Emma Wolton
Purejoy Parent Coach
Emotional support and self-awareness for parents
Would you like more connection and cooperation in your home?
Do you ever........wish parenting was easier?...wish your child would behave differently?...worry about their future?...feel guilty or regret your actions in the past?...feel like you are emotionally drifting apart from them?...work hard to meet everyone’s needs and feel resentful when it’s not reciprocated?Have you tried to follow the positive parenting guidance and still found yourself losing it with your child?Of course! You are not alone. I experienced all of those and more in my parenting and was at the end of my tether. Then I discovered Purejoy Parenting and the SafeSeat process which turned my life around.Now I support other parents to use this process. The SafeSeat is a tool that develops self-awareness and self-compassion and has empowered hundreds of families to create emotional safety for themselves and their children.Using the SafeSeat process, I’ll guide you to establish a nurturing environment where you’ll meet yourself right where you are, taking care of your emotional needs first, supporting you to parent from your authentic, loving, adult self.The SafeSeat process moves you from rules to relationship, from control to cooperation. By trusting yourself deeply you’ll be able to come alongside your child, supporting them to trust themselves in their unique life journey.
"No one is more worthy of your kindness and compassion than you are”-Nhat Hanh
Elevenses with Emma
Try Purejoy for free!
Join me for a group drop in call every Tuesday at 11am UK time
How I work
As a Purejoy Parent Coach I will teach you Leslie Potter's SafeSeat process and guide you in self-enquiry, supporting your relationship with yourself and your child.
Testimonials
"I will be forever grateful to Emma for taking me through the SafeSeat and unpicking my thoughts and feelings and connecting me to my inner child.She has helped me understand myself and has joined the dots for me from my childhood to now.I now understand why I parent the way I do and I can connect to my children with love and kindness with depth of self awareness I have never had before."Heidi (Parenting Paused group course)
group and 1:1 sessions available
About Purejoy Parent coaching
Find out how Leslie Potter created the SafeSeat process to transform her own parenting and developed Purejoy Parent Coaching to share with others.
About me
Understanding what drives my behaviour and learning self compassion turned my parenting and my life around.
HOW I WORK
The Purejoy Coaching view is that we all have inner wisdom that guides us through life and in our relationships, including parenting. This wisdom often gets discouraged in our childhood and replaced with social conditioning that encourages us to look outside of ourselves for the answers.I am not an expert in how your child needs to be parented - you know yourself and your child better than anyone. I am here to be a guide in your journey of self-discovery that can lead you back to your inherent wisdom and a kinder, more loving relationship with yourself and therefore with your child and others. From this place you will discover a world of possibilities in how you can show up for yourself, your child and all your relationships.I don't give advice or teach techniques to control behaviour, rather I will support you to question whether your parenting is being driven by your heart based knowing or your fear based conditioning. This awareness empowers you to take responsibility for your part in the dynamic between you and your child, whilst offering yourself the deepest kindness. You can then release the idea that they are the cause of your struggles and recognise that their behaviour is merely triggering emotions and thoughts related to a childhood belief system.
“The most precious inheritance parents can leave their children is their own happiness." Thich Nhat Hanh
The SafeSeat ProcessThe SafeSeat is a designated spot in your home - a place to retreat when emotions run high and your inner child needs attention. It serves as a 'safe base' where you are able to feel loved and cared for.The process involves listening to the stories that emerge in response to a situation and experiencing the associated emotions. This practice helps you 'grow up' emotionally, enabling you to return to the situation with your adult capabilities. While it may sound simple, staying present with your experience is often challenging. It's easy to get caught up in stories about the past and future. This is where coaching is valuable. If your childhood strategy was to self-aggress or lash out, developing a new habit of turning inward is difficult to do alone.During our sessions, using the SafeSeat process, I create a space for you to express all aspects of yourself. Everything you share is welcomed without judgment and held in strict confidence.As you explore your thoughts and beliefs, emotions will naturally surface. I'll support you in staying present with these feelings and processing them, while also helping you recognise unconscious avoidance strategies. This inner work allows you to investigate what drives your behaviour in parenting and other relationships. At times, I may invite you to close your eyes, helping you notice your thoughts and bodily sensations - where emotions are felt. Remember, this is your journey. While I encourage you to lean into discomfort, you are always in control of what you explore and to what extent.Self-enquiry can be intense and uncomfortable and resistance is natural. It's counter-instinctual to confront feelings you once perceived as dangerous and to question deep-rooted personal and cultural beliefs. When resistance arises I'll gently bring attention to it, helping you develop deeper self-awareness.I'll guide you in recognising your triggers and examining the beliefs that influence how you view yourself and your child and how these views shape your actions. You'll learn the steps of the SafeSeat process, which I will encourage you to practice at home. This method teaches you how to create emotional safety for yourself and your child. You’ll learn practical steps needed to set healthy personal boundaries.Over time, you'll find it easier to trust yourself rather than relying on 'experts' or cultural norms. You'll gain confidence in supporting your child to know and trust themselves.This work isn't a quick fix. Like any new skill, it requires practise, patience and, above all, self-kindness. You might think, "I don't have time for that!"I understand. Modern life is hectic! And most of us were taught to take care of others, not ourselves. But in my experience, when I take the time to listen to my inner child and provide the loving support I need in the present moment, I truly 'grow up' emotionally. As a result I am able to offer my children the support they need and parenting - and life in general - becomes easier, more liberating and more enjoyable.
