New Parent Groups

Set the right course at the beginning.

howConfidence in parents is essential for raising confident children.

As a school counselor and principal for over 20 years, I have dealt with my share of worried and frustrated parents.

I have become obsessed with providing brand new parents with a toolbox of skills and roadmap to set the course for becoming a credible and confident parent.

You can’t discipline a baby, or can you?

Did you know you can start teaching your baby self-discipline as early as six months old?

Your six-month-old just threw his sippy cup off his high chair tray for the third time. What do you do?

Most parents will repeatedly pick up the sippy cup and return it to their baby.

This is a missed opportunity to teach your baby that her actions have consequences. Have you ever thought of saying to your baby in a neutral tone of voice, “When you hold on to your sippy cup, you get to keep it. When you throw your sippy cup, I will put it in the sink.”

The goal is to raise children to become independent adults.

Parents need to teach their children important skills like problem-solving so that they can become eventually independent adults. Too many parents seek to rescue their children when they become frustrated because it is hard to see one’s child struggle. 

Even babies can learn how to soothe themselves, allowing them to manage powerful feelings (without blowing up) as adults.

Toddlers can learn self-discipline and how to push themselves to solve hard problems without throwing a tantrum.

While parents may find it hard to watch their children struggle, the act of mastering a challenge is exactly how children learn that they are capable of solving difficult problems. Mastering a challenge is also what builds a child’s confidence. The more often children can successfully work through challenges the more capable they will feel about handling themselves in new situations.  

Learn to model the right response to conflict.

Parents can teach their children through their modeling that conflict is not something to avoid. Instead, conflict is a necessary part of life; with good communication skills, a peaceful resolution of a dispute becomes easier.

Children can also be taught through clear and consistent messages that risk and failure are necessary aspects of the learning process.

Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and ‘no’ be ‘no.’

Most importantly, I want children to view their parents as credible, so they accept that “no means no.”

Children need to have respect for the humans who brought them into this world.

All of this is possible if parents teach these skills to their children right from the start.

Join a support group for new parents and their babies.

Having a new baby is like falling in love again. It is amazing!  Yet, because you love your baby so much, you freak out when she cries and you cannot get her stop.  In this group for new parents, you will learn how to soothe your baby and more importantly, you will learn how to teach her to how to calm herself down.  You will also learn how to teach your baby how to sleep for longer periods of time, and by three months, how to sleep through the night.  Yes, this is possible and you can practice the skills you learn along side of other new moms or dads just like you!

New parents struggle madly with decision-making related to their new baby.

Should we let him cry or pick him up? Should we keep the baby in our room or her crib?

When should we take away the “Binkie”? Does holding a baby too much “spoil” her?

And who is there to answer these questions?

The secondary benefit of joining a parenting group with your baby is that you develop a group of friends that are all navigating this maze called parenting. In my new parenting groups, participants typically stay friends and keep meeting long after the group has ended.

So what else will happen? The babies will grow up and have a friend group, too!

Gritty Therapy Works for New Parents

I am a certified “Happiest Baby on the Block” trainer and a Sleep Training specialist.

Text me at (949) 300-4623 to join.

Parenting is hard, but we can do hard things!