What I Offer
Cool Parenting in a Warming World
A group coaching experience for parents concerned about the warming planet on which our children are growing up.
What to expect?
This group experience will be a chance to explore climate distress and work out how to live with it so that we can enjoy our children and best help them make sense of the world they are growing up in. It will be a place to find community with others who share our concerns. It will be an opportunity to explore what it means to take climate action. As parents, our time is precious so we will explore different ways to get (or stay) involved in action, in a way which doesn’t simply add to our to-do lists. You will be invited to look at what is right for you and your family, at this point in your life, taking into account all the pressures you are inevitably juggling!
In action and in community, there is room for hope and, with support, we can all find ways to use our individual skills, talents and experiences to address these crises. If you're struggling with how to engage with the climate emergency, then this course is for you. Come along and get to know people who feel the same, and we can find our way together!
You can read a bit more about what the sessions will cover below. Or click here to see what previous participants have said about their experience.
When?
The course runs over 6 x 2-hour sessions.
If you are interested, please contact me using the form on this site, or by emailing climateparenting@gmail.com. I can then let you know when the next course will be running.
This course offers a family friendly space, so although I very much hope you will be able to be present for the whole of all of the sessions, I understand that family life is complex and unpredictable, so if you need to nip away or have children in the background I will understand. That’s what the “mute” button is for!
What does it cost?
The course offers a flexible payment structure with the following options.
-
£200 (230 euros) for participants currently facing financial constraints.
-
£300 (345 euros) for participants who are more financially secure.
-
£400 (460 euros) for comfortably off participants.
I will offer two free places to individuals who genuinely cannot afford the lowest course fee but who would find real value in participating. If this is the case for you, please let me know by email or via the contact form on this website. I will offer the free places on a first come first served basis as long as places remain available.
The course fee reflects the fact that group size will be limited to a maximum of 12 participants to ensure there is the opportunity for everyone to participate fully and get to know each other as a small community.
5% of all course fees will be donated to Client Earth.
How do I sign up?
If you would like to enquire further about or sign up for the course, please drop me an email at climateparenting@gmail.com
I look forward to meeting you.
What will we cover?
To give you a bit more of an idea of what to expect, across the sessions we will practice various somatic and self-care strategies which we can use to help us manage difficult feelings about the climate and nature crises. We will use large and small group discussions, and a variety of materials and exercises to help us explore the topics each week. I will offer some optional activities that you may wish to do in between sessions or materials you may wish to read or watch to explore the topics further.
The session topics will be as follows:
Session 1: Our Stories.
In this session we will get to know each other. We will take time to think about discuss our personal journeys so far in relation to the climate and ecological emergencies and our children. This will not only help us form a supportive community but also strengthen each person’s own sense of where they are coming from, what they are bringing to the group and what they hope to take away from the sessions. Stories can also be powerful ways to communicate about climate change with those around us. We will also consider what it means to be a parent and the relevance of this in finding our role in relation to climate change.
Session 2: Our Emotions
We will practice creating an emotionally safe place for ourselves before using this as a position from which to explore our feelings about the climate and nature crises. We will think about how we can approach these emotions from a compassionate position and explore some strategies we can use to help us manage them.
Session 3: Our Relationships
In this session we will explore how climate enters into our relationships with others. We will discuss the psychology of how people think about climate change in general and consider what this tells us about how to communicate most effectively on the topic.
Session 4: Our Children
It is my hope that all the sessions in the course will help you to feel confident thinking and talking about climate change yourself, and navigating your own emotional reactions to it with greater confidence. This will, in turn, help you feel more confident in discussing the topic with your children. In this session however we will think more explicitly about the challenges of navigating such an emotive topic with young children and think about how we might best approach this.
Session 5: Our Ecosystems
In this session we will map our personal ecosystems in relation to climate change. We will think about our strengths, skills and values as well as our passions and interests. We will think about the networks we already form part of and where we can best create impact or draw support. We will think about the type of engagement we want with this topic at this point in our lives. This will be very individual. For some it may look like greater self-care in relation to our emotional response to these crises; for others it may mean strengthening their climate community or finding ways to use their unique ecosystem to create and drive change. We will explore any barriers and challenges to this and how we might overcome them.
Session 6: Our Future
In the final session we will pull together everything we have covered in the previous sessions and reflect on what we are each taking away. We will think together about whether and how we might keep this community going to support each other in our next steps.
What do participants say?
"Sincere thanks for a profoundly helpful and supportive course
"One significant change is that I feel more comfortable talking about this subject now. Also, I feel more hopeful to keep on."
“The course has been really inspiring and supportive. Thank you!”
“A very considered, nurturing programme that I'm really glad to have come across.”