Why did Sara create these classes?

When my son was born, I realized I would need help. Both my parents had backgrounds in education, and worked with children, so I had been surrounded by parenting and education theories and practices my entire life. But nothing prepared me for my son, and the difficulties we faced in parenting him.

I sought help from doctors regarding his difficulty sleeping, and found some relief by removing certain foods from my diet, since I was nursing. As he grew, we avoided wheat, oats and dairy, although we did not follow a strict GFCF diet.

When my son was old enough, I enrolled in a series of early childhood education classes that included him in a hybrid preschool/college course. This turned out to be a blessing for both of us, and gave us the tools we needed to get through the next several years. 

At age 10, my son was diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome, and was put on a medication that caused him to have uncontrollable rages. Although he stopped taking the medication, the rages continued. At age 11, he received a diagnosis PDD-NOS which eventually turned into a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome.

This is when I found the book "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene, PhD and things began to get dramatically better for us in many areas. Soon, my son had stopped raging completely, and was well on his way to becoming a happy, flexible thinker. 

At that time, I was on the Board of Directors for a large Asperger's support group, and doing advocacy work for families. I told everyone I met about what methods I was using at home, and started sharing with parents and educators how they could help improve their situations at home and school by implementing these and other behavioral intervention methods.

As I worked with families and schools, I studied behavioral techniques more and more, to learn how to best help different situations. Soon, members of different disabilities groups were contacting me for help.

I finally realized the tremendous need to create a class so that more people could access and implement this information. 

I am passionate about helping parents and educators understand how to better communicate with children and how to help children learn how to become flexible thinkers who consider the needs of others and have a positive life outlook. 

Helping the Behaviorally Challenging Child is a course of instruction for parents, caregivers and educators which incorporates the method of Collaborative Problem Solving* (CPS) as well as several other positive behavioral techniques. 

This course was first designed by Sara Gardner, and is now being presented by Sara in the greater Seattle, WA area and Debra Ann Afarian in Orange County, CA. 

To see current class information, please view Class Information.