Just like you, I am a parent seeking love, connection, ease and fun within my family.
I understand first-hand the frustration and suffering that we experience on our parenting journeys, and I know how it feels to be overwhelmed and discouraged in parenting.
As a mother practicing and honing the art of parenthood, I endeavour to continually keep learning and improving. If you are also, you have come to the right place.
Am I the perfect parent? No. But I’ve learned many skills to ease the way in walking this path of conscious parenting.
I enjoy sharing what I’ve learned along the route to satisfying parenting; which means personal growth for you as a parent, more connection for your family, and a lifetime of love and meaning.
I’m committed to deep, compassionate listening, and I have a warm-hearted and intuitive ability to help parents move through parenting struggles toward growth and transformation. I love helping families create and cultivate the life and connections they dream of.
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
In May, 2015 I completed the coaching training programme at the well-respected Jai Institute for Parenting, which certifies parenting coaches.
I’ve completed invaluable personal and professional development courses in parenting and Compassionate Communication by John Cunningham, Ruth Beaglehole, Cynthia Aldinger, and others.
I have been involved with the Tides rites of passage programme for teenage girls and their mothers since 2015, and serve as a facilitator and a mentor for a few events each year.
For over 3 years, beginning in 2013, I coordinated and facilitated the parent/toddler playgroup at the Motueka Rudolf Steiner School, a Waldorf school on the South Island of New Zealand. Working with the playgroup families was the perfect way for me to interact with varied temperaments of children and parents, and to work with different dynamics and behaviours.
Studying Marshall Rosenberg's Non-Violent Communication work gives me great inspiration, and I use his tools in my work as well as in my everyday living.
At the very heart of my practice are my two children who motivate me to do this work, and who inspire me to share it with you. Over the past 18-plus years, I’ve made deliberate choices to create a stable, happy, and loving home life for our family. I’ve cultivated and practiced my skills in mindfulness and peaceful parenting through a variety of courses, workshops, and research, and in my daily life.
I also hold a bachelor's degree in International Affairs from the University of Colorado.
My parenting story
In a way, my own memories from childhood led me to parent coaching.
My parents divorced when I was 5 years old. As I was shuttled back and forth across town between my mom's house and my dad's house, I often thought about what life would be like when I grew up and had a family of my own. I vowed that I would do things differently.
It’s those memories that made it a priority to give my children the warm and secure home life, and tight-knit family bonds that I longed for.
Later, foreseeing a looming soul-sucking and harried two-income, two-parent ‘tag team’ future in Boulder, Colorado, my husband and I recognized the contrasting value that a slower pace of life would give us and our two small children. We were yearning for a change, to say the least.
Wanting to craft a unique rhythm of life, we sought something different from the treadmill lives that threatened to become our default. In order to allow space for further evolution and personal growth, we deliberately re-designed our lives to increase time for family togetherness.
So, in 2007 we moved halfway across the world to New Zealand with our two children, ages one and four years old. Easy? No. Complete paradigm shift? Definitely the foundations of one. The journey continues to unfold each day as we seek ways of living that nurture beauty, truth, goodness, reverence, and wonder in life.
I look forward to hearing from you, and learning about your own parenting journey so far.
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“Amy, thanks so much for your support when I’ve had parenting challenges. I have so appreciated your attentive, empathetic listening, the way you naturally reflected back what I was feeling, and the way you considered both my needs, and my daughter’s.
Your suggestions were practical and gentle on us both, and they really worked. For example, making up an ‘angry basket’ with activities to release frustration was actually a lot of fun, and very creative. My daughter would stomp off to get it and choose something like furiously popping bubble wrap - including jumping up and down on it on the floor! Very often the activities ended in laughter from both of us.
After a few times of making the most of the basket, I noticed we weren’t needing it anymore. It had done its job, and the ‘often angry’ phase has passed for now.
Thanks so much, again, for your caring help and support - it was just what we needed.”