Question 1: What inspired you to become a parenting coach through The Jai Institute?

I had never considered coaching or parent coaching before. What started to turn my head was some of the reading that I’ve been doing in the last year or two. Books that were part of the Jai curriculum.

Like Brené Brown’s amazing book and also Alfie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting. I love that the program used some of these books that I was already reading.

Question 2: What obstacles or fears did you need to overcome to enroll in the training?

The main fear I had with enrolling is that, since my eldest daughter was born 7 years ago, I hadn’t been working full time and I wasn’t sure how it was going to look doing all of the research for the program and all of the graduation requirements for it while watching my kids full time.

That turned out to be a much more seamless process than I could have imagined, in part because of a lot of the tools we were trained in, I was immediately able to put into use. I had the ability to peacefully communicate with them, whether it was about my need to concentrate, or here their need for connection.

So the obstacle was addressed with the actual work... which came in handy for my training too.

Question 3: What was the best part of the training you received?

The opportunity to be a client before learning the techniques. Especially the part in the beginning where you’re delving into your parenting past and how you were parented.

It was super healing for me and gave me later on a lot of energy as a coach to be able to give that to my client because I had had that experience of it being such a game changer for me.

Question 4: How has this program impacted you and your family?

I think having the training and some of those tools at that time was such a lifesaver for us, especially now in the midst of the pandemic. Because we live in Queens, NY (which was for a long time the world's epicenter for Covid 19) what would have otherwise been an isolating, tension filled, emotional time was an opportunity for us to come together and to comfort each other and to hear each other clearly in terms of our fears.

Question 5: Tell me about your business, how are you using what you learned?

My primary focus sort of happened organically. I’ve been working a lot with POC and immigrant populations or 2nd generation Americans who have come from blended cultural backgrounds, people struggling to reconcile their traditions with this American life.

It's been really great demonstrating these to those parents these tools that are truly novel to a lot of people. It's sort of like fresh territory. In that sense it’s been a really exciting time. That’s been my niche and my contribution.

I’ve also reached out extensively to the homeschooling community because I’m also a homeschooler. Balancing being a teacher and a mom or a dad or a grandparent is really tricky.

Question 6: What are you most proud of accomplishing?

Putting myself out there and just being super vulnerable and honest on social media.

It’s not in my nature to market myself in any way. I really felt confident upon my graduation and certification to announce that Connected Kindred was here.

And that’s been just a really great change for me and it was a real confidence booster for my life.