Raising Parents Inc

Far from it (with kids who will gleefully agree), I know that there is simply no such thing as ‘perfect’ parenting, and the quest for it is a mug’s game.

That is: the idea of Perfect Parenting is a con, tantalizing parents with the ideal of ‘what they could reach if only they did this simple system perfectly enough,’ without being at all human, or heavens forfend, having actual human children, not robots.

The problem with a lot of the language around parenting is the idea that parents are either perfect or failing, and there is nothing in between: they’re either the Super Daddies seen in romantic comedies, or they’re ScaryMommy, some version of a screeching banshee.

Children change. Adults learn things. Perspectives shift. Awareness (hopefully) grows. As mis-steps are taken seriously, and new steps are taken in new directions, with diligence and support and love and care and respect, parents can move toward understanding and really connecting with their kids… and from that, a partnership in the child’s success can develop.

Is that perfect? Or is it maybe just a great idea for what to aspire to, however many ‘oops, probably shouldn’t have done that’ mistakes are made with every child involved. Love is forgiving, especially a child’s love.

I like to help parents not push the envelope of that forgiveness too much.

Yes! Planning is when parents have lots more time (than they will later) to learn the skills and understanding they will need to parent the way they want to.

Many parents with experience in self-help or therapy, or problematic childhoods, are aware of the tendency to pass down generational trauma –and even just generational ‘not super great parenting.’ This provokes them to seek ways to plan ahead, to break the chain. As often as not, parents seek out ThriveParent coaching because of a vow they made when they were 6 or 8 or 12 to ‘never do that to any child of mine’ –but with no real idea of what to do instead, or how to go about making such a huge shift in life. I help with that.

I can help parents start on a footing that begins with a deep trust in the goodness of their child, and a deep respect for the child’s basic humanity. I offer skills and approaches that are more effective at helping kids behave as well as possible in the real world of people (other than their parents, who naturally think they’re perfect.)

I help parents learn how to handle their inner critics to avoid passing that on to their kids.

I help parents develop high-level communication and negotiation skills, so they can influence when it is possible, connect always, and make it possible for all of their family to get their needs met even when their needs are in direct conflict with others’.

Many life coaches, business coaches, spiritual coaches, et cetera, will recognize in their third or fifth or 12th year of practice that many clients have the same struggles, the same questions, the same negative thought patterns, or goals… so they can readily put together a program that addresses what they see all the time.

Parent coaching is different: parents might have some of the same issues (sleep, misbehaviour, back talk / sass, toddler or teen power struggles, or the hormone storms of the tweens or the adolescent age, for example), but their personal goals, situations, age ranges, or histories are so unique to their own families that they need something far more responsive to reality now.

With the three levels of packages available, and bespoke pricing for people who want something even more personalized --shorter or longer than the 12 week packages-- there is something to meet every family's needs. Confidential, personal, and driven by each parent's unique values and goals...

Most definitely.

When it comes to the unique relationship between parents and children, there isn’t really an age when the weight of a parent’s disappointment feels light, or the struggle to gain approval feels trivial.

Improving the quality and connection in a relationship feels life-altering at any age. I prefer to set kids and parents on the easy path (hard work, easy life; easy work, hard life) early for the success of the whole family, but there is no age when I say ‘ah, too late, it’s mucked up forever now’ and walk away.

If you want to work on your relationship with your kids or parents, I can help.

I  have a strong preference for working with all the parents involved in a family –step-, foster, poly, grandparents-in-parenting-roles, exes-without-their-own-children, even babysitters and caregivers… because it’s easier on the child to have at least similar communication styles and developmental expectations throughout the homes they will find themselves in, and it is helpful for all carers of a child to understand how this child’s current development or perspective is colouring the impact they have on that child.

I also have big goals for helping dads engage and lead in parenting, through better information and understanding of child development –aspects of human life that men don’t get involved in much as younger men, which builds major regrets for their later lives. I prefer to help people avoid predictable and optional suffering.

