Fresh Start Family
Share
She is a Certified Parent Educator of Redirecting Children’s Behavior (RCB) and an advocate for families.
📖 Author of Fresh Start Your Family | 🎙️ Host of The Fresh Start Family Show
Helping parents upgrade their Parenting Operating System™ so they become calm, connected leaders who raise cooperative kids—without yelling, threats, punishment, or shame. Wendy Snyder is a Positive Parenting Teacher & Family Coach, helping families parent with great purpose and intention by creating healthy, respectful & cooperative relationships. A mother to two vibrant children, Wendy has been dedicated to the application of Positive Parenting in her home since 2009. Wendy discovered the work of Positive Parenting when she was challenged and overwhelmed with the many trials of parenthood early in her motherhood experience. The endless opportunities for practice, failure, learning and growth have created a deep fluency for Wendy in the language and curriculum of Redirecting Children’s Behavior. Through her company Fresh Start Family, Wendy offers in-person and online seminars, coaching, classes & memberships to give parents the support and tools they need to raise their children with firmness, kindness, strong limits, compassion and empathy. Her delicate balance of encouragement, empowerment, and coaching inspires parents to take action and be the change they wish to see in their families, homes and communities. Wendy obtained her BS in Marketing from San Diego State University and Parenting Certification from the International Network for Children & Families. Before her move to parenting education, Wendy enjoyed a decade-long career in the corporate action sports industry. She now uses her business savvy to provide a solid return on investment for parents who trust her with their precious time and resources. Active in her Southern California community, Wendy can be found in the garden at her kids’ school, serving in her church, or enjoying a date night with her husband of 15 years, Terry. Committed to maintaining a healthy work/life balance, Wendy loves to surf, jog, and practice Pilates. Friends describe Wendy as an effervescent joy, a vanguard for change, and a relentless encourager. For more information about her services and a complimentary initial exploratory consultation, please explore the Fresh Start Parenting Website or contact her via email at [email protected].
What if you’re diagnosing your kid’s behavior by looking in the wrong place?
They interrupt constantly → “attention-seeking.”
They refuse to cooperate → “defiant.”
They lash out → “aggressive.”
But the behavior itself doesn’t always tell you what’s actually going on.
**Your reaction to it can give you a clue.**
Here’s the decoder:
Feeling irritated or annoyed? → **Attention**
Feeling provoked or challenged? → **Power**
Feeling hurt or wounded? → **Revenge**
Feeling pity or an urge to rescue? → **Inadequacy**
Same behavior on the outside can be communicating something very different underneath.
That’s why I come back to this again and again:
**Misbehavior is communication.**
So next time your kid does that thing that instantly gets under your skin, don’t rush to label THEM.
Pause and name what’s happening inside YOU first.
Your reaction might tell you what you’ve been missing.
09/27/2026
Your kid might not be fighting the boundary.
They might be fighting the feeling of having **ZERO SAY** in what happens next.
Think about it.
“Turn it off.”
“Get in the car.”
“Put your shoes on.”
“No.”
Boundary after boundary where every ounce of control belongs to the adult.
For a strong-willed kid especially, that loss of autonomy can turn a perfectly reasonable limit into a power struggle FAST.
So don’t remove the boundary.
**Give them some power inside it.**
“Do you want to turn the TV off, or should I press the button?”
“Shoes on here, or bring them to the car?”
“Want to unload the dishwasher or wipe down the table?”
The destination doesn’t change.
The TV still goes off.
You’re still leaving.
The job still gets done.
But your child gets a voice in HOW they get there.
Sometimes the fastest way out of a power struggle isn’t giving up your authority.
It’s giving your child a little appropriate power of their own.
Want 3 actionable shifts you can start using TODAY to create more peace and cooperation with your strong-willed kid?
Drop **WORKSHOP** below and I’ll send you details on how to join me for my next free interactive workshop, **3 Secrets to Thriving with Strong-Willed Kids.** where I teach my top power struggle dissolving strategies that work like a charm with kids of ALL ages!
You held the boundary.
Your kid STILL melted down.
So… does this whole “firm and kind” parenting thing just not work with your kid?
Probably not.
There may be one step missing.
**Empathy BEFORE the boundary.**
And no, empathy doesn’t mean changing your mind, giving in, or letting the limit disappear.
It sounds like:
“I know it’s hard to stop playing when you’re having fun.”
THEN you hold the limit.
Because when kids don’t feel heard, they often push harder against the boundary.
But when they feel understood, they don’t have to fight so hard to prove how much they don’t like it.
Same kid.
Same boundary.
Same answer.
But now you’ve added connection before correction.
Empathy isn’t the “soft” part of holding a boundary.
**It’s what helps the firm part actually land.**
09/25/2026
The timer goes off.
And suddenly everyone forgets the perfectly reasonable conversation you had about screen time. 😅
“Five more minutes.”
“I’m almost done!”
“BUT MOMMMMM.”
Here’s what most parents don’t realize:
The middle of the battle is the WORST time to create the boundary.
By then, your child is frustrated, you’re frustrated, and what could have been a simple limit has turned into a power struggle.
Instead, make the agreement BEFORE the iPad comes out.
Same boundary. Different timing. Completely different conversation.
And an agreement isn’t:
“You get 30 minutes and when I say you’re done, you’re done OR ELSE .... Got it?”
That’s a demand with a question mark attached. 😂
A real agreement gives your child a voice inside a boundary that still holds.
If screens, bedtime, homework, getting out the door… or any other recurring battle keeps happening in your house, this is exactly the kind of work we practice together inside the **Fresh Start Experience**.
You don’t need another script to memorize.
You need a different way to handle the moment BEFORE it becomes a fight.
