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The Lifeline

So you say you're feeling overwhelmed by this whole parenting thing? Your child is intense, strong-willed, has big emotions, and you are just hanging on? Or maybe they are slow to warm up and getting them to do anything new feels like a struggle... Wherever you are, it can feel isolating when everyone around you seems to have it so easy. And they're so full of advice, but it just doesn't work for your child. Welcome, friend. The Lifeline is my weekly-ish email for parents just like you. You are not alone, and you don't have to grit your teeth and just get through it. You can change the dynamic within your family. You can reclaim your life. One day at a time. One email at a time. I can't wait for you to join us.

Featured Post

Rules, rules, rules

Hello Reader, So much I do as a parent goes against "the rules."You can find whole books written about the rules.You can find rules for every aspect of childhood and parenting.More important than following them, in my mind, is questioning them.Question the validity and the necessity.Question who wrote them and what their intention was.Do it even for the things you have always engraved as givens.Do it because you value your relationship with your child and their mental health over...

Hello Reader, I'm sending you this email from a new email address - [email protected]. You might want to add it to your contacts to make sure you're it doesn't go to your junk folder. But that's just housekeeping. The real reason I'm writing today is to share something that happened with my daughter recently and how we worked through it. It's a fantastic example of coaching and being coachable, and it illustrates exactly why I love what I do. These principles work for kids and...

Hello Reader, I'm thinking about all of you raising siblings this morning. When you are raising siblings and one of them (or more!) brings intensity to the table, it is natural to think about how it impacts the others. They need more of your attention, so you worry about the others getting less. They disrupt the flow of family life, so you worry about the way it will impact the others. And the others tell you it's not fair. They question what you're doing. They want things to change. And you...

Hello Reader, It's 7:06 AM. I have no idea how much time I have, but I know I need to start somewhere. I've been practicing what I preach and honoring this transition back to homeschooling with space. But if I'm honest, there's been a creeping fear of saying the wrong thing. It's been small, but steady, and it's been easier just to stay quiet than to say my world has been fundamentally rearranged. I didn't want anyone to question it. I didn't want sympathy either. I wanted celebration. And...

Hello Reader, Recently I saw a comment on a facebook ad asking what to do for their sensitive child who was having trouble with school. According to the commenter, the teacher was trying to fit their child into a box of conformity. One person responeded, "homeschool." Then someone called them out for being privileged. Then, the coach who published the ad said something about there being no need to homeschool because you can help your child be more resilient and thrive in that environment by...

Hello Reader, This isn’t a typical podcast, but then, this hasn’t been a typical month for us. I took an unplanned break from recording new episodes, and I wanted to take the time today to share a little bit about what’s been going on for us and why a break was necessary. Going forward, I will publish occasional podcast episodes, but they definitely won’t be weekly. Make sure you are subscribed to the podcast and receiving notifications for new episodes so you don’t miss out when I do release...

I get so many random offers from people who want to "fix" my business "problems." Problems that they think exist but I don't because I'm running a different kind of business and they simply don't understand. My business is built on relationships, is small by design, and accommodates different financial situations. My business prioritizes my life, my family, and allows me to homeschool - instead of hustle. I'm not here to make millions, and I'm certainly not interested in impressing the...

Reader, January is typically a busy month around here. We're coming out of the holiday season and diving straight into my daughter's birthday. This year, January has been a month of transition. After two four-day weeks at school, schools in our area were cancelled for a week due to weather conditions. So we stayed home. It was like another winter break, and it brought with it another transition back to school. It also gave us another chance to observe our daughter living life without school...

🎵🎵Mmm hmmm I want to lingerMm hmmm a little longerMm hmm a little longer here with you... 🎵🎵 Reader The years are going by, and I am leaning hard into savoring.These moments.The relationships I've made on this journey.All of it.I see so many more posts from parent coaches these days than I did when I started.And with that, so much playing to the machine that is social media.There is a push for any creator to keep creating, more, more, more.I've felt it. I've given in to it. I am not...

Reader, I think one of the biggest mistakes we've made as a society is trying to standardize childhood.Standardized curricula.Testing.Parenting classes.Behavior plans.Children are not homogeneous.They don't come with manuals, and there isn't a single best approach that will meet everyone's needs.We're running in circles trying to make the individual fit the collective, searching for the right way, looking for answers, and all the while forgetting...The answer was in front of us the whole...