Statistically, though, I do work primarily with women. Perhaps it is more often women who seek change for their children, or possibly that women are most profoundly changed through the process of having (even adopting) children, so what they agreed on pre-pregnancy (or pre-adoption) no longer makes sense to her after the arrival of this real small person. 

Certainly.

Raising Parents has a long history of supporting parents in all situations, from ‘always been single’ to families in the process of becoming two (or more) households.

Single parenting is a significant challenge in our fragmented society, and both isolation and burnout are constant concerns that single parents face, regardless of their reason for their solitude in this work. Whether a single parent has a Mama Mia history or is newly alone, a ThriveParent coach can help find ways of seeking real help and for setting up a household that works with only one adult.

Of course.

Children need respectful and loving care from the adults in their world, whether there is only one (see above) or there are 3 or 9 or 20 or whatever.

I have experience helping multiple parents discover the common goals they share, and the reality of their children in the stages they are presently in, to support families of all kinds to thrive.

Foster care is some of the hardest and most important parenting a child set adrift from her natural family will ever encounter. Whether handling the sadness of children leaving, to holding space open to connect with another child who is surely to go on their way at some point soon, foster parenting has distinct and specific needs quite different from parents who don’t expect to outlive their children and who expect to have them remain close in their adult lives.

Helping foster parents understand both the developmental levels, adjusted ages, and arrested growth of children who lose their most-recent primary carers or natural family is important work, to enable these vulnerable children to see a future with a sense of internal security.

Absolutely, and for many of the same reasons as I cherish my work with foster care families: the impact of the primary loss of a child’s natural family in a pre-verbal stage of infancy is impossible to overstate, and the gentle, respectful understanding of it is essential for deep, connected relationships to blossom.

When parents take the advice to minimize the loss with stories of ‘being chosen’ (however true that might be) or ‘exactly what we wanted’ or anything else, it minimizes something that happened first and has lasting effects when not addressed directly. It is helpful for parents to understand how naturally taboos form around ideas that parents and other adults simply never mention, for fear of causing pain… especially when they pain is already present and mentioning it just gives kids words to understand it and heal from it.

Helping parents handle these painful, sensitive, and sometimes shameful issues is work I treasure.

Life is like a dance… every step you take that is in a different style requires and provokes changes in every relationship in your life.

Stop smoking, you find different friends who never spend time in the smoking area… start hiking and you’ll find people on the trail who know more and less than you. Whatever you learn will alter your life, and the lives of the people around you. That is the way of the world.

Of course, it is always best if all the parents can get the same information at the same time, because our minds are tricky and inclined to edit out things we already knew or think everyone knows, and supply shading and contour that wasn’t in the original message, especially when there is a difference of opinion over something so important as the future of our children.

The tendency to retell what fits our historical arguments and erase what supports the arguments against our position is fundamental to human minds, and it’s easiest to avoid when everyone has the same coaching.

That said, when the other parent is unwilling or unable to join in, coaching one (or some) of the parents can still make a world of difference to a family.

With pleasure.

Another area where the research of the past half-century has not trickled down to is education and early-childhood education. While BF Skinner was discredited within a decade of proving it’s possible to make a dog salivate to a bell (and a college student to pay more attention for chocolate, and the abusive ABA treatment of kids diagnosed with autism), the stickers and stars (and traffic light cards, and candy bribes, and always new permutations of more of the same) remain ‘great ideas’ that are supposed to work wonders in classrooms and care settings. That they don’t –or that they very often don’t even appear to—seems to have provoked very little criticism of the methods within the education, at least not to penetrate the practices of the recently-graduated or decades-long experienced.

Raising Parents is eager to share why the carrot-and-stick never worked well with any carer or educator who seeks more effective methods of connecting with, educating, and directing the children in their care.

Additionally, we like to provide this support with sensitivity to the reality of loss. Not often mentioned in childcare / education circles, it’s important to hold space for the grief of kids ‘lost’ over the years, to be able to hold open any space at all to connect to the new ones coming.

