Welcome to
Peaceful Parent

 

For pro-active parents and educators who want the very best for their children.  Peaceful Parenting courses offers both useful tips and skills, as well as emotional support for parents. 

• Active listening skills
• Conflict resolution skills
• Positively deal with children's defiance
• Set clear limits without creating conflict
• Why a democratic approach works better than authoritarian or permissive approaches
• Help your child overcome fears and anxieties
• Support them to resist peer pressure

Learn what it means to parent in a kind, calm and peaceful manner, while maintaining strong, clear and fair boundaries for your children. 

Genevieve and Dan Simperingham run Peaceful Parent as a team. They offer courses and coaching to parents, teenagers and educators. Genevieve is a certified Aware Parenting Instructor. The Aware Parenting Institute was founded by Dr. Aletha Solter and has certified instructors in many countries. Genevieve is the only one in New Zealand at present. Dan has a Post Grad. Diploma in psychosocial studies and is currently training to be a psychosynthesis psychotherapist. Dan has worked in mental health. As well as Dan's teamwork with Genevieve, he also runs camps for teenagers with another educator and assists once a year on "Pathways to Manhood", a Rite of Passage camp for teenage boys.

The Parenting Journey

Parenting is an incredibly rich, deep and rewarding journey. It is a journey that opens the heart in new ways, a journey that's ever changing, a journey of growth and discovery. Just as the pregnant mum's belly begins to stretch and grow, parent's emotions, self image and self understanding begins to stretch and grow right from the beginning and most parents find that the stretching, growing and changing never really ends.

Parenting is easy when we're attuned to our child
Most parents think and hope from the beginning that their love and dedication to their child will lead and guide them through each step of the journey and to a large extent that is true. When our heart is open and we are attuned (in tune) with our child, incredible wisdom comes forth effortlessly and we marvel in the joys of giving our child what it is that they need to thrive.

The challenges of parenting
However, the challenges of parenting, which are immense, also can bring forward huge feelings of frustration, self doubt and confusion. The responsibility of this precious little human's life being in your hands and the pressure to get it right can weigh heavily on parents and bring up worries and fears. The demands of needing to give so much of our time, energy, focus and head space to our child when there are also so many other places we need and want to focus our attention and head space can cause parents to feel incredibly torn and stressed.

The grief that accompanies change and the new
Parents often find that so many of the things and relationships that brought them so much happiness and fulfillment in their lives previously have been pushed out of their lives because of the 24/7 nature of parenting. The differences in opinion between yourself and your partner, family or friends about what is right for your child can bring up a lot of difficult emotions and even painful rifts for parents. And these issues are only the beginning, we haven't even started with cultural and racial differences or bringing our children up in a world whose future seems so uncertain.

Accessing heart centred information and support
If you are interested in gaining more information and support in the journey of identifying and healing some of the stronger and more difficult emotions that the extremely challenging job of parenting can bring up for you, you've come to the right place. We understand that the journey of becoming the best parent that you can be and want to be and the journey of personal development cannot be separated.

What we offer: We offer courses and coaching. Click here for more information on our courses; 2 hour talks, one day seminars, longer one day "healing family patterns" days and "healing your birth and early childhood" weekend intensive retreats. We also offer Parenting Consultations in person or by Phone or Skype. We also sell Genevieve's guided meditation
CD's to bring healing, peace and release to stressed parents and caregivers. We also offer an email service, where you can send three questions and have them answered by email in return.

Personal Development workshops and individual sessions: Many people who realize how essential it is for them to develop the ability to interact calmly and confidently to their children's strong emotions are committing themselves to the healing of their early childhood patterns. These parents, teachers and caregivers are committed to providing for their children an environment of true emotional safety and have realized that to respond in a more calm and attuned manner to their children, they need to heal their own unmet emotional needs and wounds from childhood and life in general.

