About Us

Melinda Moats is the creator and facilitator of Illuminated Parenting and the author of Parenting Day by Day. These seminars are in response to requests for a comprehensive seminar to help parents understand themselves and how to raise their children with a strong heart, a clear mind, and a resilient spirit. These seminars are appropriate for parents with children of all ages.

As a parenting expert, Melinda can specifically address your questions and provide detailed solutions. Ask about our packages and how you can get started.

Melinda Moats has a Masters in Education in Counseling and is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with the state of Washington. Melinda has over 30 years of experience as a Child and Family Therapist, 25 years teaching parenting classes, and 39 years as a parent.

Parenting Toward the Light

I became a parent at the wise age of 26. That was the age when people got married and had kids simply because that’s how it went. Not that I didn’t want marriage and children, I did. I just didn’t think about it too much. As my pregnancy progressed, I began to read about diapers and child development and organic food and all things baby. I was unaware of it at the time, but a part of me was kicking in, the part of me that wanted to do this right, to be the best and to succeed gloriously at parenting.

I can chuckle now. Parenting can be a roller coaster ride, gritty and grimy, laughing and loving. Now I can see there is no such thing as perfect parenting, although I really gave it the yeomen’s try. Fortunately there is something even better than perfection. I call it Illuminated Parenting: Parenting with awareness and consciousness of our beliefs and how we pass those beliefs onto our children. All the parenting techniques in the world won’t help if we are in the dark about our inner worlds, beliefs and motivations.

Sometimes it still pains me to realize I couldn’t parent perfectly, but then I wonder what constitutes good parenting anyway? Is it raising perfect children who go to top colleges, get high paying, prestigious jobs, marry and have 2.5 children of their own? Is it having a close relationship with your child even after they become adults? Is it seeing your children happy? Or all of the above?

Parenting for the past 30+ years and teaching parenting classes for 20+ of those years has shown me that good parenting is defined in as many ways as there are people to define it. And yet, there are some common ideals for most parents such as:

• Providing for the health and welfare of our kids so that they grow strong and smart, able to thrive and grow.
• Hoping that our children will be better able to live life more fully, love more deeply, be happier than we were able to accomplish in our own lives.
• And wishing to be connected to our children even when they are adults and living on their own.

The way to do this is to bring to light what beliefs you have held about happiness, relationships, love and purpose in life, ask yourself if these beliefs are true based on what you know today, and decide if those beliefs are something you want to pass on to your children.

And Illuminated Parenting is how to accomplish a deeper understanding for yourself, of what your conscious beliefs about good living are and ultimately, this leads to deepening relationships and fulfillment for yourself, your children and those you love. Illuminated Parenting offers simple techniques to uncover and remove blocks to your parenting and life-in-general goals and aspirations.

How do we engage in conscious parenting? Well, we start with asking ourselves a few questions:

• How can I, as a person, take my inner life to a deeper level than how I operate right now?
• What is happiness and how do I currently go about pursuing it, much less teach it to my children?
• How do people effectively connect with each other, love and laugh, hope and dream together? What activities encourage depth in these areas of life?
• What gets in the way of connection?
• How do I currently go about overcoming the barriers to the deep connection I wish for in my relationships?

The Illuminated Parenting process flushes out the answers and explores the best way to live life with love and happiness. Join me by adding your email address to follow my story via the Illuminated Parenting blog full of ideas and questions for your own exploration.  ‘Like’ Illuminated Parenting on FB. Or take a seminar. Or just come back here every once in a while to see what’s new. Enjoy!

Ask Melinda

Email a question you have regarding your kids. The most common questions will be answered regularly and posted on this webpage. Watch for parenting tips, resources and ideas that give ideas about your toughest issues.