This can be challenging, confronting, and hard work, but it is essential to remain available for kids to connect with and find meaningful relationships with carers.

Primarily online, since 2002. I meet parents where they are, and as they are. I offer support for parents who are just starting out, who have teenagers, toddlers, adults, in whatever family situation they live. 

As I have clients around the world, from Vancouver, Canada, to Mali, and Minnesota, USA to Mexico, Israel, Argentina, Australia, Ireland, and more, I offer online and phone meetings for parents comfortable discussing issues in English, as well as blogs, articles, and premium confidential email coaching for parents less comfortable in conversational English. 

On the west coast of Canada, near Vancouver.

Raising Parents has strong working relationships with a collective of high-quality, trusted providers, to whom we enthusiastically refer clients who need more than coaching, including if they need something other than coaching.

We have two local (to us) referrals for you: 

For effective individual and couple's counselling, counselling for children & teens, creative therapy, workshops and family counselling, using a variety of modalities, please let Riti Batra, registerd theraputic therapist, with Savera Counselling  know we've recommended you contact her for her supportive care...

For effective whole-body therapy with a highly-skilled yoga therapist, please let Kelli Kanashiro of Japayoga know we've suggested her heart-centred care.

We have other trusted counsellors in other areas, if you'd like an in-person provider closer to you.

Raising Parents is happy to collaborate or refer to business coaches we have worked with in the past, as we trust their skills and approach entirely. Please ask for a referral if you'd like one.

If you're handling your own business, too many streams of income (or expenses) or overwhelmed by bookkeeping, trying to plan your estate to minimize taxes and fees, or want to maximize the wealth transferred from your parents or grandparents... or to your children, we recommend these financial professionals:

Oxana Bender at Edward Jones Financial is a calm, pragmatic financial genius and mother of 2 understands the needs of families, who provides wealth management to families and business owners.

And, for our clients in need of an accountant who is approachable and professional and who knows all about the Canadian tax filing (for estates and businesses and trusts and more!) Shirley Liebovitz at Inlet Accounting is your go-to partner.

And if it's your business systems you're struggling with, working with too many spreadsheets or finding clients falling through the cracks, you need the Systems Queens, led by the amazing Maryanne Renzetti.

We enthusiastically recommend these complementary care providers:

Sleep is always an issue for families... if you need to know more about how to get the most sleep possible (and what gets in the way of it!) and want a caring, knowledgeable expert who will not sell you sleep training of any kind... but who will provide you with personalized understanding in what is interfering with sleeping, and how to fix it --for you or your kids, Nicole Shallow, Your Behaviour Gal, is the genius you need. (Worldwide)

Strawberries & Sunshine Wellness Collective, who have amazing chiropractors, RMTs, and a registered reflexologist, acupuncturist, counsellors and more, with two decades of experience helping children and families facing neurodiverse diagnoses and challenges, their practitioners will keep your family well. (Lower mainland, BC)

With a specialty in complementary cancer care, we enthusiastically recommend the kind and thoughtful care of Dr. Catherine Multari, naturopathic doctor (BC-wide) as well as Dr. Serena Lin, ND of Optimal Health Collective, who is a genius about complex physical symptoms and the interaction of hormones.

If you need to get fit, with the support of knowledgeable and enthusiastic kinesiologist-trained personal trainers, in a very clean and luxe gym setting, talk to father of two, Alex Kastelen of Innovative Fitness to find a training (live or online) who can motivate you to live your best life. (Worldwide online, Lower mainland BC in person)

If you're concerned about your nutrition, weight or general health, look for Dr. Jose Diego Botezelli ('Dr. Diego') to have the body (and energy) you want --without giving up the foods you love. Diego, a new dad, is a genius researcher with a Ph.D. in endoctrinology who really understands metabolism.