Introductory Session
30mins on zoom - free
An initial session for us to meet.
You can tell me about the issues that come up for you in your parenting, what your expectations of coaching are and what you hope to achieve.
You’ll be able to ask me any questions you have about my coaching and together we’ll determine if this work is a good fit for you at this time.
1:1 sessions
1 hour on zoom - £60
Individual sessions for you to explore your parenting issues.Using the SafeSeat process, I will listen to you and, through reflection and powerful questions, aim to bring awareness to unconscious patterns in your parenting strategies. This will shed light on the dynamics playing out in your family, supporting you to make more conscious parenting choices. With this insight, by offering yourself unconditional kindness you can learn to take responsibility for you own emotional experience and the part you play in those dynamics.
This work digs deep into emotions you have most likely been trying to avoid and unconscious, ingrained beliefs about yourself so be prepared for the boat to be rocked by some strong emotions and profound insights!
Parenting Paused 8 week course 1:1 sessions
1 hour a week on zoom plus written material to support your practice - £380 (saving 20%)
In this set of 8 sessions we focus specifically on learning Leslie Potter's SafeSeat practice in depth, applying it to your personal, everyday situations with your child.
Each of the sessions will focus on a different aspect of the process, from recognising the 4 parts of an emotional trigger and understanding that thoughts and emotions drive behaviour, to learning how to offer yourself deep, deep kindness and say 'Yes!' to you!
I will guide you in embodying each step and will provide written material to support your learning in your own time as well as suggestions for practise in your daily life.
Parenting Paused 8 week course Groups of 4-6
1 hour a week on zoom plus written material to support your practice - £150 per person
The content is the same as for the 1:1 8 week programme but, as we are working in a group, there is less time for individual coaching. However, each participant will have an opportunity for some coaching and you will get to witness others being coached. It can be very supportive to see that others have similar struggles to you and to witness another person expressing their vulnerability can touch deep into our hearts. In this way we all benefit and learn from each other.Please use the form below for enquiries or to book a free half an hour introductory call.If zoom is not an option for you, I am open to finding an alternative.If cost is an issue for you, please get in touch to discuss, as I have some Pay What You Can places available.
ABout purejoy parenting
Purejoy Parenting was developed by parent coach and psychotherapist, Leslie Potter, in response to her own parenting struggles.Her work centres around self-enquiry, focusing on our inner experience in relation to the external world. By exploring and challenging assumptions and conclusions about ourselves and others that we developed in childhood, we can question whether they still serve us today as adults.This requires welcoming and turning towards emotions we learned to avoid or dissociate from, which was necessary as a child, and yet doesn’t serve us as parents.A foundational part of PureJoy Parenting is the SafeSeat tool.Working much like the ‘safe base’ in a game of 'Tag', the SafeSeat is a place where we can go when we are emotionally triggered to take care of the young part of ourselves that is feeling threatened in response to our child's behaviour.During childhood most of us, at times, experienced that certain behaviours were unacceptable. Lacking the adult capacity to process the feelings that were driving these behaviours, we concluded that parts of us were unacceptable. In order to stay feeling safe in our families we tried to pretend we didn't have those parts, or feelings, by becoming unconscious of them.When our child's behaviour unconsciously reminds us of those parts by bringing up uncomfortable feelings, we can feel driven to act out our old childhood strategies, trying to avoid reliving the experience in the present moment. This often involves doing all we can to get the child to change their behaviour, shaming and blaming them and/or ourselves to behave 'better'. As this doesn't address the real issue, we find ourselves stuck in repeating patterns.For example, our child’s defiant ‘No!’ may bring up feelings of powerlessness or feeling invisible, if that's how we felt when we were a child. As this feels unsafe we may try to overpower the child, getting into a battle of wills, or collapse into a victim position believing we are powerless as a parent, 'treading on eggshells' to avoid upsetting them.
