Aligning Head, Heart and Action

~ honouring strengths, whilst tending to hurts ~

When we parent with the body in mind, we can navigate the most challenging situations with greater wisdom, choice and ease.

My approach

 

Have you noticed that no matter how good your intentions are, or how many parenting books you’ve read, you still end up saying and doing everything you said you wouldn’t?  

Instead of the calm, peaceful parent you are committed to being, you feel angry, exhausted and powerless?

That’s because we don’t just parent with our heads, but with our hearts, hopes, habits and histories too. Our body is the source of our inspiration and resilience, but it also holds all the embedded patterns that trip us up and trigger us in the moment.

That’s why I invite the whole of you into our work together - your body, mind and spirit. You will learn how to soothe and transform your reactivity as it arises, sustain your vitality and compassion in the long term, and practice creative, empowered responses to stressful situations, so you can be the parent you aspire to be, when it matters most.

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Empowered, attuned, intuitive

I don’t offer one size fits all solutions to behaviour, because parenting happens within the wider context of relationship, culture and community. The extent to which we feel safe, supported and connected, impacts on how we respond to our children in the moment.

So I help you gain a unique perspective and insight behind your own and your child’s behaviours that takes account of the bigger picture, transforms the way you feel about yourself and your parenting, and gives you the knowledge and skills necessary to respond confidently to your child’s needs.

All parents and professionals are welcome, especially those who feel at risk of mutual defensiveness, escalation and compassion fatigue due to their child’s severely dysregulated behaviour (including child to parent violence)

What you will learn

 

  • Create environments of hope, dignity and care, even through times of chaos and uncertainty

  • Discover inner sources of inspiration, power and support that you can bring to bear in challenging situations

  • Skilfully support children through extremes of activation, including aggression, defiance, shame, and withdrawal

  • Read and respond wisely and sensitively to challenges as they arise

  • Grow your distress tolerance, so you can stay open and engaged with the intensity of parenting

  • Nurture safe spaces and relationships that support trust-building, connection, and healing

  • Sense into your own and your child’s subtle cues, to respond intuitively to their needs, without losing sight of your own

  • Transcend reactive, defensive patterns, so you can think, feel and act in alignment with your visions and values

  • Grow relational skills in centered listening, embodied empathy, compassionate boundary setting and advocacy, so you can create the kind of communities you long to belong to

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“I had the privilege of working with Kirstie several times and I am blown away by her work. I can honestly say it is life-changing. I can really see my relationships with others changing and my own relationship to conflict changing too” -

Katharine Kendall, private client, Los Angeles

Honouring strengths whilst tending to hurts.

 

Embodied Parent Education is a strengths, resiliency and relational coaching framework. It draws on a combination of social, emotional and biological learning, embodied and relational practice, attachment trauma and shame models, trauma and neurobehavioral parenting, martial arts, developmental movement, sensory-motor regulation, and interpersonal neurobiology.

It is non-therapeutic, I don’t offer assessment, diagnosis or counselling, but it is healing-centred, supporting felt-safety, connection and regulation. We won't excavate past wounds, but we hold defensive patterns and their impact on the present with curiosity and care, whilst learning to embody new ways of being and acting that align with your values. You will also learn to discern the wisdom that lies behind your child’s most extreme behaviours, and how to dance more lightly through them together.