Katherine Winter-Sellery is one of the nation’s foremost parenting experts, having created the Guidance Approach to Parenting, a program that applies conflict resolution skills to communicate more effectively within oneself and with children and others. These days this may well be more important to me than ever, and why her book ‘7 Strategies To Keep Your Relationship With Your Kids From Hitting The Boiling Point’ has been a hit with readers and reviewers.
In this groundbreaking book she addresses the key aspects that every parent should know. Winter-Sellery’s expertise has been featured on Atlanta & Co, Fox31 Denver, 4CBS Denver, CBS8 San Diego and has been a guest on over 20 podcasts. This book is the must read of the season, and beyond, destined to help parents thrive.
Recently we caught up with Winter-Sellery to find out more about this brilliant author, and her trailblazing work.
What are your thoughts on the long-term effects of the global pandemic as it relates to children?
Because I have been in HK for the last 32 years I am in the rare situation of being able to say this is my third pandemic. In March 2003 there was SARS, then in 2005 it was the Bird Flu year, then in late 2019 COVID-19 hit. The first two impacted Asia a lot, but less so the rest of the world. HK people automatically started wearing masks and changing their behavior when COVID-19 hit because they had been seasoned to know how to limit transmission from their previous experience. It was surprising how mask mandates became issues of civil liberty rather than a simple step to protect public health and limit transmission.
I am seeing all sorts of things with the parents that I am supporting during the pandemic. Some of the kids are having a lot of trouble going back to school, they actually found zooming a lot easier than in class, others are the opposite and they needed the structure of the classroom to stay on task and to learn. I have heard there are unprecedented numbers returning to the classrooms and failing. It is evidence that the pivot to online learning didn’t work for a lot of children. Schools that step back and realize that they may need to reteach all that material that they thought was being delivered over zoom effectively and now are discovering it didn’t land for a lot of kids (through no fault of theirs or the kids) it just has to be retaught before the next building block can be added. This is one example of the fall out.
One of the points you mentioned in your book ‘7 Strategies to Keep Your Relationship with Your Kids From Hitting The Boiling Point’ deals with empowering children through a warm parent – child relationship. Are those skills something that you teach parents in your 90 Day Parenting Reset Group Coaching program and if so, what are some ways that people can schedule an appointment with you?
Yes, it is. Children would rather have negative attention than no attention! Then a whole dance develops around parents getting mad and everything escalating. The best way for parents to get to the front side of their parenting issues is to schedule a complimentary half an hour parenting breakthrough call with me. Here is the link to use: https://calendly.com/parenting-reset-team/parenting-discovery-call-eb
If there was one word that could describe the ‘Conscious Parenting Revolution’ what would it be and why?
EMPOWERING – one of the dads in my program said “I finally feel like an adult, I am no longer falling apart when my daughter is in meltdown”. I love empowering parents to feel secure in their ability to respond to high emotion in their children and not get triggered. To have all the tools they need to respond to situations they aren’t okay with and create behavioral changes without it costing them closeness or triggering retaliation, rebellion and resistance in their kids. Empowering them to create family systems that model for their children how to listen to each other and take one another’s perspectives into consideration instead of simply demanding compliance. A lot of parents have no idea how to do this because it wasn’t modeled for them in their own family of origin. It matters because Children Are People Too, their lacks of skills isn’t a punishable offence it’s a teachable moment. The more I can support parents empowerment they more they can support their children’s empowerment.
