NESTS for Parents

- What is self care?
- Why is self care important?
- Exploring the unique challenges of parents may face.
- Discover boundaries and how they can support you and your child.
- Exploring the anxiety cycle.
- Exploring the shame/blame cycle.
- Build a self care tool kit.
- Free resources for you and your child.
- Paid resources for you and your child.

As a stepparent to a neurodivergent child, and a registered clinical counsellor, I have taken my personal and professional passion and combined them to bring support for parents of neurodivergent child(ren).

I continue to learn more about the support needed for my stepson, but also realizing not only through my personal experience, but with working with other parents, the need for us to also take care of ourselves.

Sometimes we can be caught in the cycle of putting all our energy towards our child(s) needs, which is completely understandable, yet when we don’t take care of ourselves, and our needs (and sometimes we don’t even know what that is), that leaves little energy for us to live fully.

My approach to counselling is holistic. When working with clients, I like to understand their presenting problem, and then work through some of the foundations of health and wellness to get a bigger picture of what is going on for them.

This is where NESTS comes in. When we can understand how we take care of ourselves, through even the smallest of sustainable changes, we can make a huge lasting impact on our mental, emotional, physical and even spiritual wellness.

I created the NESTS Team as I am not an expert in all areas of NESTS. The women I have brought into the NESTS Team also have the same holistic view to health and wellness as I do, and I am so excited to be working with these amazing women!

Find out more about Kirsten, including ways to connect!

Website: kirstensherlock.com
Instagram: @kirsten.flourish

- Understanding the nervous system (vagus nerve, fight/flight response, prefrontal cortex).
- Validating parental guilt.
- Validating what it’s like to navigate the medical system when advocating for your child.
- How we can calm that physical body down – nervous systems hacks.
- Understanding the window of tolerance.
- Learning what our capacity is and what we can handle in our everyday life.
- Teaching your children to navigate their nervous system, but making it fun!
- What we can do to help ourselves that is not so costly.

I often credit my trauma education and coaching career to the birth and diagnosis of my neurodivergent child. When he developed epilepsy at the age of 2 months old, it was the desire to understand how to work with his developing brain while simultaneously managing my stress load that led me into the fascinating world of neuroscience and learning everything I could. With the limited amount of resources and time I had at my disposal, I had to find a way to support him as well as myself and the rest of my family through it.  

Over the last decade I have not only become a trauma & stress educator for practitioners to become trauma-informed, but an author and coach helping those climb out of the trauma and emotional injuries that can be caused by chronic stress, such as what I experienced. 

Being an advocate for my child within our medical system while balancing his developmental needs and a career in trauma recovery has been a gift that I cannot even begin to describe. There is nothing I value more than guiding other parents through understanding how to care for themselves as much as they care for their beautiful children.

Stress changes our brains, our habits and our bodily responses - but so does healing.  With the right support and compassionate direction, anything can be possible. Our NESTS team is dedicated to you as a parent - a resource that I am honoured to co-present within the community.

Find out more about Lea, including ways to connect!

Website: leamorrison.com
Instagram: @leamorrison1

- More details about what foods can cause harm and why.
- Foods that can improve symptoms, including why they help.
- The role of the gut microbiome.
- Common deficiencies in ADHD and ASD population.
- How well chosen supplements can make a big difference with symptoms.
- Lots of tips and tricks to add nutrition to your child’s meals, even if they are picky eaters.
- A few nutritional steps that you can even start today!
- Reasons why your child may be a picky eater.
- Tried and true tips for overcoming picky eating.
- Even includes a 7 day meal plan, complete with a grocery list and prep guide.

Hey, I'm Jennifer, a Nutritionist practicing in the Greater Vancouver Area. Nutrition has been a major part of my life for over 25 years. Changing the way I ate completely transformed my life and, more importantly, my son's life.

