Big Feelings, Strong Families: Emotion Coaching for Military Parents Virtual Lunch and Learn

Does your child or teen have big emotions?

Are meltdowns, anxiety, anger, or everyday parenting challenges leaving you feeling overwhelmed?

Parenting is hard—and military life can add another layer of complexity. Whether your family is navigating relocations, deployments, reunions, or the everyday ups and downs of raising children, this workshop will provide practical tools you can start using right away.

In this interactive session, you'll learn how to:

• Recognize your own stress responses during challenging parenting moments.
• Identify situations where you'd like to respond differently.
• Use a simple three-step Emotion Coaching approach to help your child feel understood while building emotional resilience and strengthening your connection.

We'll explore real-life scenarios familiar to many military families, such as supporting a child through a move or a parent's deployment to navigating everyday challenges like homework, screen time, and family conflict.

Join us to gain practical strategies, connect with other military families, and leave feeling more confident supporting your child's big emotions—wherever your military journey takes you.

Her career includes 10 years at CHEO, where she worked as a social worker on the Mental Health Inpatient Unit and as a member of the Palliative Care team at Roger Neilson Children's Hospice. For the past 15 years, she has been in private practice, supporting children, teens, and their parents. Her areas of focus are grief, anxiety and supporting parents whose children are coping with various mental health challenges.

As an Emotion-Focused Family Therapy (EFFT) therapist, she is passionate about empowering parents with practical therapeutic strategies that strengthen relationships and reduce stress at home. She believes that parents are their children's greatest resource, and that involving them in the therapeutic process is one of the most effective ways to support their child’s mental health.

She also loves creating and facilitating workshops and group experiences for parents. She believes there is something powerful about bringing people together to learn, connect, and discover that they are not alone in the challenges of raising children.