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[Genevieve Simperingham]

Hi there and welcome!

It would be great if you can gain the experience of getting to know some of the others sharing the journey of this course, and to have the experience of being more known, seen, heard and understood in this group.

Tell us a bit about yourself. What has drawn you to do this eCourse? What are you hoping to get out of this course? Where are you at on your parenting journey, joys, challenges?? You can start a topic by clicking “forum” under the group description and then scrolling down to the box which says; “start a topic” (also called a post). But for now, let’s start with some general introductions to start to get to know each other better.

[Wendy Andrews]

Hi all, I’m Wendy and some of you probably know me as an admin on the peaceful parenting q&a group. I will be one of your mentors on this course.
I was lucky enough to come across a lot of this info before becoming a parent, which was 15 years ago now. I made mistakes and still had my own issues get in the way but what I did well was allow the healing release of tears and tantrums when they needed to come out and I just ‘hung out’ a lot, on the floor, or bed, playing and doing silly things to help my daughter laugh, which is such a valuable healing tool (and that pretty much carries on unabated in our home today).
I look forward to reading your introductions and sharing what I have learned, and am still very much in the process of learning, on this journey of peaceful parenting, which has improved my own life in so many ways.

[Tabitha Jonson]

Hi all,
I’m Tabitha and am looking forward to supporting you as a mentor on this course.

I have two children, 5 & 6. Although I have always been a fairly patient & positive parent it is in the last several years though working with Genevieve that I have worked with Peaceful Parenting more deeply.

Please reach out at any point. We love questions as they help us target the material to you and your family. If you’re comfortable, post your question as a new topic in the forum – chances are everyone else will also have similar questions. You can also message us or email us privately if you are more comfortable with that.

[Michelle Carnes]

Hello All,
I’m Michelle…a very tired and stressed single mommy of two beautiful children: Sawyer 4 and Jovie 3. I never thought I would parent the way my parents did..you know I am so much more evolved and aware. HA! Well for quite sometime I have known that I want and need to learn better ways of parenting. I am grateful to have found this group and tools and am looking forward to learning and growing. My kids just woke up from a two hour nap allowing Mommy to get the opportunity to review all of the week 1 material. A two hour nap for them is rare. Grateful I got the time in now off to practice. Thank you for being here and I look forward to getting to know everyone.

[Tabitha Jonson]

Wow! 2 hours – go you for powering through all the material. Good luck with the practice. our kids are really helpful in that they give us numerous opportunities. 🙂

Feel free to start new threads and post questions or let us know how things are going while you start putting things into practice.

I am giggling at this. “I never thought I would parent the way my parents did..you know I am so much more evolved and aware. HA! ”
Yes I can relate. 🙂

So lovely to have you with us on this course.

[Wendy Andrews]

Yes, great to have you on board Michelle. Always such a shock when we hear ourselves saying or doing something we swore we’d never do hey!

[Rebecca Hample]

Hi. I am Rebecca, mom to boy/girl twins who will be seven in August. I am really looking forward to this course. I really want to practice the love and patience I believe and often find myself not being either. I hope to learn the skills to use in the heat of the moment to be the parent I want to be. Can’t wait!

[Claire Eccleston]

Kia Ora, My name is Claire I am a mumma of 3 beautiful children, Nimai is 15yrs, Mirabelle 12 yrs and Felix 2 yrs. I am also a midwife, midwifery educator and pregnancy yoga teacher. My life and our house is super full and super busy. This is one of my main challenges. Having the time to be present with my kids.
when Nimai was 3 yrs I did a non violent communication for parenting course. We have been attempting to use these concepts over the years, however I am welcoming new learning and support as we face new parenting challenges.
I would like some support and guidance with supporting Nimai through his teenage years, boundaries, independence, consequences. His energy is like a big loud bouncing dalmation, lots of swearing, joy and wonderful confronting challenges, often around my own appropriate ( or inappropriate)behaviour- which is welcomed and appreciated.
I would like support with finding ways to stay connected and supportive for Mirabelle. I would also like some insights into the processes of teenage girls. Her journey seems so much more complex than Nimai’s. Over this year she seems to be getting more and more withdrawn and solemn. she doesn’t want to talk much and I’m finding it difficult to find new ways to connect with her that she enjoys and responds to. I’m worried that she is unhappy. she is very deep and thoughtful and I wonder what is going on in that deep well.
Felix is really busy two year old boy ! The other 2 were peaceful easy going kids, I had confidence that I was a pretty good mum, until….. .
My journey with Felix is fraught with lots of guilt. Guilt that I was busy in the pregnancy and his early babyhood. Guilt at not being able at times ( sometimes often) to meet his needs due to other demands of work, other children and household stuff. Then I realised my guilt was affecting my clarity around providing appropriate boundaries for him.Lately Felix is in a beautiful joyous space. He is playing so intensely.
so, a big sharing, lots going on. Toddler boundaries and teenage boundaries. I have read through the first week and I’m so grateful for these wonderful reminders to be gentle… to myself and my little ones.
Thank you for setting up such a wonderful supportive programme.
I’m looking forward to the following weeks ahead.

