early year’s consultant and parenting coach
I am an early year’s consultant and parenting coach.
My academic training includes a Masters in Child Psychology and a BA in Early Childhood studies. My vocational experience involves more than a decade of supporting families and training early years’ practitioners in promoting positive experiences in the early years.
I create and facilitate parenting workshops and offer 1:1 coaching sessions. I am passionate about supporting parents to maintain healthy parent/child relationships, to build stronger bonds with their children through communication, sensitive parenting and attachment. I am a mother of five children, two boys and three girls. My parenting journey has been challenging yet very rewarding.
Although some of my children are now older, at one point I had three children under the age of five. Being present, available and emotionally attuned was rather tricky. I can honestly say that I did get some aspects of my parenting wrong. As parents, we are always learning, and there is no such thing as a ‘perfect parent’ and at times we can be our worst critics.
I believe my drive to support parents to be more sensitive, self-aware and responsive stems firstly from my own experiences as a reflective parent and my own early childhood experiences.
My overall aim for parents/practitioners is :
*To consider child development and parenting through the lens of attachment to encourage opportunities to promote security of attachment within daily interactions.
*Create an environment of reflective discourse to better understand and respond to children’s emotional needs.
It is of great importance that we become more aware of ourselves and be attuned in parenting and interactions. Be mindful of the daily experiences of children, be consistently loving in our approach because consistency builds trust, trust builds bonds, and bonds enrich relationships. As parents and early years practitioners we must be sensitive, supportive and available – Be aware that children are observant of our interactions and they model how we behave and respond. Certainly, the way we interact and communicate with a child albeit negative or positive can have long-lasting effects.
