Parenting was hard for me too.
Hi. I’m Kathy. I invite you to take a brief rest stop. Whatever else is going on in your life - right here…right now…there is just this breath.
I know you have a story that has brought you to this point. I look forward to hearing it.
My stories are the threads that weave together the fabric of who I am now and how I am able to help parents in situations that have felt quite hopeless to them, as mine did.
Story #1 My Son Comes Out to Me After Pizza
It’s 15 years ago. It’s yesterday. My 19 year old and I have just walked the three blocks back from our weekly date sharing pizza and dripping garlic knots at Rosa’s. We pause in front of the brick stoop of our Queens apartment and he says, This is hard to tell you, but I know you’d want to know. And then he comes out to me - as much as he understands himself at that moment. In that moment, he includes me in his process and I remain closely included as he goes through his transition over the following years.
Would you be surprised to know that 6 months earlier, I had a kid who would barely talk to me? He would hide in his room and be like a brick wall when I’d try to get through to him. A single parent of three I’d been struggling with these confusing, disruptive and overwhelming behaviors since he’d been in 3rd grade.
By the time he was 19, I was on the brink of losing my relationship with him.
Things turned around 180˚ when I found the right support and came to understand that his oppositional, withdrawn, non-communicative (fill in the blank) behavior was his best attempt to communicate his own stress, anxiety and overwhelm. They were clues.
I built a bridge back to his heart and changed my own reactive patterns of taking his behavior personally. Hope replaced fear and helplessness. I experienced first hand, the miracle of relationship repair that is wired into being human.
Behavior Is Communication
I needed to understand the science behind this miracle. I was already a nurse, a dancer, an EFT practitioner and Family Constellations facilitator.
Now I began to voraciously study the connection between physiology, brain development, trauma, attachment theory, self-regulation and a child’s behavior, from experts in the field like Bruce Perry, Peter Levine, Bessel Van der Kolk, Karen Purvis, Bryan Post and Heather Forbes.
Story #2 I Felt the Rug Pulled Out From Under Me
It’s 32 years ago. My newborn is 10 days old when my marriage falls apart. It’s like the rug has been pulled out from under me. We also have a 3-year-old and a 9-year-old and I find myself feeling overwhelmed, and alone. I cry a lot and tell the kids I have allergies. Two years later I would become a single parent.
Developing Resilience
Unlike, back then, I have now come to understand how important it is to avoid a disconnect between a child’s felt sense experience and what they’re hearing from the grown ups. I understand it in my own body from my own childhood.
I’m passionate about teaching parents how to be honest about their emotions in an age-appropriate way. It models healthy emotional well-being and helps their kids feel safe with their own big feelings. They learn to trust themselves. Rather than developing unhealthy coping skills, a child gets to develop healthy regulation skills, and emotional resilience.
Children Are Born Hard-Wired for Connection
Children are born hard-wired for connection. It’s their survival. You, the parent or caregiver, are biologically given the job of being the connection that installs the software for resilience. This is the science behind why I work with the parents and caregivers rather than with the kids to create change at home. I call it a Parent-Centric approach. It allows you to become your own best parenting tool.
Story #3 Surprise! Poly…
It’s two years ago. I find myself with out-of-control anxiety from being thrust unexpectedly into non-consensual non-monogamy by my partner. I feel confused and begin to question and blame myself, accommodate my partner and ignore my own needs and gut signals. In this compromised state, I am unable to speak up for what I want and need. I am about to have a reckoning with the insecure attachment patterns of a lifetime.
It took me a good part of the following year working with an experienced trauma coach to climb out of the fog, and find myself - not again, but in a new way. Through the attunement of that therapeutic relationship, the anxious, insecure attachment patterns of my childhood were slowly replaced by new patterns of more secure attachment. In essence it felt like my nervous system got re-wired.
In the Driver's Seat of My Own Emotions
Through this experience, I learned how to self-regulate when “triggered” in a way that put me in the driver’s seat of my own emotions like never before. I was able to let go of a relationship that didn’t serve me and create the possibility of making different choices about future relationships based on shared values and healthy attachment.
Story #5 I Wake Up This Morning...
and I know all three of my adult kids are doing well in their lives. My relationship with each one of them is outstanding and beautiful and unique. I feel incredibly fortunate. At the same time we have had to seriously work to get here and I have had to do the ongoing work on myself to be who I needed to be for that to happen. My kids have shown me that repair and closer connection is possible at any time and at any age. They are the reason I do this work with you.
My 6 year old and 8 month old grandsons make my heart dance every day and provide the much needed on the ground continued training!