When we recognise these patterns and realise that, as adults, we are fully capable of feeling and processing emotions, that our children are not a threat to us, and we practise taking care of ourselves in the present in our SafeSeat, we are able to ‘grow ourselves up’ allowing the intensity of our emotions to pass through, emerging out the other side, able to access our adult capabilities again. We can then show up for our children how we want to, as a ‘safe base’ for them to be and express exactly who they are.The SafeSeat is even more important as a place to go when we have unintentionally acted out our childhood strategies towards our child and are feeling guilt and shame. After the event we can offer kindness to that younger part of ourselves that had felt so threatened by our child's behaviour. We can understand that we had acted out to protect ourselves from our vulnerable feelings that, in that moment, we had believed were unsafe to feel.Purejoy Parenting offers us the tools for self-enquiry, fostering understanding, compassion and a kinder view of ourselves and others.Using the SafeSeat process transformed Leslie's relationship with herself, her child and beyond. Other parents began to ask for her support and her career as a parent coach began. Followers of her work requested that she teach them her coaching skills and she ran several training programmes which were certified by the International Coaching Federation.You can read more about Leslie Potter's work and see what she has to offer by visiting her website.
about me
Ever since childhood, I had dreamed of becoming a mother. I adored children and babies, which led me to work first as a nanny and then as a nurse in Neonatal Intensive Care. When I gave birth to my son and, later, my daughter, I was overjoyed. They were absolutely adorable! I believed that as a mother, I would be kind and loving, and I imagined that consequently, my children would embody all the "good" qualities parents hope for in their children.Facing Unexpected ChallengesI was deeply disappointed when my children displayed behaviors that didn't align with my vision, and I found myself reacting in ways that were anything but kind and loving. This wasn't how I wanted to parent! In trying to control their behavior, I could tell I was acting childishly, and I felt utterly out of control at times. Why was I behaving this way? A familiar old belief resurfaced - that there was something wrong with me. I felt I was letting my children down by failing to be a "good" parent. Worst of all, I sensed a growing emotional distance between my son and me. I felt like I was losing him.The Search for Parenting SolutionsWhen I discovered conscious parenting books, I thought I'd found the answers. I believed that by following their advice, my fantasy of a "perfect" family would become reality. These books offered helpful insights into child psychology, reasons for undesirable behavior, and techniques to modify it. However, I still didn't trust myself as a parent. What if my child didn't respond as the book said they would? Why couldn't I behave as the book suggested I should? Instead of realising my "perfect" family fantasy, I felt I couldn't live up to the book's standards and believed, even more, that I was failing at motherhood. I felt so stuck!A Transformative DiscoveryThen I discovered Leslie Potter. Through her coaching, I realized that in many ways, I had never truly "grown up" emotionally and had been living and parenting through the lens of beliefs and conclusions formed in childhood. Although I wasn't aware of it at the time, the behaviors and traits I disapproved of in my children were ones I had disowned in myself and was projecting onto them. The strategies I had been using (controlling, coercing, pleasing, "treading on eggshells," acting helpless) to get my children to behave as I wanted were actually coping mechanisms I'd been using since childhood. These strategies helped me avoid my most vulnerable feelings: powerlessness, fear, disappointment, and rejection. I had learned as a child that it wasn't okay to express these feelings, and unconsciously, I was doing all I could to avoid feeling them in the present moment. In their place came anger, guilt, shame, and a lot of self-doubt.Understanding and Accepting EmotionsWhat I hadn't realised was that, as an adult, I could cope with consciously feeling these emotions. In fact, trying to avoid them by blaming external factors - my kids, my husband, etc. - was a big part of what was keeping me stuck. Through the Purejoy model of coaching, I also learned to recognise and examine my beliefs about myself. I can now investigate whether they're true and if they're serving me in my parenting and life in general. This has been transformative for me, as I had suffered from low self-esteem and intermittent depression for as long as I could remember, which seriously limited my enjoyment of life. Realising that there's nothing "wrong" with me and that I can cope with any feelings that arise has brought a profound sense of relief and freedom.The Impact of Coaching on Self-EsteemBy using Leslie's SafeSeat process whenever I become emotionally dysregulated, I am able to take care of my own emotions and become a "safe base" for myself. This supports me in creating an environment where everyone in our home is free and welcome to express themselves and be loved for who they are. My children continue to act like children - of course! Their brains are still maturing and will continue to do so well into their 20s. I still feel triggered by some of their behaviours - of course! - but not nearly as often or as intensely. When I experience uncomfortable feelings and the stories that accompany them, I'm better able to recognise that this is my issue, and work with it, instead of blaming my child.Navigating Parenting Challenges with Self-KindnessThis is ongoing work - a journey, not a destination. When I get lost in the heat of the moment and find I've acted using my old coping strategies again, taking it out on my child, I offer kindness to myself first. Then, I find