[Rachel Castellanos]

Hi all! I’m Rachel, mommy to Olive (4) and Miles (2). I have some PTSD issues from my childhood so I always knew they would not be a part of my parenting style. I feel confident that I have done pretty well so far, but I want to 1) explore how to work with a husband who is not on board and 2) continue to delve deeper to explore and implement as much as possible.

I admit that I am terrified of making mistakes (which I know are inevitable). I was raised in an environment where emotions were a sign of weakness and I am incredibly emotional, thus I was put in counseling at the age of 3 to be ‘fixed’. Well, I’m still emotional and I’m still in counseling/therapy because it has taken me a long time to agree that emotions are ok. I want to teach my children that not only are emotions are ok, they are healthy. I want to help them identify them and work through them. Peaceful parenting, so far, has helped me start those conversations with my daughter and I want to keep that up.

My biggest challenge is that I work full-time outside the home with a one-way commute that is about an hour and a half. So my plan is to go over the material on the train which is about a 40 minute ride, and over lunch when I can take a lunch. 😉

I am REALLY excited for this. Raising and nurturing my children to be happy and healthy is the most important thing to me and I will take any help I can get!

[Wendy Andrews]

Welcome Rebecca, Claire and Rachel! Reading your introductions, I am confident we can help with the issues raised.

[Genevieve Simperingham]

Welcome everyone, I’m really enjoying reading the introductions. I really hope you each feel more empowered, supported and equipped as you make your way through the material. Just a note about emails from this forum, the default setting is for you to receive a daily digest email each day, but you can change this through the group specific menu just below the description above, you can receive less or more emails.

Michelle, yes I think most parents can relate to the the surprise and disappointment of repeating some, or even any!, of the less healthy habits of communicating from family of origin. Yet to use that awareness as a motivation to learn, grow and change is truly admirable I reckon! There’s a Single Parents special interest group as part of your membership, if you click “groups” on the pink members menu and scroll through, you’ll find it. It’s not very active as yet, but I’ll bet others who have joined would appreciate to if you introduced yourself there.

Welcome Rebecca, yes hopefully you’ll find that what we’re teaching through this course very much puts a lot of focus on how to regain and maintain more calm confidence and patience in the heat of the moment. It’s so normal for the learning process to feel a bit awkward and clunky when new approaches are tried and tested, yet, just like learning a new language, inch by inch it all starts to become a bit more fluent. Most people find that the videos really help to bring the theory to life.

Claire, I love your description of Nimai as a big loud bouncing dalmation, teenage boys are pretty big kids when they’re bouncing around! My son is 18 and my girl is 13, and Wendy’s daughter is 15, so feel free to draw on our personal experiences, I think Wendy would say the same, I’m very open to questions about how things look in our families as we’ve both been practicing this model of parenting from the get go. NVC offers such a great foundation. Yet the theory is so much easier than the practice eh!! You’ve got a lot of diverse needs and personalities in your clan by the sound of things, and hopefully what you learn will give you little insights into their different needs.

Rachel, yes what big work it is developing a healthier relationship with emotions when childhood puts one into fearful conflict and confusion with feelings. I’ve experienced PTSD many times since being a parent, so know that journey and just how challenging it can be to be dealing with strong trauma activation while needing to be the secure base to one’s children. There’s a section in the Self-Healing group about PTSD. Wow, what a schedule you have, how exhausting! Yet really glad that the travelling time will give you the opportunity to soak in the material. Perhaps you’d like to download the audios onto your phone/ pc so you can listen when in transit?

I just find it so heart warming and exciting reading about all the openness and excitement to learn and grow. When my kids were little I used to so often say to DH that what allows us to do better than his parents and my parents was our willingness to face up to our stuff ups. It’s so painful to see when and how we hurt our children, it’s easier to ignore, deny or be defensive, but it’s that vulnerable willingness to swallow our pride, take responsibility and repair the ruptures that allows us to grow and change and our kids to learn to do the same.

[Genevieve Simperingham]

Rachel, the Q&A teleseminar recording from 30th May covers the question of some good ways of improving the communication with one’s partner who is less on board with peaceful parenting. https://www.peacefulparent.com/groups/general-forum-for-peaceful-parenting-related-questions-and-discussions/forum/topic/teleseminars/

[Wendy Andrews]

Rachel, if I can pass on one thing I have learned, it is that my husband adores my daughter, they have their tough times and he does things differently but she is sure enough of herself thanks to the connection she feels to both of us and because she has been able to process most of her emotions as they have come up, that I can see she holds her own. They are both feisty people BUT she is not scared of him and they sort things out pretty quickly.
I know your daughter is only 4 and I don’t know the situation fully but if she is able to keep her voice and is not silenced and frightened in the corner, she will be ok. I have had to learn to not interfere as my trying to control the situation by shutting things down because of my own childhood and my own sensitivities makes things much, much worse. In fact, my giving him room and trust helped him become a better parent. Of course, he wants to improve and be more peaceful but my attempts to control, coming from my own fear were not helping. Her situation is totally different to mine, and, I suspect, yours from what you have said.
Does your daughter get to have her voice and her emotions? That, to me, is the key, along with her connection with you. The rest is their journey.
If he is still attached to punishment, I have found it helps to ask questions about their childhood more, to listen to details of what punishment looked like for them, beyond the ‘I was hit and I turned out ok’. Like all humans, the more our partners are listened to, the more they are able to reach their own more rational, humane decisions about the people they love.

