, and in our children.
Simplify your environment: Reduce the amount of toys, books and clothes
"As you decrease the quantity of your child's toys and clutter, you increase their attention and their capacity
for deep play."
Rhythm: Bringing more rhythm and predictability into your family's week
"Rhythm builds islands of consistency and security throughout the day."
Balance: Create equilibrium in a child's life between down time, creative time, and busy time.
"Behavioral tendencies can be soothed or relaxed by creating calm."
Decision Making: Guiding parents to examine the pressures to allow children to make too many decisions too young
Filtering Out: Ensuring that what we expose to our children is true, kind, and necessary for their developmental stage
"The more you say, the less you are listening."
Media management: Finding ways to reduce screen time, to allow for quality time
"'Media saturation' characterizes our era, but it need not flood our kids' childhoods."
*From Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids
....Kim John Payne
I am a certified Simplicity Parenting* leader. Working step by step, with support to identify and follow through on clear goals, we can accomplish amazing transformations in our homes, and in our children.
Simplify your environment: Reduce the amount of toys, books and clothes
"As you decrease the quantity of your child's toys and clutter, you increase their attention and their capacity
for deep play."
Rhythm: Bringing more rhythm and predictability into your family's week
"Rhythm builds islands of consistency and security throughout the day."
Balance: Create equilibrium in a child's life between down time, creative time, and busy time.
"Behavioral tendencies can be soothed or relaxed by creating calm."
Decision Making: Guiding parents to examine the pressures to allow children to make too many decisions too young
Filtering Out: Ensuring that what we expose to our children is true, kind, and necessary for their developmental stage
"The more you say, the less you are listening."
Media management: Finding ways to reduce screen time, to allow for quality time
"'Media saturation' characterizes our era, but it need not flood our kids' childhoods."
*From Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids
....Kim John Payne
If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
A child of five could understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.”
― Groucho Marx