out how my child experienced the situation. This allows me to show up as an adult and support them in processing their feelings.Fostering Emotional Intelligence in ChildrenBy being the emotional "safe base" for my children when they're expressing and processing their inner experiences, they learn to become that for themselves as they grow and mature into adults. This is what's known as emotional intelligence.Embracing Life's Ups and Downs with Purejoy CoachingBy working on myself in this way, I've become a calmer and more relaxed parent. I'm less controlling and more able to stay present with my own discomfort, instead of expecting my child to take care of me by being different than they are. The security I feel inside has filtered down to create a more relaxed and cooperative environment in our home.From Client to Coach: A Journey of TransformationThrough the Purejoy coaching I received, I now see that there are benefits as well as drawbacks to everything in life. This perspective has been enormously supportive, not least in grieving the death of my husband in 2021. I've learned and experienced that nothing is inherently problematic, which helps me relax and welcome all of life's ups and downs with kindness, viewing them as opportunities for growth. What I experienced from coaching with Leslie had such a profound impact on my life that I decided to train as a Purejoy Parent Coach myself. Now, I'm able to share this truly transformative work with others who are seeking support, just as I was.If any of this resonates with you and sounds like something you'd like to experience yourself, book a FREE discovery call or join me for a FREE group call every Tuesday 11am UK time where I’ll introduce you to the tools to become your own "safe base" and create emotional safety in your home.My TrainingPurejoy Parenting Coach Training 1:1, 2021 - 2022Purejoy Parent Coach Group Coach Training, 2022 - 2023Both 8-month trainings I completed involved theoretical, practical, and deep personal work. They were developed and led by Leslie Potter and certified by the International Coaching Federation (ICF) continuing education program.The SafeSeat process is now integrated into the way I live my life. However, I participate in a monthly professional supervision with Leslie to support my coaching.
introductory session
30 mins on zoom - free
An initial session for us to meet, for me to find out what issues are coming up for you in your parenting, what your expectations of coaching are and what you hope to achieve.
You’ll be able to ask me any questions you have about my coaching and together we’ll determine if this work is a good fit for your situation.FREE OFFER
For a limited period I am offering my transformational 8 week Parenting Paused course for FREE (1:1 or in a group) in exchange for honest feedback and a review I can use on this website. Please complete the form below to apply.
Elevenses with Emma
Every Tuesday at 11am UK time for 1 hour on zoom - Free
An informal drop-in session where you’ll be able to experience Purejoy coaching LIVE.I provide a safe space in which you’ll be able to bring whatever is coming up for you while getting a feel for what Purejoy has to offer to your situation. Everything is welcome!Bring your parenting issues and a cuppa. Hope to see you there!Complete the form below to receive the zoom link.
Do any of these scenarios feel familiar to you?
You wish your child would just listen to you and do as you ask? Or just brush their teeth, stop fighting with siblings, tidy up or help out.You find yourself thinking "If only they would just..... then everything would be ok!"You bend over backwards to meet everyone’s needs but your own and then feel resentful that you have no time for you or lose your temper when they won't do one tiny little thing for you.You get caught in worrying about what your child eats, how much screen time they have, their school work, relationships with friends or siblings.You feel responsible for their behaviour, their past, their future.
You worry that you may have damaged them.You wonder if you are a good enough parent.If you are like me then you have experienced all of those and more at some point in your parenting. Purejoy coaching and the SafeSeat process turned my parenting - and my life - around. And now I would love to share that process with you.Trained as a Purejoy Parent Coach, I can teach you the skills to become the emotional 'safe base' for you and your child.You can create a nurturing environment where your needs are just as important as the rest of the family's and where everyone - starting with you - can move from rules to relationship, from control to co-operation, trusting your internal knowing to come alongside your child and support them to trust themselves in finding their way in their own unique life journey.
Send me your email address and I'll send you a printable SafeSeat poster for a quick way to access the process.You'll be automatically subscribed to my newsletter- where I share tips and resources- but, don't worry, you can unsubscribe at any time.
Testimonials
"Emma’s coaching sessions have changed my life! With her calm, grounded energy, she creates a space that feels both safe and welcoming. Emma’s compassion and understanding make it easy to open up, and her insights have been invaluable in supporting me to approach parenting with more confidence and clarity.By focusing on my relationship with myself, encouraging me to offer kindness and acceptance to my own experience, I have become more balanced and compassionate in my attitude to myself and my child, (and my husband!) I always feel heard, understood, and empowered by our sessions, and can’t recommend her highly enough!"Maryrose (1:1 sessions)
book your introductory session
30 mins on zoom - free
An initial session for us to meet, for me to find out what issues are coming up for you in your parenting, what your expectations of coaching are and what you hope to achieve.You’ll be able to ask me any questions you have about my coaching and together we’ll determine if this work is a good fit for your situation.