Page Content: Cost/Contact → Description → Benefits of Family Work → Common Ways That Children Communicate Their Need For Support → Structure of the Work → Contact
GET A FREE CONSULT (707) 829-1764
FAMILY SUPPORT/WOMB & BIRTH PLAY FOR CHILDREN
Cost
Sliding scale $220 – $140/one-hour session. PayPal, Venmo and cards accepted
Debriefs are charged at your chosen hourly rate by the minute and are paid for at the following session. See below for the structure of the work.
To schedule a FREE phone/video consult call (707) 829 1764 or email starbear@sonic.net
PLEASE NOTE: 24 hours notice is required to cancel or change an appointment otherwise the full fee is charged
Description
This special play environment is designed to support children and families to come into alignment, resolve early events and traumas, increase secure attachment, integrate experiences from pre-conception through infancy and provides supportive space for other issues to be processed. The pre- and perinatal period provides us with our foundations for life and can be eventful.
Parents are present for each one-hour session in my office (during COVID I’m working in your garden or online). Children need to tell their story in their own way. They want to be heard and they can do this during supportive play, with deep listening from the adults. We can create new internal resources as past challenging experiences are explored and integrated. Parents empathically attune as they tell us about what happened and how it felt. Early trauma can be healed; children don’t have to hold unresolved hurts inside. They appreciate having the time to process pent-up, stuck issues that are held in their body-system, and to tell their story in their own way through play.
Benefits of Family Work:
- Learn new and deeper ways to listen to your child so that you can understand what’s driving her behavior
- Support your child to unravel internal knots, build new resources and process unresolved trauma and events
- Have some time for the whole family to integrate unresolved pre-conception through newborn experiences. Move on feeling more connected and settled inside
- Supported development of parenting, co-parenting and attachment skills for parents
- Clearing of blocks and pain within the family system including ancestral influences
- Enhanced attachment and closer relationships within the family
- A more settled child and increased adult-to-adult connection between parents
- Learning to play with your child
Support for your child means that s/he won’t have to grow up constellating around unresolved and unheard events, pain and trauma.
My son, now 5 years old, was born at 25 weeks and was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for 3½ months where I met him as a NICU nurse. I cared for him, bonded with him, came to love him, and eventually adopted him. In the safe play environment provided by Karen he was able to process a lot of the trauma he had experienced in the hospital, and in the womb. I learned new parenting skills as Karen supported my parenting and strengthened our attachment. I am forever grateful!! Thank you Karen!
NICU RN, Sacramento, CA
Common Ways That Children Communicate Their Need for Support:
- Tactile sensitivity
- Sleep issues/disturbances
- Struggling with transitions (going to sleep, getting up, leaving the house, going into school, etc.)
- Insecure attachment
- Power struggles, and not responding to authority and boundaries (may be an alpha child – needing to be the one in charge)
- Inconsolable or long periods of crying
- Inability to settle down and/or rest
- A revved nervous system (can be the result of imprints, Pitocin, unresolved trauma, etc.)
- Being overemotional
- Ungrounded behaviors like banging into things a lot, not finding their feet, scattered energy, etc.
- Disconnection from self and/or others, or from Source
- Separation anxiety
- Anger/rage, grief and sadness
- Hyper-vigilant (on high alert towards, people, sounds, environment, etc.)
At a young age my son experienced bouts of deep sadness, withdrawal, and intense rage. In the first session with Karen Melton - to our astonishment - our son reenacted his entire birth without words, right there in front of our eyes. It was as if he knew just what he needed to do. This is because of Karen's presence, and approach. She always provided a space in which my son felt held, safe, and seen, which was a rare experience for him. Karen worked closely with our whole family to improve dynamics and create healthy attachments; she was a great support for me as a mother, and to my son in helping him feel safe enough to reach out and form deeper connections with others.
Alissa Coenen, Teacher, Sonoma County
Structure of the Work
During Covid I’m seeing families outside in their own, or anothers’, garden which needs to be private with shade available, or in video sessions.
- We begin with a free initial phone consult
- Intake forms are filled in and intentions made
- A one-hour play session is scheduled for the child at which both parents are present
- Each session is followed, within 1-2 days, by a phone/Zoom debrief with the parents. During debriefs we’ll discuss and process the session together; this helps your child to move forward and feel supported because s/he is not processing everything alone. We will also check in about what’s happening at home and discuss parenting. Parenting and attachment support is included.
- Other options in this work: It can help for one parent to come in for a session with their child, for both parents to come in without their child for parenting support, or for one parent to come in alone depending on what’s needed in your family.
Karen was an invaluable resource for my daughter and I after I had an emergency c-section. Her skill and compassion created a safe space for my four-year-old daughter to work through her birth experience. I gained clarity about how it affected our attachment, and my parenting, and learned how to be more available for my daughter during difficulty. Karen's work is subtle and powerful. She creates an environment in which children can engage in exploration of their birth experience with play and movement. My daughter naturally revisited and recreated her birth experience, without any explicit prompting her play unfolded organically, and bought me to tears more than once. I’m immensely grateful for the time we spent with Karen, it was a gift. I highly recommend her to anyone interested in understanding, and changing, deeper patterns that interfere with connection and positive attachment.
Sasha Benedetti, Elementary School Teacher, Sonoma County
To schedule a FREE phone/video consult call (707) 829 1764 or email starbear@sonic.net