Parenting is the most important, rewarding, frustrating, and challenging job anyone can do and yet is the one few of us ever get any preparation for.  We invest in everything except learning the skills in raising happy, confident and well-balanced children.

The speed, pressure and stress of modern living means we never seem to have enough time, we live in a culture of having it all and having it NOW and our children face the dangers of Internet chat rooms, exposure to recreational drugs, binge drinking and casual sex. They spend vast amounts of time in front of screens—PlayStation, the Wii, social media sites and  the computer and despite an abundance of other things they could do, they always appear bored.

There is little preparation for parenting through these different times other than drawing on our own childhood memories and experiences and it’s possible that your memories of how you were brought up are not ones that you want to repeat with your own children.

There are many, many theories, experts and books out there giving wonderful advice for raising children but I think they overlook one crucial thing – every family is different, unique and special and my perspective as a Parent Coach, is to support you in discovering that all the answers lie within you.

My expertise and professional skill is to help you bring your answers to the surface and help you gain clarity, direction and confidence in your parenting, in a non-judgmental, confidential and non-critical environment.

My Vision

My passion and vision is to help create harmonious family relationships so that children can grow up with true self-belief and self-esteem and can develop into confident, responsible, well-balanced adults able to become whatever they want in life – unique and special in their own way.

We all do our very best as parents, but sometimes we can’t see the wood for the trees because it is our life! As you know, kids don’t come with a handbook and if they did would we really read it, unless we suddenly needed to?

I believe that parenting needn’t be full of battles, hopelessness, despair, exasperation, guilt, failure and distress. You might be reading this book because you’re thinking of starting a family or you are interested in picking up some new ideas or you are going through a time of change and transition but whatever your reasons I believe you want to do a great job or you’ve done a great job up to now but perhaps you need to just get the bounce back into your relationships or you want to feel more in the driving seat and back in control of your family life again.

Remember   We’re all in the same boat. Parenting comes as a bit of a shock to all of us at some times in our parenting lives. It can be a real rollercoaster of emotions and challenges!

My book is designed to help you on your journey and adventure to becoming the best parent you can be. I really hope it brings your family closer together and makes a positive difference in your lives.

I’ve written the book from a Parent Coaching perspective which means I often ask open ended questions to get you to think about your own family and to make decisions based on your own situations. I have written the book with an interactive feel to it so you can fill in your own ideas. It is not meant to be prescriptive but more a new approach to looking at your relationships and hopefully offering you new and varied strategies to deal with them.

At  times I offer you advice  based on  widely acknowledged  universally agreed parenting  skills regarded as good practise but I also offer my own experience as a Deputy Head and class teacher of 22 years.

My book is to help you become the best parent you can be, passionate about your parenting, committed to your family relationships and confident in your skills so read it in any order that you want. But if you read Chapter 2 first then it will give you a great place to start from as it gives you the overview to your parenting – the destination if you like, to the whole experiences and it put things nicely into perspective. So it could be a great place to launch yourself from.

But after that, you can decide the order in which you read the chapters so you make the book as personally relevant to you and your family as you want. You are in control which is what this book is all about really.

Parenting can feel overwhelming so don’t try and make too many drastic changes all at the same time – so relax, have fun and enjoy your parenting journey and feel free to pass my book on to all your friends – as alone we can do so little – but together we can do so much and your job of raising happy, confident kids is a REALLY important one !