Jodie Thornton with a welcoming smile, curly grey hair, wearing a navy shirt with a gold necklace.
Hot pink script font that says "Hi, I'm Jodie."

I help you raise kids with the emotional awareness and communication skills they need to build a strong sense of who they are and have healthy relationships.

You want your child to be able to handle their big feelings without tantrums, hitting or not listening.

When you manage to stay calm, it doesn’t work. 

When you don’t manage to stay calm it’s worse AND you feel awful that your triggers are impacting your child.

Whether punishments, consequences or coercion will work for your child or not is irrelevant because you don’t want to do anything that invalidates your child’s feelings.

Or makes them feel like they are not enough, are a bad person, or to feel unheard or unseen.

Mostly because you don’t want them to need to unpack all of that later.

But also because you want them to want to have a close relationship with you.

Not out of obligation, but because with you they can be their whole selves.

Seen, accepted and adored for who they are.

I’m SO glad you’re here.

When your child is aware of their emotions and articulate them, life gets so much better for them… and for you. 

I teach parents how to respond to tantrums, hitting and not listening in a way that builds their chidren’s emotional awareness and communication skills. 

Expressing their feelings before they get overwhelmed so they have fewer, shorter tantrums. 

Constructive ways to handle their feelings so they don’t lash out physically. 

Cooperating because you and your kids are a team. 

My approach helps you recognise what your individual child needs in the specific moment you’re in.

Practical, realistic, values aligned.

I won’t give you a set of rigid rules to follow or require you to be 100% consistent.

We want our children to be able to be flexible and adapt to whatever is happening in their lives. Rather than make everything fixed, regardless of how everyone involved feels, we go with the flow and show the kids how to do that too.

I’ll help you build the tools to be able to read what your child needs from you and make decisions that are appropriate for your family in the moment you’re in.

I don’t require you to get your partner, ex or any other adult in your child’s life to be “on the same page”.

You’ll be teaching your children emotional awareness and communication skills and they can use these skills with everyone in their life, regardless of whether the other person also has the skills. 

They can use these skills as day care, school, with their other parent, siblings and extended family. 

My approach is consistent with gentle, respectful, conscious and peaceful parenting. 

You are not parenting in a vacuum.

A realistic and practical approach includes recognising the circumstances you and your child are in, the impact of any unhealed trauma you have, the level of support you have and allows you to be imperfect while you practice new skills.

There is ALWAYS another way to achieve the same parenting goal. 

So if an approach takes more time than you have, requires you to be a level of zen that you haven’t yet achieved, touches on your triggers, or doesn’t work for your family for any other reason we will just find another way.

I can help you build the skills you need to be able to parent your children in the way that they need and in a way that is achievable for you as an individual. One step at a time.

Confident, Connected Parenting

Confident, Connected Parenting is a group course to help you make the shift into the parent you want to be.

In Confident, Connected Parenting you’ll learn how to:

  • keep your cool when they’re just being kids, with a strategy better than deep breaths,
  • help them express their big feelings
  • help them build healthy skills for handling conflict,
  • help them process when things don’t go well so they don’t carry it as baggage, and
  • handle your own triggers so they don’t impact your parenting.

The course includes video modules as well as live calls so you can come and talk through how your children respond because we all know how frustrating it is when you’re following the instructions but the kids don’t respond like the “book” says they will.

What do you need help with today?

Supporting Kids Through Tantrums

  • How to use your words, tone of voice and body language to help your child calm down from a tantrum without invalidating their feelings

  • How to not have your own tantrum when they’re having theirs

Register for the next live Supporting Kids Through Tantrums Webinar here

Help Your Child Stop Hitting

  • Help your child express their feelings without lashing out
  • Practical strategies to use when they hit to validate their feelings while supporting them to choose a different behaviour

Watch the Help Your Child Stop Hitting webinar here

Getting Strong-Willed Kids to Listen

  • What is going on for strong-willed kids when they refuse to listen
  • How to ask in a way that gives them the best chance to listen
  • How to keep your cool when they don’t

Watch the Getting Strong-Willed Kids to Listen webinar here