Hi, I'm Alison
I'm a mom and I support families using connection based tools from Hand in Hand Parenting. I've studied Psychology and Sociology at the University of Toronto, and I'm a Certified Hand in Hand Parenting Instructor.
Years ago when my daughter turned two and experienced terrible meltdowns and anxiety around sleep, I felt triggered and helpless. I searched endlessly until I found 5 wonderful behavioural tools that changed everything.
Through these tools I was able to help my daughter become a confident, loving, and empathetic child who listens and cooperates beautifully.
From there I was hooked on learning everything there was to know about child behaviour.
With all my heart, my mission is to help parents raise children who make the world a better place.
With me as your coach, you can build positive parenting foundations with the tools that I teach you. You'll learn Connection-Based Parenting strategies that work for you AND your child.
Here are a few fun facts about me!
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I come from a family of cruise-a-holics
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I’m afraid of heights (even tree-trekking courses scare me!)
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My full circle moment is teaching my husband how to ski & him teaching me how to snowboard. Now we are teaching our daughter to do both.
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One of the best memories is bringing my daughter to her first pool at an Alberta hot springs.
Did you ever think parenting was going to be this hard?
You’ve read the parenting books, googled every method you could think of, cobbled bits of information together, and even tried that one method that a friend of a friend insists will work. But nothing has stuck.
It’s not your fault.
Most parents only know what they do and don’t want to do from their own childhood. We don’t want to re-enact a situation we went through as children so we do the exact opposite of it. Or maybe we didn’t dislike what happened to us as a child, but we didn’t love it either. We just don’t know any other way and don't know where to turn.
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The thing is, what books and Google can’t do is:
1) Support your emotions when you get overwhelmed
2) Explain the reasons for your child's challenging behaviour
3) Give you positive tools and feedback to help you work with your child's behaviour
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As your parenting coach, I give you a sustainable approach and so much more…
While my focus is on Connection-Based Parenting, past clients have told me that my strengths are seeing them for who they are and who they can be.
"The biggest value that I got from Alison was just learning how to do behavioral tools with my son. I thought it was so profound because it's allowing him to release his emotions and then just laugh it off. So that was something I wasn't doing before. Having Alison talk to us about the importance of that and just shift my husband and I’s mentality: It's kind of an aha- moment."
-Yasna F.
My Approach
So you spent 45 minutes trying to get your screaming child out of the house? Yeah, I've been there...
Let me set the scene for you:
You're concerned that you don’t know how to give your child what they need?
You’re pretty sure you spend more time googling
“Why is my child doing this?” than doing the laundry.
Getting a little alone time without your child following you into the bathroom
seems impossible. Getting your child out the door on time is painful.
And don't forget that every day you have to find a new way to get your child
to do something that they don’t want to do – like getting out of the bath or into their car seat.
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You don't want to resort to punishments, threats or yelling but nothing else seems to work.
You know you can’t keep doing this.
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Every approach that you’ve tried, trust me I’ve done it too. Everything changed when I learned about the Connection-Based Parenting approach. It gives you a practical framework to embody and lets you decide which tool to use when your child's behaviour goes off-track. After using the behavioural tools, my daughter went from outbursts and aggression, to calm and affectionate. ​And I went from screaming and not recognizing myself to feeling like I had the knowledge to empower my decisions and take me as a parent, to a new level.
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​The best thing is that my daughter saw this change in me too. Her favourite thing to do now is to draw pictures for me that say “i u”.
​That’s how “i heart u” parent coaching was born.
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This approach works (because yes, it is going to take work and effort) and I’ve seen it change lives time and time again.
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Believe me when I say: You want to build that trust and connection with your child now so that they know that you’re there for them when they grow up.
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And most of all, so your child can grow up believing in themselves because you believed in them first.
Hand in Hand Parenting Philosophy​
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Humanity is elevated when parents and children grow naturally into leaders who are inspired to solve problems creatively, nurture cooperation, show others compassion, and build thriving communities. The global problems of violence and racial and social injustice are rooted in disconnection. Hand in Hand aims to heal big ruptures manifested in the world by helping children, parents, and professionals recover from personal disconnection through a unique set of trauma-responsive, relationship-based caregiving tools that have decades of evidence behind them.
What is the Hand in Hand Parenting Approach?
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Hand in Hand Parenting makes the art of connection concrete with five simple, healing tools.
Hand in Hand’s approach introduces a novel theory of emotion translated into 5 simple tools. These tools can be easily integrated into family and classroom routines, helping structure child-led quality time, set limits, recover from big emotional moments, and reinvigorate parents and caregivers.
Their unique, evidence-based model consists of both adult and child-focused tools that can be used as prevention or early intervention across home, therapeutic, or classroom settings.
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"Alison has this positive optimistic outlook on things. Never once did we feel like she judged us based on the things that we were doing with our daughter before like putting her in timeout or disciplining her. Alison was very much understanding."
-Sarah B.