Aware Parenting is a compassionate, attachment-based approach developed by psychologist Aletha Solter. It recognises that children are innately wired to heal from stress and overwhelm through connection, play, tears, laughter, and loving limits, without the need for rewards, punishments, or behaviour management.

At the heart of Aware Parenting is the understanding that behaviour is communication. Big feelings, resistance, aggression, withdrawal, or “acting out” are often signs of unmet needs or unexpressed feelings, stress or fear, rather than defiance or manipulation.

Our work together will gently support you to:

~Listen to your child’s emotions with presence and confidence

~Use play and connection to ease tension and invite cooperation

~Set clear, loving limits without shame, threats, or punishment

~Understand what’s being stirred in you as a parent

~Care for the whole family system: including your own nervous system 

I draw on Aware Parenting principles alongside somatic awareness, reparenting practices, and a deep respect for each family’s unique needs, capacities, culture, and resources. There is no one “right” way- you are the expert on your family. I work relationally, realistically, and with care to bring more delight, cohesion, presence and joy into everyday life.

Marisa is a parent and facilitator who came to Aware Parenting through the humbling realisation that children have an uncanny way of dragging out of the darkness our deepest, oldest wounds. Motherhood brought her into a reckoning with the failings of dominant culture, sparking an ongoing inquiry into what children truly need to heal and thrive.

Motivated by this, she undertook a long journey to find grounding, nervous-system regulation, and more honest ways of relating- alongside many years of study spanning philosophy, art therapy, counselling, group facilitation, and community work. Through this process, she has learned to lean into emotional expression and to trust connection and loving limits as powerful forces for change.

As an accredited Aware Parenting Instructor, Marisa supports families to move from survival and self-doubt toward parenting from a place of embodied trust, connection, and pleasure.