Help is on the way parents.....and children ;)!!

Hi all. This is my intro post to Steemit. I was alerted to this portal by my daughter (who also was the one to teach me about blockchain and crypto currency....);)

I am a mom and and stepmom to 3 girls. My oldest stepdaughter has given us 2 beautiful grandchildren, a girl and a boy. My husband and I are very proud of our girls. Both my stepdaughters are married but our youngest who is 23, works with me and currently lives with us.

I went to study psychology at a later age and met another late bloomer during my studies. We became good friends and decided to open a practice together. We were in practice for 2,5 years until I decided to join my husband where he is working abroad. He was diagnosed with cancer and received treatment. As we have been living apart for a while now, I decided to spend the time we have left before he retires, together. I am currently starting a lifestyle consultancy and coaching practice with my daughter, as she also decided to make the move.

So this is just some background that led to Poster-Mom. Poster-Mom came about quite by accident or lets say it evolved. While in practice, I partnered with iMe Movement who bring awareness around the dangers of pornography and digital addiction not only for adults, but also children. We also ran (and they still do) support groups for this. In developing the program, I helped with the psychology content behind addictions and what contributes toward development that could cause a predispostion. Our content also led us to doing many talks at schools to teachers, parents and students.

My part of the talks looked at what deficits can lead to our children becoming involved in activities like pornography or excessive online time and other behavioural issues. I often addressed parents, as deficits often start from infancy or develop during some stage of development. I would also address the children to help them understand.
iMe Movement uses idolls to represent various behavioural addictions and use animated caricatures in our presentations. One day on stage I turned to them and said - "Hey, I think I want my own doll - we will call her Poster-Mom" and we all laughed. However for me it was a good name for a mom who had absolutely not done everything right. Only during my time studying psychology did I realise that I had not always made the right decisions concerning my own girls. I also realised how my own background, shaped who I was and my perceptions of how things should be, and most of all, how I should parent.

Through my work in the practice and presenting various workshops and running support groups, I realised how much help parents need to negotiate parenting. We all do our best according to our best knowledge but I am sure we are all willing to learn how to do it better. We will never be perfect, but we can recognise the changes we need to make in order to help our children develop optimally. And who knows, at the same time receive insight into our own issues.

So If this intro piques your interest please follow me. I will be talking about developmental deficits, giving helpful advice and tools for parents and also be using examples from my own life and experiences to make it more tangible. I was a parent at 20 to my stepdaughters and had no clue - I only became a mom a few years later to my own - honestly, I still had no clue. It was literally trial and error and negotiating adolescence was the most daunting!! So if you sometimes feel "just a little help here please", I am hoping you will find it here.

Nice to meet you all and you will be hearing from me soon so we can start this journey to hopefully more effective parenting ;). We can also have a bit of fun along the way - parenting doesn't have to be so serious all the time : ).