The Peaceful Parent Institute - New Zealand
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To learn more about the Parent Coaching service that Genevieve offers, including fees, click here. Or click here for information about Genevieve's counselling appointments.
To book an appointment, click "consultation" below and choose time zone.
Hi, my name is Genevieve, proud mum to my 13 y.o. daughter and 19 y.o. son. Although I was lucky to have learned a lot about what's needed to foster secure attachment before becoming a parent, yet I've continued to learn on the job and through the privilege of working with hundreds of families. My mission and passion is to bring peaceful parenting education and resources to as many families and organizations as possible.
Hi there Lesia,
Yes I do skype sessions with people in Canada. My working week coincides with your Sunday to Thursday afternoon and evenings. You can read a little more under the services tab on my website. I might be able to offer you a time this Thursday early evening your time. Let me know which time zone you’re in, or you can look up timaanddate.com and compare with me here – Auckland, New Zealand.
My email is info@peaceful-parent.com Please reply via email because I don’t check these comments as fequently.
Genevieve
Hello Genevieve, I would like to ask for some advice concerning weaning from pacifier. My son soon turns 2 and I thought this is the best time to start weaning off. He starts talking, we can understand each other more and more now. He still needs to use diapers, which I think is fine, ’cause I can see he still cannot understand the whole thing about potty. Few months ago I removed all pacifiers from his sight and only gave him one when he asked for it, I never did big thing out of it, I always respected his needs for calming his self down. Few weeks ago I stopped carring pacifier with us for walks, shopping and visit at friends and grandparents, he only uses it at home and he seems to be okay with that. He seems to learn to ask for hugs when he is troubled and cannot have his pacifier when we are not at home. He even started using the asking for hugs at home – sometimes he just asks for a hug and he forgets about pacifier, but most of the time, he still asks for the pacifier sooner or later when he’s upset. My question is – should I keep on what I am doing or should I remove the pacifier from him completely? Thank you for any advice. Love your work, keep up the good job!
Hi there Corrie, it’s been a long time since you messaged here, and at the time I responded by email. Just noticed it again now and just wanted to make sure you received my email that it didn’t end up in your spam folder.
genevieve@peacefulparent.com
I would like some advice on what would cause a normal three year old boy to all of a sudden become violent. He started daycare about three months ago and has been fine, enjoyed going until about a month ago. Nothing has changed same personnel, same routine, but now when they ask him to clean up and he doesn’t want to he starts throwing things, attacking the teachers, just being extremely disruptive. I did not believe the teachers until he reacted the same way with me once. He is a beautiful, smart, sweet kid and I am just trying to figure out what to do. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Andrea,
articles to start with that might give you some insight: Aggression – why children lash out and what to do. Aggressive acting out is often a cry for help/healing (can’t remember which). Also, if you click “become a member” on the pink menu, you’ll see that you can join our discussion forums and special interest groups for a month’s trial for free, a place to share questions. I hope the articles start to help you explore his feelings that are likely driving his behaviour.
Hi Genevieve,
An acquaintance recommended you as someone who may be able to help with my situation. My almost 4 year old is struggling with changeover between myself and my ex partner. The situation is deteriorating and my son is frequently brought to panic at the prospect of time with his father (whom he has always had a very strong bond with). We hold changeover at kindergarten when we can, as it seems to make it easier for my son. Today, however, I left to my son screaming for me, a teacher restraining him, and my ex partner in complete emotional shut-down and offering no support to our son. I cannot go through that again, it goes against every parenting instinct I have and I feel like I am betraying my son and our commitment to gentle parenting.
We need help with tools to make this easier for our son, and also some help for my ex partner to be able to support our son in these situations, not just blank out what is happening and sit silently by (which is his usual response to any difficult emotional situation – I think it’s contributing to the steadily worsening change overs.)
Are you able to help with this? Either with resources I can study or with personal coaching?
Thank you.
Oh dear Emily,
(You will have received my email as well) …
So heartbreaking! Your instincts are crying out for a very good reason. He needs and deserves the emotional support with the transition. https://www.peacefulparent.com/helping-children-adapt-to-an-early-childhood-centre-or-carer/ Perhaps you can share this article to share with your ex and you could both watch the video on the post. Would it work to set up an appointment for me to talk with you both on skype perhaps? You can read more about my parent coaching on my website under services.
