Helping you parent your Spicy One® calmly, kindly and firmly.
Hi, I'm Mary—the parenting coach for overwhelmed moms trying to find their footing with wonderfully strong-willed kids who I call "Spicy Ones".
I help you gain confidence to choose gentle, respectful discipline, especially if you weren’t raised that way.
You don’t have to parent without a map.
How I Serve Parents
When nothing you've tried works and you're drowning in the chaos of raising a strong-willed child, you need more than tips and tricks. You need transformation, community, and hope.
🎯 Parent Coaching
📚 Self-Paced Courses
💾 Digital Downloads
📧 Newsletter: Love Notes from the Spicy One
Why I Help Parents of Challenging Kids
My first years of parenting a Spicy One were a disaster. The intensity, the refusals, the explosive emotions—I was exhausted and crushing my child’s spirit without meaning to. My lowest moment came when I snapped during a preschool morning meltdown. I was cruel and it got physical. Both of us ended up in tears. I felt the heavy shame of realizing something had to change.
A week later, I went to a play therapist hoping she’d “fix” my daughter. Instead, she asked to see me—alone. For two years, I faced the truth: my spirited little girl wasn’t broken. I was the one who needed healing and new tools.
That journey led me to my purpose. Since 2011, I’ve coached over 1,700 moms of Spicy Ones, walking with them through the same struggles I once thought would break me. Today my daughter is 21, thriving, and our relationship is strong. She’s still fiery and willful—but now she has a mom designed just for her.
My Parenting Philosophy
You are not broken. Neither is your child. A Spicy One refuses to accept love as something to be earned—and that fierce resistance is an invitation. Parenting them is less something happening to you and more something happening for you: the chance to heal your own story through theirs.
My approach is grounded in presence, respect, grace, and growth. I’ll show you how to choose connection over control, to lead without dictating every outcome. You’ll learn to be calm, kind, and firm—to meet big emotions with curiosity instead of judgment, and to expand your capacity to hold space for your child’s intensity without being swept away by fear.
At the heart of this work is reparenting yourself. You can’t extend compassion to your child if you withhold it from yourself. When you change, everything shifts—old patterns lose their grip, love becomes unconditional, and boundaries grow flexible yet strong.
Parenting a Spicy One is like an 18-year spiritual retreat you never signed up for. It’s demanding, humbling, and transformative. But you don’t have to climb this black-diamond mountain alone. Together, we’ll uncover your strength and remind you—you are exactly the parent your child needs.
But wait…
Before you take advice from a stranger on the Internet, it’s important to find out where she stands on a few things. I want to give you a sense of my values before you decide whether or not to trust my advice.
Here are 3 beliefs I probably shouldn’t share right away, but I never was any good at surface-level chit-chat. Here goes…
I am a Queer-affirming Christian. Your LGBTQ+ child doesn’t have to change anything be a sparkly beloved member of God’s Family. God is a radically welcoming parent. May you be as well.
Spanking is not the way forward. It’s abusive to hit a child or cause them physical pain (or emotional shame) in the name of teaching or controlling them. I say this as someone who was spanked as a child and who tried corporal punishment on my kid. Not only does it not work on the intense boss babies but it tears down the trust and healthy attachment that I know you want with your child. Your child is a gift. Let me help you treat them as such.
Parents are not the God of their offspring. While you are certainly made in the image of God, you are not called to represent God’s authority on earth to your child. We are but fallen humans, failing forward. Your most sacred work is to learn to love your child unconditionally and to delight in them especially when you can’t control them. Sacrificial love isn’t easy, but the Holy Spirit is on your side.
If you can hang with a girl who rocks these values, let’s be besties!
You can transform your parenting and your home.
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Love Notes for the Spicy One©
Friday emails for support and solidarity for parents of strong-willed children
