Bonnie Harris Core Parenting

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Biography

Bonnie Harris, M.S.Ed. has designed and taught parenting workshops and counseled parents for over twenty years. She founded The Parent Guidance Center in Peterborough, NH in 1990 and is the director of Core Parenting.

Her book When Your Kids Push Your Buttons (Warner Books, 2003) led to her appearance on The Today Show, Asia News broadcast from Singapore, ABC broadcast in Australia as well as radio and TV programs across the United States. Buttons made the NY Post's top ten list of best parenting books and is being published in six additional countries.

Bonnie teaches her Buttons Workshop and speaks internationally on a variety of parenting topics as well as training professionals in the Buttons method. She received her master's degree in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street College in New York City. Bonnie is the mother of two grown children and lives with her husband in Peterborough, NH. She is at work on a second book, Raising Kids You Love to Live With.

Core Parenting

Core Parenting is dedicated to guiding parents in the discovery of why both they and their children behave and respond the way they do.

The goal of Core Parenting is to uncover and support the heart of the relationship between parent and child so connection can occur.

Webster defines core as the central, innermost, or most essential part of anything. The core is where the seeds are.

Core Parenting guides parents in honoring the potential in the seeds of every child by providing an optimal environment for those seeds to blossom.

—Bonnie Harris, author of When Your Kids Push Your Buttons

Core Parenting

taps into the issues that prevent parents from parenting the way their heart knows best
supports the rights and needs of each member of the family in order to maintain balance and foster a strong family environment
promotes support of the inborn nature or core of the child
teaches parenting that never asks children to alter their core in order to gain acceptance and approval
encourages parents to take responsibility for how they parent
encourages conscious parenting so that automatic reactions seldom occur
focuses on the root cause of behavior rather than the behavior itself
encourages parents to see a misbehaving child as a child who has a problem rather than a child who is a problem
helps parents to reconnect with their children through reconnecting to their own core
encourages parents to watch in awe the individual journeys of their children
promotes parenting that offers unconditional acceptance of children while setting appropriate limits, structure, and guidance

Traditional parenting in our culture is based on the reward and punishment system intended to teach our children right from wrong and shape their characters into personalities that society sees fit. Within this system, most parenting has fallen short for generations. Why? Because it doesn't work.

Children thrive and develop beautifully on respect, connection, and most important, acceptance. Acceptance for who they are. To accept them, we must first learn to understand them by watching their behavior and interpreting the meaning of it — finding its root. Once we know who our children are and how they respond to their environment, we must accept that core-the essence of who they are-and not try to change it.

As soon as children sense that their core is unacceptable, they tend to either act out inappropriately or withdraw and strive to be who they think they should be. When they feel accepted, their core remains strong to give them a solid foundation on which to develop self-respect and confidence.

Core Parenting finds and seeks to maintain a balance between the needs of the child and the needs of each member of the family. When either the child's needs or the parent's needs are more important in the family dynamic, balance is off and problems emerge. When there is balance, the core of the family is healthy and all members thrive. When the family is out of balance its core is fragmented and each member must find their own way.