Here is how it all started …

You might think my story started when I became a mom but it actually started way before that, when I myself was a child. You see, growing up I tried my best to live up to everyone’s expectations. I was a great student and ended up having what others considered a successful career. And so, my actions, knowledge or capabilities were seldom put into question. I was used to people trusting that I knew what I was doing and that I was capable of making good decisions.

That all drastically changed when I became a mom. I was still in the maternity ward, my son had just been born and I was already feeling judged by so many different people who had all sorts of advice and felt the need to tell me everything I was “doing wrong” in their perspective. Everyone was so focused on preventing me from “spoiling” a little baby who had just been born and was still scared of this new world. I knew in my heart that these were the worst advices I had ever heard in my life but the way they were said still felt so judgmental to me (“oh you can’t do that otherwise you will spoil him”).

Even complete strangers in the supermarket felt the need to stare at our struggles as new parents and make unkind remarks. I felt more judged in my son’s first month of life than I had felt my whole life before I became a mom.

I honestly started thinking I wasn’t made to be a mom, I just couldn’t deal with all the judgement. That on top of me feeling exhausted from the lack of sleep that my body wasn’t used to, and not having any time for even basic needs, like taking a bath, was really taking a toll on me.

I had to learn how to impose new boundaries with other people and step into this role of being a mom when I was around other people, which wasn’t easy for me.

But, although the nights were very long, somehow that first year went by really fast . As they say, the days are long and the years are so short…

Then, by the time my son was about 1 year old, we slowly started experiencing his first behavioral challenges and, with that, the ciriticism and judgement also started becoming more and more pronounced. I found it harder and harder to go out in public with my son. I dreaded every time he started a tantrum in public because of all the stares and unkind remarks from other people. It felt like everything my son did that was seen by others as “bad” behaviour was our fault as parents, and everything he did that was seen as “good” behaviour was because he was such a good kid.

And I also noticed that in my overwhelmed emotional state, I was becoming a screaming mom. There he was, the person I loved the most in the world, needing parental guidance and I was feeling so triggered that all I could do was scream “No” all the time. I didn’t want to be a screaming mom. I love my son, I wanted to be a mom that supports through love and connection, not someone my little kid was scared of in those moments he needed my help the most. I knew that he was dealing with new emotions and needed help navigating and understanding this new world he was starting to explore. But I was overwhelmed with my own emotions, I was tired and I didn’t know what else to do.

And all the judging and bad advice I was getting, was really bringing me to my limits. I wanted to raise my child with love and connection and people kept telling me things like “a slap on the wrist doesn’t hurt and they learn No” or “kids are naughty and they try and fool you, you can’t give in, otherwise you will spoil him”. I knew that this was all bad advice. I knew that I wanted to raise my son in a different way, I knew in my heart that he was just a baby needing love and guidance. But I also didn’t know what to do instead. And I just felt so judged and misunderstood all the time.

I felt like I wasn’t emotionally mature enough to be a mom, that I needed to work on my self-regulation and to learn alternative parenting strategies that would allow me to discipline with guidance and love instead of punishment and screaming.

So I decided to learn how to be a parent. I realized that I had spent all my life learning all sorts of things, but no one had actually ever taught me how to be a parent, which is, in my opinion, the most important job I’ll ever have in my life. And I found it surreal that parents are just supposed to know how to parent overnight as if, on the day we become parents, we were magically enlightened with an encyclopedia of knowledge on childhood development, children safety, SIDS and all the other million things that are involved with parenting a child. How aren’t we taught this in school?

I wanted to learn more about gentle parenting, childhood development and positive discipline because I had read a book on positive parenting during my pregnancy that I had really resonated with. So I decided to become certified as a Positive Discipline Early Childhood Educator by the Positive Discipline Association. I was not a kindergarten teacher and I didn’t need a certification because, by then, I only wanted to learn for myself, but the content of the training went exactly into the depth that I was looking for and was focused on very small children (0 to 6), so I signed up.

During the training we did an activity that was really an AHA moment for me which was about why we get triggered by children, what is going on inside of us and why. I felt like that was such a revealing experience about myself that I realized then, that I wanted to improve myself as a person and that working on myself was a very important part of me becoming the parent I wanted to be.

So I decided to became a certified encouragement consultant. Again I didn’t need a certification and I was not a therapist (the main target audience of the certification) but the content of the training was exactely what I was looking for, teaching us how to re-parent ourselves through positive discipline and Adlerian psychology as well as introspection exercises and social emotional learning tools for self-growth.

Afterwards I felt like positive discipline was my calling, this was what I wanted to do with my life. I always wanted to live a life with purpose and I always loved helping people by sharing my knowledge and experiences. And, most importantly, I knew I wanted to continue immersed into positive discipline every single day of my life to help me be the parent that I wanted to be.

So I decided to become a certified Positive Discipline Parent Educator so I could learn how to help other parents in their struggles and how to facilitate experiential classes that allow parents to really experience first hand the concepts that are being taught (because we all learn better by doing than by hearing about it).

Since then I’ve been coaching parents and teaching gentle parenting classes and workshops, personal growth classes as well as teaching toddlers and preschoolers social emotional learning classes .

My quest for learning continues growing with my child and so I’m constantly researching, improving my knowledge and working on myself. During this last year I’ve been studying to become an accredited mindfulness teacher for children.

So you might be asking yourself, “After all this learning, did you stop feeling judged?” No… But now I know how to self-regulate myself, I know how to ignore the noise of all the “advice” and focus on what I know is the right way to parent my child.

And you can too! I know you are doubting yourself “I can’t do this”, “what if they are right and I am spoiling my child?”, “It’s just too hard”.

And I know you love your child more than anything in the world and that you want to parent though love and connection, you don’t think your child is evil or deceitful, you know they are loving and kind and just little kids who need love and guidance.

I’m here to help you, you can do this! You just need support, encouragement and the right tools.

Come join me!

Cristina