Self-Led Parenting: Bringing Calm and Curiosity to the Hard Moments with Your Kids

July 9, 2026

"I have a passion for supporting those who support others such as: parents, caregivers, helping professionals, and other therapists. My aim is to empower clients to trust in themselves, as well as the natural world, with a focus on bonding and belonging."

— Vanya Laporte, RCC

Most of us decide what kind of parent we want to be long before the hard moment arrives. Patient. Present. Steady. And then a child melts down in the grocery store, or slams a door, or says the thing that lands right on our oldest wound — and suddenly we are someone we did not plan to be.

If you have ever heard your own sharp voice and thought, "Where did that come from?", you are not failing. You are meeting one of your parts.

Your children meet all of you

Parenting has a way of finding our tender places. The exhausted part. The part that needs to be in control. The part still carrying how we were parented. None of these parts make you a bad parent. They are simply along for the ride, and they tend to show up loudest when we are tired, stretched, or triggered.

Vanya Laporte, a Registered Clinical Counsellor in Victoria, BC, and Internal Family Systems therapist, works with parents not to make them perfect, but to help them parent from a steadier, more grounded place within themselves.

What "Self-led" means

Internal Family Systems describes a calm, curious, compassionate presence that lives in every person beneath their reactive parts. IFS calls it Self. When we parent from Self, we can stay connected to our child even when their behaviour is hard — curious about what is underneath it rather than only reacting to the surface.

Self-led parenting does not mean never losing your temper. It means:

• Noticing when a part of you has taken over, and gently coming back
• Getting curious about what your reaction is protecting
• Repairing with your child after a rupture, which teaches them that relationships can mend
• Meeting your child's big feelings without being swept away by your own

The part of you that was once a child too

Often the moments that are hardest with our kids are the ones that echo something from our own childhood. The eye-roll that makes you feel dismissed. The clinginess that makes you feel trapped. These reactions are clues, not character flaws — doorways to the younger parts of you that still need care.

In session, Vanya helps you tend to those parts with the same compassion you are trying to offer your child. As your own inner world settles, parenting from calm becomes less of a performance and more of a natural state.

Bonding, belonging, and the wider world

Vanya's work centres on bonding and belonging — for children and for the adults raising them. For some families, this includes nature-based sessions on the Saanich Peninsula, where children often open up more easily while their hands are busy with bark, water, and stone, and parents can step out of the pressure of the household and into something more spacious.

If you are curious

You do not have to parent perfectly. You only have to keep returning — to your child, and to the calm, curious presence inside you that knows how to lead with love. Supporting the people who support others is at the heart of Vanya's work, and that includes you.

To learn more, or to book a free Meet and Greet with Vanya Laporte, RCC, visit www.vanyalaporte.com.