Parenting isn’t for the sensitive soul…or is it??
Hello! I’m so glad you are here. My name is Adrienne Bishop, and I am a Certified Positive Discipline Educator, an Integrative Life Coach for Parents, and a highly sensitive mom.
I coach parents now because I know first hand how hard being a sensitive parent is.
When I had my third child, I was sure I was doing it wrong and was failing my kids. This thought kept coming back to me over and over as I was struggling to stop yelling and criticizing and commanding my kids. Punishment wasn’t working and my kids didn’t really listen to me. They would get emotional and throw a fit and I would feel helpless.
There’s an anecdote I tell people when they asked me why I became a parenting coach.
When my daughter was 3, I put her in a time out in her room on the 3rd floor. 2 minutes into the timeout, we heard a deafening crash. She had pulled the bookshelf in her room down out of anger. Thankfully, she was unharmed, but it was at the moment, I knew I never wanted to do that to her again.
In an effort to solve this problem, I read all of the parenting books I could get my hands on. I tried to incorporate all the new, kinder ways to talk to my children that the books spoke to, but it wasn’t working consistently and I still was left feeling frustrated, stuck, and helpless. It was then that I knew there was something beneath the surface that I wasn’t addressing and I would never learn what I needed to show up as the parent I wanted to be if I didn’t uncover it first.
Growing up, I was always feeling big emotions.
I cried a lot, was shy, and struggled with confidence. My feelings were so strong that they were physically painful. I got the message that I was too sensitive, too emotional, and weak.
I began to push my feelings under the surface. I pretended I was tough.
Fast forward to becoming a parent where I now was totally responsible for the life of a helpless newborn.
Not being emotionally equipped for the stress of it all, I was thrown into a state of panic. I became obsessed with making sure I did everything right so my baby would be safe and I would never have to deal with the heartache of messing up and something happening to her. I became fearful, highly anxious, and overwhelmed. I wanted the overwhelming emotions of anxiety, worry and fear to just go away.
I felt like every little hiccup I made in my parenting proved my belief that I didn’t have what it took, and that I just couldn’t handle it.
I knew I couldn’t ignore my emotions anymore. They had begun wreaking havoc on my body. Once I learned my pain was caused by stress from not dealing with emotions, I went to work getting help to fix my brain. I went to therapy. I healed, slowly. And it was then that I learned about the highly sensitive trait and it was like I was finally FREE.
I finally felt normal. I felt understood and like nothing was wrong with me. It was such a gift and it helped me to understand my sensitive kids better and why I was having so much trouble parenting them with traditional methods.
And so I started learning about high sensitivity and other ways to parent my kids. At the same time, I realized then that I could never teach my kids how to manage their emotions until I learned how to manage mine.
I knew therapy had helped me function, but now I wanted to become my best self, and I wanted to learn to teach my kids what I never learned.
That’s when life coaching and integrative hypnosis came in.
I was never taught where emotions come from or how to process emotions or that all emotions are part of being human.
Through working with a coach and learning hypnosis, I learned how emotions worked, how to manage my thoughts, and how to help my kids process emotions too. I discovered that the root cause of any emotional episode my kids were having stemmed from resisting or avoiding emotion. I learned how to be more patient and consistent in my parenting through being aware of how my thoughts made me feel and then challenging them.
I studied and practiced techniques on how to change my thoughts and process my feelings and rewire my triggers about my kids and myself, and EVERYTHING CHANGED.
The thoughts and triggers that plagued me daily about my worry that there was something wrong with my highly emotional kids waned. I stopped being so anxious and I was rarely overwhelmed. I discovered new thoughts that helped me to be more consistent and patient in my parenting. I used the techniques from all the parenting books I read and they finally worked. I felt connected to my kids in a real way and they too started to listen and respect me and trust me.
I knew then that I wanted to help other parents stop suffering like I had.
As a sensitive mom of 3 sensitive kids and a former educator, I can help you learn to rewire your triggers, stay calm and confident in your parenting and learn tools to help your child with their emotions and get them to cooperate without threats or nagging or yelling.
I have developed clear and easy to follow methods that will help you feel more in control of your life and deal with kid drama, tantrums and emotional breakdowns with confidence and tools to help you stay calm and connected with your kids, without willpower or counting to 10.
To learn more about how my 1:1 coaching program can help you with your parenting, schedule a FREE consult session with me. On that call, we can discuss how I can help you to stop being angry, feel less frustration and stress, and learn amazing parenting tools that actually work to get your kids to cooperate. I can’t wait to talk!
