About Me
I am not a psychologist or therapist who has worked with families struggling with their children. I am a person who has been thinking about how children are treated since I was a child myself. I have worked with many, many children and people with behavior difficulties over the years. From these experiences, I have worked out my own way of reading and understanding what people are communicating with their behavior.
There is no particular proof that what I suggest works, but neither does any other method of dealing with and understanding children. What’s important is that as many good ideas are bandied about as possible. Parents and people who work with children can try different things to see if they work or even help some.
I often felt that the methods used to raise children were harsher than they needed to be, and sometimes created more problems than they solved. When I became a foster parent, I was astounded at how difficult even very young kids could be. The children I cared for had dealt with far more trauma than any child should, and they showed their internal conflicts in extremely challenging behaviors. Some of these children would climb on counters to get food, lock childcare providers out of the house, refuse to follow any rules, whip toys at other children, trip children intentionally, molest and sexually abuse other children, destroy property, throw tantrums, hurt themselves, and more. To manage these kids, I went through a whole repertoire of behavior management methods commonly used, but none seemed to solve the issues on a consistent basis and in a respectful manner. Drawing upon my years of working with children in a number of settings and my education in psychology, I developed an approach that seemed to work consistently and effectively with troubled and more fortunate children.
I began my work understanding the problem sides of human behavior when I worked as a Crisis Support Counselor for Help for Abused Women and their Children (HAWC) while working on a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology at Hampshire College. With my A.S. in Sign Language Interpreting, I also interpreted for the Deaf on a freelance basis for over ten years in numerous settings and recently left a job as a high school teacher for Deaf students at Willie Ross School for the Deaf. My wide range of experience with parents and children has given me the benefit of understanding the challenges children can face physically, emotionally, and mentally. It is from such comprehensive exposure that I designed my three-step process for managing child behavior based on the utmost respect and kindness.
To share my ideas with the public, I have published an article about my parenting concepts in Parents for Parents magazine and have written news articles, editorials, and personal pieces for the Daily Hampshire Gazette. I continue to write about parenting topics and other topics while teaching writing online through Axia College of the University of Phoenix.