For physiotherapy, vertigo treatment, RMT, accupuncture, and treatment for post-concussion syndrome, the smiling and caring people working with Karen Bhartu, mom of two, at Triumph Physio & Wellness will move you forward.

For physiotherapy with a focus on breathing effectively to ease sleep and exercise difficulties, Natalie Kirmayer is an amazing mom and physiotherapist with Inspirit Functional Breathing & Physio

We have built our network of trusted providers far beyond the most obvious things families need (or want) and highly recommend these knowledgeable and all-around wonderful people:

If you're curious about your DNA results, or want to know more about the history of your family --for yourself or for your kid-- Sue Sullivan of Family Ancestrees is a graphic designer and 'the spit lady' --a mother and grandmother who can help you discover your family tree... and then turn it into beautiful graphics, as gifts or wall art. (worldwide)

We believe every working parent has earned housekeeping services, and highly recommend the diligent and thorough cleaners led by mother-of-two Janaina Batista of Gold Team Cleaning Services, to shine your home or office --or both! (Lower mainland, BC)

If you're tired of how your house looks, or need help organizing what is in it, the lovely Julieta Diaz, mother of one, is a certified interior designer and organizer and owner of Ment Interior Designs --check out her website for her beautiful work! (Lower mainland, BC)

If you're really tired of how your house looks, or need help getting it ready to sell quickly and for the best price, talk to Jordan Wisemen of Prep N Sell, to get your home ready to list. Once it's ready to sell, call Monica Harmes, a top-performing realtor who will get your house sold --and find your new dream house! (Lower mainland, BC)

If you're facing a legal issue that you need personal service and professional results, the legal team at BTM Lawyers LLP (tell Daniel Richardson, father of two, that we sent you) are available for corporate, estate, family and litigation services and more... (Lower mainland, BC)

After all of that, you need to get away --for a travel consultant who will take care of you, whether it's planning a huge family reunion or a mom's solo getaway, Sandra D'Souza of Alto Travel can get you there (and back!)

Premium confidential coaching packages start at $1800, and are available in writing or live (zoom or facebook chat)

Online courses available from $200

Linda will speak to non-profit groups and do one-time interviews with media (podcasts, radio, tv) for the usual honorarium. Workshops start at $25.

All prices are 'per family' rather than 'per parent.' 

Workshops are generally 90 minutes

Online courses start at 4 weeks

Premium confidential coaching packages are a standard 12 weeks (may be compressed or expanded, as parents desire.)

All types of parents, yes: adoptive, foster, nuclear, LGBTQ2S+, single, co-parents, future parents, grandparents raising grandchildren, parents of adult children, etc.

All parents? No. 

I don't work with parents who aren't interested in improving their skills or knowledge, or who don't believe it's possible or valuable to improve (yes, there are lots out there.) 

Raising Parents accepts cash, Interac e-transfers, cheques, credit cards, PayPal, and Stripe payments.

All coaching programs are offered with a 10% 'paid in full' discount, when fully paid prior to the beginning of the first session.

Payment plans are available.

Yes, tantrums. Also known as meltdowns, fits, temper tantrums and rages.

These are the result of overpowering emotions and overstimulation tripping the switch on the survival brain, which then flails around and makes noises to ward off attacks or fight for autonomy and anything they're lacking.

Think: adult-sized emotions in a tiny child-sized body. 

Best prevented rather than handled... 

Prevention is not always possible, so the most humane way to handle them is to keep the child (as well as other people and their stuff) safe until the storm passes. Once their brain has come back online, snuggles and wiping tears, and compassion is all that is needed.

There is no way to 'teach' a survival brain how to have a meltdown quietly or politely --what happens when the survival brain takes over is uncontrollable by any form of logic or reason. Punishment only makes things worse.

Never confuse a traumatized child in a 'freeze' (or dissociation) state with 'they're fine, it worked.' 

Prevention is pretty basic, and mostly relies on the fundamental needs of humans: make sure they're fed, watered, walked, aired, cuddled, and rested, with enough time / freedom to explore and learn and create thrown in to keep everything balanced. 

