Give the Gift of Getting Along.
By Jessica Williams
The holidays can be a time of precious memories and great stress. This season, in addition to the presents that light up the faces of your children, you have the opportunity to create peace in your home that will last a lifetime.
What if the best of today’s progressive parenting experts sat in your living room and gave you the advice, comfort and solutions you have been looking for? I have spent the last months conducting video and audio interviews and collecting written contributions from best-selling authors, psychotherapists, educators, PhD and MDs. I designed a program with eight essential parenting themes, and have created eight video compilations from the interviews, so that expert research, science, experience and expertise lies within your grasp in one cohesive program. There is also a downloadable handbook, highlighting action steps you can take with your children to manage day-to-day conflict with new awareness, and to lay the foundation of a healthy connection and attachment that will inform the rest of your days.
The course walks you through eight essential themes in parenting: Identity, Sleep, Feeding Your Children, Attachment, Individuation, Conflict, Co-Parenting and Community. I was changed as a parent and as an educator as I conducted the interviews and brought to tears more than once in the process. I have found myself incorporating the different perspectives that were illuminated during the interviews each day.
Here are some highlights:
Identity: You are invited to examine your self-identity as a parent, to look at your associations with the role, clearing the path to walk with clear, honest intention to define and live this role as you mean it to be; not by default, or mindlessly recreating the worse from your own childhood. Dr. Christine Carter, PhD, of Raising Happiness, reminds us that our own happiness will affect the well-being of our children, and Sheryl Paul, MA, of Conscious-Transitions, reminds us to grieve the changes in our identity so as to embrace the new.
Sleep: This topic has inspired an entire section in every bookstore in the country! We offer tips from Elizabeth Pantley, of the No-Cry Sleep Solution, along with insights from other experts for solutions and a context within which to frame your expectations.
Feeding Your Children: This theme brings you exclusive ideas from Catherine McCord of http://www.Weelicious.com and the science of healthy nutrition from Dr. Linda Folden-Palmer, DC, and Dr. Jennifer Karon-Flores, DNM, helping you foster a healthy relationship to food for your children and to avoid what can become a battle ground.
Attachment: This section helps you create a secure a healthy attachment and sustain this connection beyond babyhood. Dr. Jay Gordon, MD, weighs in for infant attachment and Veronika Robinson of The Mother Magazine, and Dr. Laura Markham, PhD, offer wonderful perspectives.
Individuation: We will help you facilitate your child’s need for separation and autonomy and give you tools to honor your child’s full potential. Shajen Joy Aziz, M.Ed, of Discover the Gift, and Nathalie Kunin, M.Ed of Team Tutors, give concrete tips that will leave you feeling capable and inspired.
Conflict: Don’t parent your toddler without the seasoned expertise of Betsy Brown Braun, MA, of Just Tell Me What To Say, whispering in your ear. As well, Kim John Payne, M.Ed, brings his revolutionary ideas of simplification as an anecdote to some of children’s most perplexing dispositions.
Co-Parenting: I bring in the fathers for this section and Bill Stierle helps talk Dads off ledge when they want to blow their top. I also have therapists Carrie Dinow, LMT, Catherine DeMonte, LMT, and Hala Kouri, MA, offer guidance for effective communication, whether under one roof or two. The clarity and compassion we can demonstrate with our partners in parenting will be of the greatest impact for our children.
Community: This section has to do with building and sustaining community with other moms and children, within your extended family and as your young children find their place in school. Victoria Melgard, M.Ed, founder of Outside the Box Creative Academy lends a cutting edge perspective for children and education.
So, my friends, there it is, the Ultimate Parenting Course. I hope you will join our community and take part in this life-changing program. The Ultimate Parenting Course website is active with a free live teleclass each month featuring experts in the field, a blog with articles and tips and other free speaking engagements and events. It is our collective aim to help you integrate these tools to parent with love and consciousness, to teach, to live by example and to connect deeply with your children, your partner in parenting (together or separate,) and yourself. You can take charge of the emotional temperature of your family. You can help your family to thrive, not merely survive. You deserve the support and so do your children.
Jessica Williams created the Ultimate Parenting Course with a cadre of the best of today’s progressive parenting experts together in one online program. She maintains a private coaching practice in her native Los Angeles where she lives with her husband and their three children. http://www.LoveParentingLA.com and http://www.UltimateParentingCourse.com.