From the moment my son was born, we encountered numerous issues: colic, asthma, allergies, eczema, hyperactivity, and sleep problems. Back then, ADHD wasn't well-known like it is today. Doctors suggested pharmaceuticals, but I had reservations about that approach. So, I embarked on a long journey that ultimately led me to discover my life's purpose.

I intimately understand the challenges, exhaustion, and difficulties of raising a neurodivergent child. I also witnessed the incredible power of food. Today, my son is a successful, happy, and well-balanced individual, completely free from all his previous symptoms. It's his story that drives me to help families going through similar experiences.

I firmly believe in the connection between what we eat and how we feel. If you're not feeling well, there's a good chance your diet is a contributing factor.

Life is fun, food should be too!

Find out more about Jennifer, including ways to connect and delicious recipes!

Website: eatforliving.ca
Instagram: @eatforliving.ca

- Fitness myths and fallacies – these are so helpful to break free of expectations.
- Break from the myths – rethinking fitness.
- Creating sustainable goals for you and your family.
- Creating balanced and personalized goals – it’s not “one size fits all” for fitness.
- An abundance of examples of how to make fitness fun!
- How fitness can help with anxiety and ADHD.
- How parents can use fitness as a tool for connection, movement and wellness.
- So many examples of creative ways to incorporate fitness – including obstacle courses, scavenger hunts and so much more!

I am a certified personal trainer with a Sport Science diploma and a background in Kinesiology. I am the proud owner of LIFT Fitness and Physiotherapy, located in beautiful Port Moody, for the past 12 years, a studio that has won multiple awards and has been voted #1 Fitness studio 4 years in a row. I have also won multiple awards personally and was runner up for the business women of the year. At LIFT we offer Personal Training, Physiotherapy, Group Fitness, Athletic Therapy, Kinesiology and Massage Therapy.

I am a former collegiate athlete playing softball and soccer in both Texas and Oklahoma. I am now a wife, busy business owner and mom of two gorgeous kiddos. I have trained at both ends of the spectrum when it comes to fitness and strongly believe in adapting and embracing what works for you currently and knowing your WHY.

I strongly believe in longevity of fitness and I strive to help you create goals that are sustainable and fit with your current lifestyle whether that being a busy mom or an athlete. I also believe that balance in both fitness and nutrition is important...because let's be honest chocolate and cake are great.

Find out more about Shannon, including ways to connect and tips for exercise!

Website: lifttraining.ca
Instagram: @liftfitness

- Insights on how sleep is conceptualized as a behavior.
- Discuss the importance of getting high-quality sleep for our physical health.
- Considerations for neurodivergent clients.
- Exploring how much sleep we do need.
- Breaking down the architecture of sleep – the typical 8 hour cycle.
- Factors that can affect sleep, such as sleep pressure, cortisol levels, and the impact of medication.
- The common sleep disrupters.
- Medical considerations when understanding sleep struggles.
- Strategies for improving sleep, including nutrition, sleep rescheduling, and creating a conducive bedtime environment.

I have been supporting families and children within the neurodivergent community for over 10 years. Many of the clients I have and continue to support, experience daily challenges that your average family may not face. This stress is exacerbated when parents do not have the evenings to themselves or are waking up constantly throughout the night, feeling mentally and physically exhausted. 

My goal for providing support through NESTS is to empower parents with the knowledge they need to either support their own sleep, which will set a foundation for the entire family.  

A little about me. I am a Board Certified Behavior Analyst specializing in sleep. 

When I learned that 1 in 3 people struggle with sleep, I knew I needed to share what I had learned in combination with my expertise in the science of behaviour change and apply this to sleep support. 

My own personal experience with sleep challenges allows me to step into my client's shoes and understand that just being told what to do is not enough. We need to understand why we engage in these behaviors and find alternatives to help meet the needs of the individual.  

Sleep is foundational to our overall physical and mental health and I strongly believe that with the right tools and information people can learn to love sleep again. 

Find out more about Nicole, including ways to connect and tips for sleep!

Website: yourbehaviourgal.com
Instagram: @yourbehaviourgal