If tantrums become problematic, look for predictable triggers and causes: too much compliance, overstimulation (especially amongst siblings where feeling overpowered might be a cause) and the physical bunch: hunger, thirst, too much sitting still and being quiet, not enough fresh air or big muscle movement, not enough connection and physical affection, or under rested (usually a product of too much 'on the go' and not enough free / unstructured time.)

Nope.

Unless you'd like to become a screen-time cop (and judge, when they take up being a lawyer to find all the loopholes in your rules) I strongly recommend allowing them to connect with their body-mind and work out for themselves how much is too much, too boring, too annoying, too stimulating, etc.

All addictions are behaviours / activities / substances that nearly work to meet a basic need that is going unmet for too long. They are distractions from the unmet need, and the discomfort in our bodies that arise from those unmet needs.

Gaming, for example, is a wonderful way to distract from anxiety or too much compliance and not enough autonomy. It's such a compelling experience that it can distract from needing a toilet and extreme hunger. 

So is scrolling on social media --cat videos, celebrity gossip, political flamewars, etc. 

It helps to become acutely aware of how we are showing our kids 'this is how we handle unsettling feelings' ... and if those examples are the ones we want our kids to follow.

You provide what they need, as they need it. 

Sleep is on their list.

How to get your kids (or anyone) to sleep more then they need to, or when they have competing needs (like autonomy, connection, big muscle movement, etc.) ... sorry, that takes unethical options.

Popular since the Victorian Era doctor (working in an insane asylum) invented the idea of 'proper' sleep being 8 hours at a single stretch, at night, in your own bed, in a room alone... those options included alcohol (give the baby a nightcap!) and laudenum (opium dissolved in alcohol) or the middle class answer: hang the baby over the gas line until they go limp. Some of them even woke up in the morning (oddly, those ghastly pale children became a big part of literature at the time --poor Little Lord Fauntleroy, and Colin Craven of The Secret Garden, etc.)

In the 1900s, it turned to Mommy's Little Helper --Valium-- to make kids sleep 'properly' and then Gravol and cold medications.

All of this suggests to me that 'properly' is counter to 'basic human needs' in a very real way, which is why I suggest it is all unethical.

Which explains all the frustrated parents, and Go the F*ck to Sleep... unrealistic expectations are, as a friend points out, planned frustrations. The unrealistic expectation in this case being 'it's normal for kids to sleep X hours a day when they're Y minutes old' based on... you guessed it! Reports from parents, not recorded sleep studies. 

In recorded sleep studies, especially those that include 'outside the WEIRD cultures, including ours' ... it is noted that people (not just babies) sleep when they need to, where they are. Mostly in multi-age family groups. Mostly amid the noise and bustle of the day. Or night. 

Which is all to say: stop fighting reality, and let go of the struggle. If you need more sleep than you can get sleeping when your kids sleep, you need more adult help to supervise your kids while you rest. 

P.S. it is normal for kids' (and adults') sleep needs to change for all kinds of reasons: growth rates, immune responses, learning curves, brain development, stress, healing, and activity levels / fresh air during the day. They need to learn to identify for themselves when their bodies need sleep / food / movement, so it's a good idea to get good at helping them identify that rather than pointing to a clock or a chart...

These are all marketing language created by sleep trainers to sell their services to desperate parents, partly by making 'what the child is doing' seem pathological --for profit.

Sleep associations: no. Nursing to sleep is biologically normal, as breastmilk (for people, but in every mammals' milk) provides hormones that improve and aid sleep, when mom's sleeping. Falling asleep requires a sense of safety, so that's not pathological in any way. Babies and small children instinctively fear solitude in the dark, and their body-minds cannot be convinced there are no predators, even with stuffies, nightlights, locks or windows. (And, sadly, their instincts are right: the predators are sometimes in the house on their parents' unknowing invitation.)