Genevieve
Hi Genevieve,
I’ve just listened to your contribution to the Mom to Mom series. The content of your website has always resonated with me and I feel I am on a journey to achieve greater consistency within our family in terms of a shared approach. Listening to the section where you spoke about feeling judge by others – perhaps those within the extended family – really rang true for me. It’s reinforced my conviction to address my child’s need in that moment and not to act in the way that I feel the onlookers are wanting me to react.
Many thanks for all that you contribute to this challenging journey.
Thank you Caroline for taking the time to share this. It’s so very encouraging to read that it was encouraging to you to listen to me talk about a challenge that you – that so many parents – can relate to. It’s not easy to prioritise our child’s needs in these situations, and I painfully learned through the mistakes of the times that I didn’t get this right and later painfully regretted it, yet that seems to be so much of the journey of life and learning, learning through that which we painfully regret, but as long as we learn it’s all worth it in the end.
Hi there,
My mum who almost 20 years later had another child (son) Ezra after me really needs your help. Ezra is nearly 11 and has never really been to school. There have been a number of contributing factors that seem too long to write here. I would like to work with her as a support and make a plan to have regular skype chats with you. Things are getting desperate and I was blessed to have attended one of your workshops at Prana. Can you please contact me to look at how we can move forward. Thanks Tash
Hi Tasha, I’ll email you and we’ll take it from there. Genevieve
Hi
My child is 12 and he has mood swings and anger episodes regularly.
Often there is a situation where he exhibit unacceptable or impolite behaviour and when being made aware of it or being told off -he threaten to increase the “volume” (and he does go to extreme screams). If being told calmly to stop yelling (or not calmly – it does not seem to change the response) he threatens to yell even louder if he is to be continued to be told to stop.
Today it has gone even further. My partner asked him to eat slower and make less noise and be more polite (he was gobbling up the food and making lots of noise with his cutlery, moving things around the table and generally disregarding anyone else. My partner calmly asked him again to behave and keep his voice down to which he angrily and loudly replied: “stop making me even more angry, I’m stressed and if you don’t stop I’ll shout even louder”. My partner said calmly to him to stop threatening and keep his behaviour appropriate. A couple of repeats of the same rounds while my son keeps raising the volume and starts shaking in anger – and then he took his bowl of food and throw it all over on my partner while screaming.
His little brother and a friend (of the brother) where at the table as well and we all couldn’t believe what we saw.
My son left the table immediately but came back quickly when I told him to clean up the mess, which he did unwillingly complaining that it was dad’s fault that he was behaving this way. My partner left the table without saying a word (straight to the shower) and came back – finished his dinner and disappeared to his office for an hour. He then came out, ordered my son to clean another area that wasn’t cleaned yet. Said that this was totally unacceptable behaviour and there will be consequences.
Both my partner and I feel that today was ‘over the limit’ but we don’t know what to do.
It feels like a catch 22 – if he gets to be told/reminded of how to behave he increases the bad behaviour – and threatens to go even further. If we keep quiet, he repeats the bad behaviour…
He is very intelligent kid (was diagnosed as gifted). I am not sure if he is being manipulative or he is genuinely unable to control himself. It seems that he ‘brings it on’ and gets himself into an anger episode – maybe in a way to avoid criticism or keep controlling the situation.
Your thoughts…
Hi there Gill,
What an overwhelming experience for all concerned. At age 12 / 13 children are experiencing huge surges of hormones as well as big emotional, psychological and identity changes. It can be a time when things become quite unhinged in the parent child relationship. It’s a bit like the toddler challenges again but can be even harder to manage because parents have a lot less tolerance for kids this age becoming overwhelmed and ruled by their emotions to the point of acting out. If you were to imagine “what if he was doing his best?”, then wonder “what might he have been feeling and how could I have helped him to not reach such a point of total overwhelm? He most definitely won’t enjoy getting into such an angry state and he needs a lot of help in managing these bouts of frustration that seem to take him over. It could be a good idea to make an appointment with me for me to talk all the specific examples through with yourself and your partner. Or perhaps one of our peaceful parenting mentors could do an email consultation. Email me if you’d like to learn more about that option, or you can go to the services tab on my website here to learn more about making an appointment with me. Genevieve My email is genevieve@peacefulparent.com