The Effective Parent is the result of 9 years of formal undergraduate, graduate and post-master’s degrees in behavior and education and 16 years in the field of teaching. My devotion to practicing constructive discipline and behavior techniques that support an effective and mutually respectful environment has taken me in this direction.
As a teacher and behavior therapist, I find myself constantly striving to find a balance between respecting the child and respecting myself while also being productive in my work and encouraging the child to develop important skills to thrive. My aim is to teach and inspire parents and teachers to develop tools and skills that will help them manage this seemingly impossible balancing act.
My desire to do something good and make a difference with my life led me to teaching.
In college, I pursued a bachelor’s degree in Humanities followed by a formal teacher training program in Child Development and Education. I spent time tutoring and teaching in my teacher training program while still in undergrad. During and after college, I utilized developmentally appropriate practices at different facilities and schools. Those years gave me a feeling that something was missing. While I found joy in teaching, I wanted more.
When I discovered Montessori education, I knew I had to get trained. So in 2008, I moved to Boston to train to become an AMS Montessori certified teacher. In 2009, I found myself moving yet again to teach at Montessori One in Thousand Oaks, a suburb outside of Los Angeles where I taught until 2012.
In 2012, I moved to Hong Kong to teach at Discovery Montessori School, a large IB (international baccalaureate) school that had several locations and served hundreds of students. In Hong Kong I am qualified as an educator as well as a school supervisor.
The years I spent working at an international school gave me a rich and diverse experience. They helped me gain a different perspective of children and people—we are all different and yet, deep inside, at our very core, we are all the same. We all have hopes and dreams. We are all working to achieve them. We live. We love. We strive for our highest ideals. We are all human.
In 2014, I moved back to the United States to marry my now husband, Trevor. And in 2015, I joined The Jewish Montessori, where I taught until June 2020.
My time at The Jewish Montessori was joyful and incredible. I worked with the kindest people and I was welcomed and included in the tight-knit Jewish community, which has been a rich and immersive experience.
As I learned about Jewish culture and curriculum, I also remembered yet the same lesson I learned in Hong Kong but in a different environment—that we are all the same. We all have hopes and dreams. We are all working to achieve them. We live. We love. We strive for our highest ideals. We are all human.
My love for teaching and desire to be a better person and teacher led me to simultaneously earn a master’s degree in Education as well as a post-master’s degree certificate in Applied Behavior Analysis while working at The Jewish Montessori.
Pursuing advanced degrees and getting immersed in the study of behavior unlocked something in me. Everything I had learned the hard way as a teacher, everything they never taught me in teacher training, everything I was already practicing was explained to me as evidence-based approaches.
I already knew these instinctively and had been practicing them for over a decade and for the first time, through behavior analysis, I felt that my actions and choices as a teacher were validated by science and research. I found a huge degree of satisfaction and empowerment from that—one that I had never felt before.
The pursuit of understanding child and human behavior has been a driving force in my life. It has literally changed the course of my life—having devoted countless hours and 9 years educating myself. It has truly become a defining part of my life.
I once told a parent that whenever I encountered a child that I found challenging that I first use all my tools. And if I still couldn’t figure things out, I usually bought a book. I have now read dozens of books.
Of course, not one to do things in half-measures, my desire to learn and to dig deeper has continually kept me going back to school. I fully believe that humility is the key to true knowledge and wisdom. I never tire of learning more, a trait I have always had for as long as I remember.
While what I want to teach can be characterized as constructive discipline and behavioral analysis, what I find most inspiring is teaching parents and educators an understanding of child and human behavior that they can use not just with children but with every person in their lives. Understanding behavior helps everyone.
The degree to which we can improve our relationships in our lives and the degree to which we can strengthen them to promote understanding, acceptance, validation and cooperation is the degree to which we can begin to create a better world and reject ways that we are doing harm not just to our children but also to ourselves and to our loved ones.
I love teaching. I love understanding behavior. I love parent and teacher training. I love knowing that I have the capacity to change lives for the better—to promote independence, confidence, and capability in children, parents, and teachers. I love everything about behavior and education.
I created The Effective Parent because I truly feel I can make a difference. I believe that constructive discipline and an understanding of child and human behavior are skills that are important, powerful, and revolutionary. For how else can we make the world a better place than starting with our children?
The Effective Parent is about deciding to learn and develop ways to find respect, peace and cooperation in homes and classrooms. It is about adults learning about child and human behavior to understand their child’s voice, their own voice—or any person’s voice for that matter.
It is my passion to teach these skills to parents, teachers, and adults to help inspire them towards their own personal empowerment. I aim to teach and educate in a variety of ways: through workshops, articles, guest speaking and hopefully other avenues in the future.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for hanging in there. Thank you for your interest in The Effective Parent. I hope you join me. I hope you let me help you. Viva la revolution!
Take good, kind care of yourself and your family,
Christine
The Effective Parent is dedicated to positive change, social justice, and equal access to learning and other resources for all people. Recognizing there are socio-economic factors that can result in less access and other harms, I work toward equity by offering scholarships and discounted rates to those who qualify. Please contact me to apply or for details at christine@theeffectiveparent.com