Small jar, big pasta

Well The Confident Mother has started. And what a way to start.

Firstly I loved, simply loved, the launch session that I ran on Monday night. And yes, I was feeling a little anxious at the start, but more than anything I was incredibly excited and bubbling over with passion and enthusiasm.

This online event has been a long time coming. It is something that I have wanted to organise for a few months now. I love organising, I love learning, I love working with mothers, I love to be inspired and I am absolutely fascinated with how the human brain develops in the first few years after birth. It makes complete sense to me to organise an online conference. Something that provides amazing valuable content and helps all mothers everywhere.

The planning for this event started for real in October when I started to reach out to some of the big names that I really wanted to be guest speakers. Initially I was looking at December but realised that would be a bad move as it would clash with Nativity plays in school, my own daughter’s dance production, Christmas holidays and so much more so I moved the event to January. What a fabulous way to start the year.

My very first guest to be interviewed was in fact Miriam McCaleb, the New Zealand baby geek. Miriam is amazing. Her knowledge is incredible. She is so passionate and yet she is able to explain the complicated neuroscience in simple terms. Given the time difference and anticipated technology difficulties, we agreed to record the interview in advance (Sunday night UK time, Monday morning NZ time) and you get to hear it Thursday 29 January. We talked about the “invisibility of motherhood” and how important it is for mothers to notice each other. Often what we do is unseen. It is taken for granted. The invisibility of motherhood, to me, is reminiscent of Naomi Stadlen’s book What Mothers Do: Especially When It Looks Like Nothing. If you have not read it, please do. I think you’ll love it. Miriam refers to an interview with Dr Stuart Shanker and encourages us to listen to this interview. An absolute must for parents, teachers and caregivers everywhere.

In my launch session last night, I shared my personal journey to The Confident Mother (I’ve written about this previously) and why I was so excited about the event. I gave an overview of all the speakers and finished with some live coaching to help mums work out what is most important to them about being a confident mother. Of course, when you work with me on a one-to-one basis, there’s a lot more interaction. Coaching in a group is by its very nature, less “responsive”. Here’s a selection of the responses last night when I asked What does being a Confident Mother mean to you:

• being able to roll with the good and the bad, to not feel pressured into doing things the way that everyone else thinks is right.
• being confident in my parenting skills and in other parts of my life such as work
• happy, successful, friendly, loving
• doing the best I can without guilt and not being swayed by others’ choices
• a confident mother nurtures her children to give them a high sense of self esteem and worth, whilst retaining her own sense of self – without GUILT!

What about you? What does it mean to you? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Today at lunchtime I spent a fabulous hour with two amazingly inspirational women, Melissa Hood and Elaine Halligan. Melissa and Elaine are the Directors at The Parent Practice which celebrated its10th anniversary last year. They have just launched an innovative Positive Parenting Academy which provides valuable online content and learning materials that will help any parent improve their parenting skills. Listen to the full interview to find out more but the most popular ideas discussed in the Facebook group afterwards have centred around the “Golden Book” and the “Pasta Jar”.  (The trick I’ve been missing is to use a small jar, big pasta. Like another of Elaine & Melissa’s clients, I’d been using big jar, small pasta!)

No interviews tonight – it is supposed to be running club night for me, but currently I’m injured and sulking. Well I would sulk if I could, but I am a positive person and never really learned ‘how’ to sulk! Anybody else any good at sulking on my behalf?

The full schedule for the The Confident Mother is available here. Please join us – you’ll get fresh inspiration and new ideas.