Hi, I’m Shelly.

I’m a mom to 3 and a child development specialist. Around age 2, one of my children began to display explosive and intense behaviors. Hour-long meltdowns every day. Huge reactions beyond typical tantrums. Mind-numbing screaming and exhausting aggressive behavior. Difficulties with co-regulation and calming down. Sensory overwhelm that made daily routines so hard.

In the years since, as I’ve navigated how to parent this child and figure out their unique needs, I’ve explored the research around escalated, explosive behavior. I went to graduate school for child development and dedicated every assignment and course that I could to researching and writing about kids like mine. I learned about stress biology, nervous system perspectives, conflict cycles with families, and disorders/disabilities that coincide with reactivity and sensitivity.

In one course, I studied de-escalation methods for the entire semester and developed a workshop for parents, teaching how to use evidence-based de-escalation tools at home. I’ve now taught that workshop to hundreds of parents! However, it’s clear that parents raising highly reactive and sensitive kids need more than just a 2-hour class. They need hands on support and learning in bite-size pieces over time.

For my graduate capstone project, I decided to go deeper and build something bigger. I researched more. I wrote hundreds of pages. I collaborated with my expert professors and mentors. I turned that initial little de-escalation workshop into a fully guided parent training program.

There’s a bit more work left for me to do on the back end, but soon this program will be open for registration. I can’t wait to dive into this work with families that are navigating explosiveness and are ready for support. Spots will be limited because I will be providing direct support to everyone who enrolls.