This is a community-focused hybrid offering, falling somewhere between support group and workshop. At each session, you’ll be invited to reflect on a specific topic, and together we’ll explore feelings, expectations, perceptions, limitations, fears, vulnerabilities, or whatever comes up for you within a container of safety, acceptance, and compassion, guided by up-to-date knowledge of relevant research on human needs and development.

Monthly on the 4th Tuesday @ 2pm (Pacific Time), workshops are 2 hrs* over Zoom w/ 8 participants + me. (WORKSHOPS ARE ON TEMPORARY HIATUS)

Basic structure of the workshops:

• 30 min for check-ins

• 30 min for reflection activity, including a period for writing, and a 5-min break (with cameras turned off)

• 60 min for discussion

• 30 min (- optional !!! -) overflow period**

I ask everyone to please read the orientation document I’ve put together before joining together in community space, as a way of ensuring that we can co-create a community where all who wish to join can truly feel welcome.

Sign up below!

Recommended contribution of $40 per person per workshop, but I utilize open pricing (read more here) so you are free to contribute at a level that works for you. Each workshop topic may be offered on multiple dates. When you click to sign up for a particular workshop topic, you will choose which date.

Radical Acceptance of Feelings

The most important thing for a child is to have you to help them hold their feelings, no matter how big, loud, scary, painful, or even "mean". The current understanding of what causes childhood trauma is not what happens to us, but that we had to carry our hardships alone. In this workshop we will explore what it means to embrace an attitude of radical acceptance of all our children's feelings, and how powerful this can be to our relationship.

Listening Deeply to Our Children’s Needs

At the root of all needs is the need to belong. Children need to feel absolutely confident that their worth and welcome are unconditional. They don’t necessarily need everything they ask for. How can we be sure that even when we can’t give them what they want, their needs for unconditional acceptance are met? Children have a variety of needs, around autonomy, self-efficacy, creativity, exploration, growth, play, and more. In this workshop, we will explore how our responses to their expressions of desire (or their complaints!), even when the answer is no, can still allow us to show up for them in a way they feel truly seen and accepted for who they are.

Teaching Children Our Values w/o Shame or Coercion

What does it really mean to "teach"? When are children in a state that makes them capable of learning? Who are they willing to learn from? In this workshop, we will explore these and other questions that will help us understand what and when children are really learning from us, and how to recognize when we are really imparting our values to who our children are becoming.

Aligning Parenting Goals with Outcomes

Think about the qualities you hope your child will embody in their adulthood. Think about how they will remember you. How can you align your parenting with these intentions? How can you recognize a mismatch? In this workshop we will explore these and other questions that help you think about your parenting and how it aligns with your long-term goals for your children.

The Depletion of Parenthood: Doing the Work of 4 People

Before modern times, there were an average of 4 care-giving adults for every child, and the average work week consisted of approximately 20 hours. Dare to imagine if this was your life! What would be different for you, and for your children? Explore the grief underlying the absence of the village and see what it tells you about your family's unmet needs. In this workshop you will use this grief as a map to guide you to find ways to meet these unmet needs.

** regarding 30-min overflow