About Me
How It All Got Started
Some people are born with a natural ability to care for children. Some are inherently nurturing, some have had a lot of experience with children growing up, some maybe educators of young children, or just generally enjoy being around children. This was NOT my case. I never felt comfortable around children. I didn’t know how to handle them, I didn’t know what they liked and I didn’t like the crying. Children crying made me very uncomfortable, very nervous and I felt helpless. The attention they required felt awkward and I just didn’t know what to do with them. When I got older and started college, majoring in Occupational Therapy, I had to do a rotation in pediatrics. I was more nervous working with children than I was in a hospital setting working with adults. However, for some reason, while in my pediatric rotation, the children flocked to me. No matter my negative reaction and no matter how uncomfortable I felt, they just kept coming. My professor told me that I was a natural with children and I just remember thinking there was nothing natural about the way I felt.
A year after I graduated magna cum laude with my Masters Degree in Occupational Therapy, I got married and then pregnant with twins. Oh, the irony. After I gave birth to two healthy babies I realized two things in short order; one, I was born to be a mom, and two, they don’t come with an instruction manual. The next year I had another baby, yes three n 18 months. I took the first year off with my twins and started to develop a private practice in Pediatric Occupational Therapy. This involved going into the homes of children with special needs and working directly with the family to promote child development.
It’s now been 23 years working with children, raising my own three children, and it is because of the encouragement of several friends/colleagues/clients, that I decided to help other parents with that instruction manual I never had. My goal is to share my knowledge, alleviate some of the anxiety of parenting and help to foster a new generation of great parents raising great children.
However, something’s having changed. I’ve learned that the development of a child is more than just the basic development. Every child gives off “energy” if you will. You can sense this as a mom or learn to sense it as the child develops. The energies a child gave off helped me to understand the needs of a child and connect with the child on a different level. This often times helped me to determine why a child was acting a certain way or develop a connection with a child when others could not. I cannot stress enough how important intuition is. Ive seen it over and over again parents knowing something is wrong with their child regardless of what others tell them. This refocuses on the importance of balancing energies and belief in children lead me to this journey. I truly believe now is the time of prevention. We need to provide positive subconscious programming and healthy energy centers to raise a new generation of children that have a strong foundation and healthy sense of self to combat the negative influences of society,
My Qualifications:
I possess three college degrees. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, and both a Bachelor’s and a Masters degree in Occupational Therapy. I have a published masters thesis on the use of sensory integration therapy to decrease self injurious behaviors. I have an established private practice in New York State working with children ages 0 to 5, specializing in neurological development, sensory integration, feeding disorders, and fine motor development. I am also the co-owner (with a Physical Therapist and a Speech Language Pathologist), of a multidisciplinary evaluation team that determines if children are meeting their developmental milestones. It is through years of observing, analyzing and treating, that I have learned what to look for in a child’s development. I have worked with families in every socioeconomic, ethnic, religious and educational background in order to assist families with the cognitive, adaptive, social, speech, and motor development of their children. I have now incorporated the importance of spiritual development as well. I believe not only do we need to raise children that are considered developmentally “typical” but there is now an awareness to incorporate the development of spiritual energies in the age of awareness.