How can parents meet their own emotional needs?
For most parents, they just don't get enough emotional support along the way and yet can often feel like they're expected to perform at their best at all times despite their frustrations, restrictions, hurts and confusion. The approaches that we put forward on this site and through our courses and other resources are for parents who want to heal themselves, heal their child, heal their family and even take it further to bring healing to their family tree.

Democratic Parenting - a more holistic, more balanced approach
Many parents are realizing that they need to adopt a more holistic perspective to all aspects of their lives including their parenting. Many parents want to learn how they can get the balance between being strong, clear and confident and remaining calm, caring and loving. There is a healthy balanced approach to parenting that is neither permissive nor authoritarian, but brings forth some of the positive qualities of each and is in fact a new model of parenting that many parents haven't encountered before.

Respect for your child's feelings and boundaries
If you're on the road to learning more about parenting, gaining new perspectives on parenting, learning good quality parenting tips and exploring attachment parenting, you've come to the right place. If you're interested in learning or developing parenting techniques that are based on positive communication skills, respect for your child's feelings and boundaries and generally parenting approaches that foster peace, trust, harmony and mutual co-operation in your family, again, you've come to the right place.

The big picture
Developing a holistic approach to parenting means solving the little annoying day to day issues you have with your child by stepping back and looking for the big picture patterns. To do this means to take a few deep breaths and refrain from shouting, threatening or punishing your child in any way, and instead own and rise above your anger and frustration. Despite your frustration, choose to come into closer relationship with your child when they act out.

When they act out - they need you to re-connect
Rather than responding with anger or coldness, try coming down to their level, becoming calmly focused on their feelings and telling them that you can see that they are really frustrated and that you want to help them. On a day to day basis, begin to practice observing, more objectively, how you treat their children and start to become more aware of the messages that you are giving your child and how these messages impact on the child's relationship with you, with their self and with others.

The Quick Fix versus the Peaceful approach
The comparison of the two approaches can be compared with the "treat the symptom" (unhealthy behaviour) versus the "treat the cause" (the child's need for emotional connection) approaches. In a parent's busy day to day life, it's easy to fall into the trap of focusing exclusively on what they don't like about their child's behaviour and then aiming to change that behaviour through threats or punishments (e.g. withdrawal of attention). In fact, the majority of parenting advice currently available still advocates these outdated approaches.

When a parent responds to their child in an impatient way, as opposed to slowing down and really listening to and attuning to their child's feelings, they often miss a lot of vitally important information relating to how their child is really feeling, what was their real intention behind their behaviour and why they are feeling the way they are. However, if a parent views their child's "misbehaviour" as being symptomatic of unmet needs and consequently a cry for help to us, then parent will choose a very different response. When a parent sees "misbehaviour" as a symptom of the child being out of balance, the parent naturally asks themselves the question, "how can I help my child deal with those difficult feelings and come back to feeling at peace with themselves and others?".

We may miss many of the gems and insights we can gain through asking questions like "what does my child really need to come back into balance".

Who and how we see our child largely tells them "this is who you are, this is how you are"
When a parent says that their child "has always been a .... child", always, their child knows they think that. Even if the parent never says it out loud, the message comes through. Also, the words you speak to your child are constantly programming your child, you are etching into their minds the beliefs, patterns and ways of behaving that will probably stay with them throughout their lives. To heal our hurts and resentments towards our children, we must heal the "inner child", we must release our unresolved leftover hurts from childhood. Choosing not to heal these patterns, is choosing to pass those patterns on to your child.

Skills for Life: We all want our children to be the children, the teenagers and eventually the adults who can stay calm, logical, open minded and fair in the face of challenges and conflicts in life. We want our children to be able to communicate their thoughts and feelings clearly and equally listen to the thoughts and feelings of others and calmly work through difficulties and confusions until a fair resolution is reached. We don't want them to be the child, teenager or adult who impatiently skips the process of communication that might eventually lead to clarity and resolution, but instead insist that it's their way or the highway or simply walk away without ever learning how to resolve their issues with others. We don't want them to be the kind of person who uses their anger to intimidate others to bend to their will. We don't want our child to be the kind of person who wins favours through bribes, threats or punishments.