[Rachel Castellanos]

Thanks Wendy! My husband doesn’t like to talk much about his childhood but his older sister (who is very mean to her kids) makes comments about their dad being very mean. My husband is someone that doesn’t really like to talk things out and doesn’t express emotion much. One thing he says to my daughter which really bothers me is “you don’t have to cry about it”. No, if she wants to cry about something she can cry about it. But let’s find out why she’s crying about it. He was convinced that my methods were going to turn our kids into teenagers that cried about everything and our marriage counselor finally got him to understand that no, what I’m trying to do is help her understand why she’s crying now so that as she gets older she will have additional way (and maybe still crying) to handle things.

She is sometimes scared of him, not because he will physically hurt her, but I think my fear of yelling has rubbed off on her. He also does a lot of namecalling which is completely normal in his family to the point where he doesn’t even notice it, and she is incredibly sensitive like me and takes everything to heart. My son just turned 2 so his vocabulary is bursting and he just learned to jump and is at such a fun stage and it’s really a stage my husband likes. Unfortunately, it makes him very dismissive of my daughter, which leads to her trying harder to please him, which leads to him barking at her, which leads to her being scared and coming to me.

I stress constantly that her voice is incredibly important and that her emotions are all equally valid. None of them are bad, they just are. I also stress that having a bad moment doesn’t mean we have to have a bad day, and that everyone has bad moments, it doesn’t make us a bad person. Basically the opposite of the messages I received at that age.

But I do worry about an us vs. them mentality between me and my children and then my husband. And I think that is purely my fault and comes from growing up with a mother who was repeatedly married and divorced and married and divorced.

[Anonymous]

Hi Everyone!
I have never actually been on a forum before, as I tend to feel a little awkward and not knowing what to say, but the whole point of me doing this is to learn to do thing a little differently, so here goes… My name is Beth, and I am mumma to Ava, 2.5 years old, and the joy of my heart. I am a shift working hospital doctor, so there really is no routine to our lives at the moment, which I feel can be really unsettling for little ones (not to mention big ones too). This course has come at a perfect time for our family, even though we are time stretched (partner works full time around my shifts and looking after bubba, and the nearest family is 3.5 hours away), I now know there is never going to be a better time than now. I have come to to unlearn some of the parenting/emotional attitudes that I absorbed and developed growing up. Now that I am a parent, I realise my parents did the very best they could despite their own childhood traumas, but there are patterns I do not want to replicate. To be very honest, I often lack confidence and block out hard emotions with a “happy” front. I cannot manage conflict in my personal life without getting upset and defensive, and have a constant need to please and placate. I don’t want that for my daughter. She is a precious gift, and I need her to grow up knowing her worth is vast. There are things that I am doing very right as a mumma, but at times things slip. I want to learn how we can communicate consistently as a family, in a peaceful and loving way, especially at times of stress. I am really looking forward to putting this new learning into action 🙂

[Tabitha Jonson]

Hi Beth,

Yes the whole ‘forum’ thing can be a bit daunting. I hope you find this a safe and supportive space and feel you can share all sorts of emotions not just the happy ones. 🙂

Yes, amazing the growth parenting pushes us to do and how much more obvious those patterns become.

Lovely to have you here.

[Wendy Andrews]

Hang on to that marriage counsellor Rachel, sounds like a good one!

[Wendy Andrews]

Great to have you here Beth.

[Mairead]

Profile picture of Mairead O’Sullivan
Mairead O’Sullivan replied to the topic Introduce yourself in the forum Group logo of Village Green General forumGeneral forum for peaceful parenting related questions and discussions 1 week, 2 days ago

Better late than never!!

(I’m still finding my way around & discovered I put my intro in the general forum so below is a copy of what I had already posted x2)

Hi, my name is Mairead. I thought I introduced myself but can no longer find it. I have joined the June course & am only beginning to familiarise myself with the different areas. I decided to join now as I am taking aN extended summer break ( living in Ireland) & thought I would have plenty of time to read etc. As is usual with life things aren’t working out as planned, I’m in a resting phase so each time I begin to read the information it feels like work! My work is as a psychotherapist for adults/adolescents and I also work with parents. Through this work a few yrs back, while researching articles I happily discovered aware parenting & peaceful parenting. It has enriched my awareness both as person & parent. I am delighted to be part of this community and I will do my best to stay connected. Slowly but surely. Finally I am wife to a very supportive & insightful man & mother to a 7 yr old kind hearted funny creative boy called Lucas.

[Wendy Andrews]

Welcome Mairead, I’m really glad you came across the peaceful parenting concept, it says a lot that you, along with everyone else here, were open to it! Feel free to ask any questions.

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