Sleep regressions: no. As there is no 'sleep progression' going the 'right way,' there is also no 'sleep regression' going 'the wrong way.' This is sheer nonsense.

Wake windows: complete fiction. While it might be helpful to predict tomorrow's sleep today (for daycare workers, or to schedule things around sleep, if anyone finds that necessary) the idea that sleep will be needed predictably after x number of minutes or hours is total fiction, and has no scientific or sociological basis. Some babies sleep every 2 hours for a while, and many do not. Some babies sleep multiple hours without needing anything, many do not.

Joining up sleep cycles: also, total fiction. Sleep cycles NEVER join together. Everyone who isn't drugged or in a coma cycles through from light sleep to deep sleep and back, in a fairly predictable time frame (for themselves) usually between 40 and 90 minutes. In the light sleep at the end of every cycle, people of all ages wake lightly to scan their bodies and environments for anything they might need. If they need nothing but more sleep, they fall into a deeper sleep without remembering waking (unless they're insomniacs, in which case they wake without remembering sleeping.) If they need anything else, they wake more fully to take care of it, calling out for help if they cannot take care of it alone. 

Self-soothing: total b.s. Humans do not self-soothe, period. We heal in community, and rely on other people's help, cooperation, and support to be sane. The idea that infants can, or should, manage their hunger, fear, loneliness, overheating, thirst, or whatever they need, on their own and alone is as ridiculous as suggesting that they go into suspended animation for 12 hours because it's 7pm.

Our modern WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democracies) create pressure on adults to pretend they're all interchangeable robots who only ever need exactly the same things every day at the same time, and it's much more convenient for the systems of these cultures for kids to 'fit into the real world' instead of expecting their needs to be met as they arise... 

It won't change without internal pressure against these ideas, from one parent advocating for flexible work hours to accommodate reality with kids, to whole industries building work-life environments that recognize the pressures most working adults live with (from self-care to caring for aging parents, and children and even pets) and bend to their needs. 

By remote control, from a distance?

Nothing at all.

Your child is responding to the environment they're in while they're not with you. In later childhood, a 9-12yo might be able to talk about what's happening there and understand how to attempt other methods of communication that are more effective...

... but in that situation, kids try what is most familiar to them first --what you're doing at home, around them and with them. If that doesn't work, they create (or mimic other kids') other ways to stop kids from being too close, or interfering with what they're doing, or coping with the adult's anger, confusing instructions, or pressure to conform. 

These ways that kids create to cope are fairly predictable (see the handout from Mental Fitness Recorded training video) but almost universally considered anti-social or unhealthy: nail-biting to biting others, pushing kids to pushing down their emotions, forgetting and being a klutz, blaming others and being unable to focus... 

Talk to the teacher about their plans to prevent the problems from arising, or how they use compassionate listening tools to teach the kids better negotiation skills. 

Do the same at home, of course... but there is no way to send a child back the next day with better-enough communication skills to stop them from resorting to 'whatever works' in a situation you have no way of predicting ahead of time.

I wrote a blog about this long time ago... it still applies, if you'd like to read it, it's here.

The gist of it is:

Be the adult in the room.

Kids are 'using whatever they find' to communicate, whether that's behaviour or words, and all the maturity they have available in the moment.

If we, the adults, get all petty and hung up on the words, two things happen:

~ We amplify the 'power' of the words, greatly increasing the chances of them being used again, possibly in worse situations (for us... you know, like telling Grandpa where to get off...)

~ We fail to supply them with viable alternatives for communicating the same emotions, also vastly increasing the chances of them being used again, possibly at a much higher volume than the first time.

As in all things, approaching swearing as 'information' about their emotions, rather than 'bad behaviour,' gives parents the chance to connect about something important and big to the child... from a curiosity, caring, supportive listening position, rather than an authoritarian, censuring, punitive position. 

Discovering how frustrated, angry, or grief-stricken our kids really are is daunting and sometimes overwhelming... but it's the only way we can ever expect them to bring us anything big in their lives.