Chime (for parents)

Chime is NOW Enrolling for the next parent workshop beginning in October, 2024!

Chime is a 6-week workshop designed for parents (of any age kid/teen) who want to reduce stress and increase joy, creativity, and presence in the parenting of young children.

If you are a peaceful, loving person who sometimes feels irrationally rageful when your 4-year-old refuses to brush her teeth or put her shoes on at an inconvenient time, you’ve come to the right place. If you have just discovered that you are apparently a “highly sensitive person” because your child’s ‘inside’ voice is still 3 decibels too loud for you, welcome. And if you ever feel gravely unprepared for the full-blown character assassination that your 8th grader unleashes on you right before falling asleep, you will be in good company at Chime.

Chime will give you new tools to reduce old, familiar stress and increase joy, creativity, and FUN in parenting, all while connecting with other parents who want to have REAL TALK about parenting and learn to tame some of their own triggers. Chime is enrolled with a DIVERSE group of 6-9 parents, representative of Oakland.

During the 6 weeks of Chime, you will :

1) learn mindfulness ‘tricks’ for transforming anger/frustration into amusement/compassion during hard parenting moments

2) practice working less hard to get better results in terms of kids’ behavior and peaceful transitions between activities by learning to use silence, passive language, and submissive body language to de-escalate power struggles and soothe kids’ big feelings

3) learn how to use process comments rather than fixing problems FOR your kid/s in order to empower their own problem-solving skills and encourge them to take more responsibility

4) become more aware of your own triggers and the possible roots of them and practice positively redirecting your own mind when triggered by “feeding” it more balanced, realistic and productive thoughts

5) understand what is a normal range of behavior and emotion at various stages of child/adolescent development to help put your kid’s unpleasant behaviors into perspective which will reduce your worry and reactivity and increase your empathy for your kid/s

*During Chime, you will also be encouraged to:

-share your weekly parenting experiences- the good, the bad, and the wacky- within small groups during weekly meetings so that you can connect with other parents and cement your learning through parent-to-parent reflection and support

-participate in a fun and enlightenting texting group in which you will receive (but never have to respond to..!) thought-provoking prompts and reminders by text and likely enjoy and benefit from applying these prompts to the variety of parenting moments in which these texts ‘catch’ you

-get one-on-one support in applying all these concepts and tools to your particular parenting challenges and your particular delightful and challenging kid through optional weekly consultation phone calls with Ashby

The Chime, beginning October 8th will be offered on Zoom for the first time, on Tuesdays from 12:00-1:15. Sliding scale spots are available, so please do inquire!

* Please schedule a brief call with Ashby before registering.

Registration Form

Payment Form

FAQs

There are two main kinds of therapy groups: process groups and psychoeducational groups.
Process groups often invite group members to share their emotional struggles and ALSO to process their reactions about and feelings toward other members of the group for purposes such as breaking through one’s own projections or to get honest feedback about how one’s style of communicating or behaving is received by others.
Process groups can be wonderful, but this is NOT that kind of group.
Psycho-educational groups are more like classes or seminars that focus on educating group members on a specific psychological topic. Group members may also share their emotional struggles, reactions to the material, and share their process of learning the material week to week, but they will NOT be asked to process feelings about other group members, only about the material and their own process.
Yes.
Yes! Chime for Parents (of any age kids) will be offered on Zoom for the first time starting October 1st (2024). Contact me for more info!
If your insurance policy covers ‘group therapy’ it may cover all or most of the cost. I can provide you with an invoice with all the necessary information to give to your insurer if it covers ‘group therapy.’ The only insurers I remember covering a Workshop member’s participation were United Healthcare and Cigna for what that’s worth, but I’m sure there are others.
If you have an FSA or HSA with your work, you could get reimbursed for this group through that.
Mindfulness just means ‘Paying attention to what is happening, as it is happening.’
It doesn’t mean being ‘mindful’ as in being conscientious or responsible or good. In the words of Mary Oliver, “You do not have to be good.” You can be pissed off or judgmental or feel guilty or stressed out anytime, but especially when you have young children. Being mindful just means knowing you are stressed out when you are stressed out (or jealous when you are jealous, etc..), and in the case of this workshop, being willing to observe that stress with an open and curious mind and heart and willing to do experiments (suggested and guided by me) to try to attempt to transform that stress.
I will not make you meditate.
There will be no bell ringing. It will not be boring. You will laugh and learn things about yourself and feel the sweet balm of community and eat snacks.