Children do as we do, not as we say: The kind of person we hope that they will become as an adult is the kind of person we need to learn to be as a parent with them and for them, not just when they're happy and co-operative, but even more so when conflict arises, because that is when they're hurt and need us the most.

This website offers a very balanced approach to disciplining and setting clear limits with your children in a way that still honors your child's feelings and emotional needs.

On our seminars, parents learn how they can strengthen their bond with their child, while adopting a more therapeutic approach to dealing with their child’s strong emotions and, just as importantly, their own emotional reactions to their child.  Most of the time, the mood between parent and child is the main factor in determining a child’s “good” or “bad” behaviour.

Adopting a punishment free approach to parenting is a key factor in establishing a stronger bond and maintaining a positive, caring and nurturing mood between parent and child.  On the courses, parents learn what it means to be a peaceful parent, while maintaining strong and clear boundaries for their children.  

Parent Coaching I can help you with the specific issues you have in your family. You can describe the problems you are facing and answer a few questions about the history and I can help you learn some new approaches that will bring greater harmony to your child, to you and the whole family. Coaching can arranged by phone (which I pay for), skype or in person if you live in my area, which is Northland, New Zealand.

Who are we? Hi! My name is Genevieve Simperingham. Myself and my husband Dan run parenting courses, talks and weekend self-healing workshops together. We have two beautiful children, Oisin (pronounced Osheen) who is 12 and Ayesha who is 7.

Our background: Before becoming parents, we had already been running Personal Development workshops for a few years, so our main aim was to always support, rather than repress, our children's emotions and also to keep a strong focus on clean and clear boundaries within our family. We were already immersed in a world of helping adults re-parent themselves in healthier and kinder ways than most people experienced as children. Having the privilege of being right there with an adult who exposes the intense painful feelings they felt as a child when they were emotionally alone or silenced is very profound and each experience opens the heart to the pain that human beings carry that relates back to the emotional vulnerability of the parent child relationship.

We are passionate about helping adults learn how to stay in relationship with their children in a healthy way as they work through the inevitable conflicts and differences of opinion that are normal and happen all the time in relationships of all kinds. The skills that we teach allow the bond to ever deepen between the parent and their child.

Genevieve is a certified Aware Parenting Instructor. The Aware Parenting Institute was founded by Dr. Aletha Solter and has certified instructors in many countries. Genevieve is the only one in New Zealand at present. Dan has a Post Grad. Diploma in psychosocial studies and is currently training to be a psychosynthesis psychotherapist. He works in mental health.

I am an Irish woman. I grew up on a farm in the South East of Ireland with my parents, four brothers and four sisters! Dan is a New Zealander and we have been living in New Zealand since 2000. I am a Group Facilitator, a Certified Aware Parenting Instructor, an Energy Healing and a Holistic Counsellor.  For over fifteen years I have been presenting workshops, seminars and courses, as well as running a private healing and coaching practice for adults and children.  

Some of my areas of expertise (and passion!) are teaching positive parenting skills, healing relationship patterns, conflict resolution skills and communication skills, supporting clients in their journey of recovery from childhood conditioning (including abuse and trauma) and the healing of pre-natal and birth traumas.  On the parenting courses that I run, with the assistance of my husband Dan, I offer parents the benefit of my experience from my years of facilitating inner child work with adults.  One thing my clients have taught me is that it's never too late to have a happy childhood, but the earlier it happens the better!

Over my years of facilitating courses and weekend retreats since 1993, I have run over 120 weekends in addition to regularly running one day seminars, giving evening talks and teaching meditation.

Below: Picture of Genevieve and Dan's son, Oisin, after performing with his Circus Skills Group

 

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Info and resources   A peaceful, practical and therapeutic approach to parenting.   Positive Parenting Skills as effective alternatives to punishments, threats or bribes

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Sharda Retreat Centre Click here for upcoming Weekend Residential Self Healing Retreats facilitated by Genevieve and Dan