Come join us. Your next hard moment with your child can look different.
Link is in my bio or drop 'EXPERIENCE' below and I'll shoot you a private message for you to check out the program : )
If you’ve explained the same lesson three times and your child STILL isn’t getting it…
The problem might not be the lesson.
It might be the timing.
When your child is still flooded with emotion, their nervous system isn’t ready for a teaching moment.
And here’s the part we parents miss:
Sometimes WE aren’t ready for the teaching moment either.
We’re correcting while we’re still frustrated.
Explaining while we’re defensive.
Teaching while secretly trying to make the behavior stop as fast as possible.
That’s why I teach **connection before correction.**
Regulate yourself first. Let their emotions come back down. THEN teach the missing skill.
Because the best lesson in the world won’t land when nobody in the room is ready to learn.
Next time you hear yourself explaining something for the third time, stop.
Before you say it a fourth, ask yourself:
**Are we actually in learning mode yet?**
09/23/2026
She didn’t learn it because I told her to calm down.
She learned it because she watched ME calm down.
For months, I’d been giving my daughter the words.
Then one day, after watching me respond differently to my own triggers, she got frustrated with her little brother… walked away… sat herself down… and started taking big, deliberate breaths.
“I’m doing a calming break because Terrin is making me very mad.” 😭
That moment has stayed with me because THIS is the part of parenting we forget:
Our kids are watching how we handle the moments we wish THEY would handle better.
They’re watching what we do when we’re frustrated.
When we’re overwhelmed.
When things don’t go our way.
Most of what our kids learn is caught, not taught.
So today, don’t worry about modeling it perfectly.
Just let them catch you practicing.
And if you want to go deeper on this, listen to episode 165 of the podcast: **Modeling and Teaching Self Control to Kids.**
You don’t yell because you “forgot” everything you know about parenting.
The reaction often starts BEFORE the words come out.
Tight chest.
Clenched jaw.
Talking faster.
Rushing the moment.
Your body is giving you the warning signs… but most parents have never been taught how to catch them.
And that tiny window between being triggered and reacting?
That’s where the work is.
Not more willpower.
Not beating yourself up afterward.
Learning to notice what’s happening soon enough to choose what happens next.
If you want to practice this instead of just knowing you “should stay calm,” drop **AWARE** below and I’ll send you the walkthrough.
If there's one specific trait in your kid that sets you off harder than any other, this one's for you.
I'll show you why that trait gets under your skin so much more than anything else, and it has almost nothing to do with your kid.
My daughter Stella is strong-willed, Type A, a go-getter. And when she was little, I kept stepping right into the power struggle with her instead of stepping to the side of it, because in more ways than I wanted to admit, she's exactly like me.
The real question wasn't about her at all. It was about how hard I'd always been on myself for those exact same traits.
You can't fully accept in your child what you've never accepted in yourself. When the self-judgment softens, the fight with your kid softens right along with it, because you're no longer fighting the same trait in two people at once.
She's 18 now. That same intense determination is exactly what helped her reach her dream of becoming an NCAA Division I beach volleyball player at a school ranked in the top 10 in the nation.
So here's your move. Think of the one trait in your kid that gets under your skin the most.
Ask yourself honestly, is that actually about them, or a part of you you've never fully made peace with?
09/20/2026
"It's like she's trying to ruin the day."
That was my honest, unfiltered thought more times than I want to admit when my daughter Stella was little.
One afternoon she was three and a half, having a full meltdown over my nursing stool. The old me would have spiraled right along with her. But that day I did my stop sign, let her move through it, then got down on her level and asked, "Honey, what's going on?"
"I'm just so mad," she whispered.
That's the moment the lens flipped, not in theory, in my body. I wasn't looking at a defiant kid trying to ruin my afternoon anymore. I was looking at a little person who couldn't control the size of her own feelings and hated that about herself, the exact same thing I was quietly struggling with at thirty-three.
Here's what that swap cost me. Nothing. She still didn't get the stool. What changed was the story running in my head about who she was in that moment. That's the whole difference between a mom who reacts to behavior and a mom who responds to a need.
You don't need a perfect script for this. You need one pause and one honest question: "What's going on?"
If you want the exact tool for catching yourself mid-moment like this, the Old Lens vs. New Lens breakdown with real scripts for the hardest moments, that's exactly what's waiting for you inside the Fresh Start Experience.
Come join us. Your next hard moment could look exactly like this one.
www.FreshStartFamilyOnline.com/Join
P.S. My podcast episode 306 with Terry, Honesty, Humility and Radical Responsibility, goes deeper on the kind of internal shift this story is really about. Click here to listen in www.freshstartfamilyonline.com/306
You just labeled your kid "defiant" for the third time today, whether out loud or just in your own head. What if that word is actually hiding the real problem?
"Defiant" is a character judgment. It tells you nothing about what to do next. But every single misbehavior is your kid's best attempt at communicating an unmet need, connection, power, love, value, or belonging.
The real diagnosis question isn't "why are they being like this." It's "what's missing right now." That single shift, from labeling the behavior to diagnosing the need underneath it, is the whole foundation of everything I teach in my book Fresh Start Your Family.
Next time "defiant" shows up in your head, swap it for "what life-skill is missing." That one swap is worth more than any consequence you could hand out.
Click here to claim your Sponsored Listing.
Category
Contact the school
Telephone
Website
Address
Encinitas, CA
92024
Opening Hours
| Monday | 9am - 2pm |
| Tuesday | 9am - 2pm |
| Wednesday | 9am - 2pm |
| Thursday | 9am - 2pm |
| Friday | 9am - 12pm |
Alerts
Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Fresh Start Family posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.