How to Raise Good Humans without Battles, Meltdowns, or Parent Guilt

Free Resource: A Parent's Guide to Better Tech Boundaries

Expert Guidance to Help Your Family Thrive

Welcome to Successful Parent!

If you’re here, you are a better parent than you might feel.

Parents who really care and want the best for their kids search for how best to do it. Your kids are lucky to have you.

Dr. Carrie Mackensen, affectionately called “Dr. Carrie” by her clients, has successfully helped hundreds of families in her twenty-plus years as a psychologist. She will guide you to feel confident, calm, and empowered as a parent.

Dr. Carrie offers clear parenting solutions for:

Tantrums, acting out
Screen battles
Kids not listening
Behavioral issues
Anxiety, fears
Parent-child conflict
Sibling rivalry
Emotional Dysregulation
Eating issues
Friend drama, bullying
Social & academic pressures
Shutting down, withdrawal
Stress & overwhelm
Co-parent misalignment

Dr. Carrie will meet with both you and your co-parent. Through a series of questionnaires and virtual meetings, she will explore your history and learn about your children and your parenting struggles and strengths.

Solutions are tailor-made for you, your family, and your unique situation. Meetings will occur online and, when appropriate, informally in your home so she can meet your kids and get a true sense of what things are like behind closed doors.

Books, podcasts, and parenting apps are great but they only go so far. Like a concierge physician, Dr. Carrie thinks a personalized approach makes all the difference. Genuine, warm, and friendly, Dr. Carrie is the parenting guide you’ve been searching for; as one parent expressed, she is like “chicken soup for the weary parent soul.”

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Why Successful Parents Use a Parenting Coach

Parenting can be hard.

Coaching can make it easier and lead to a healthier, happier family.

Kids don’t come with an operating manual. But when your child is struggling, you, the parent, feel it. If your toddler has uncontrollable outbursts, your school-aged child is anxious and fearful, or your teenager is not coping well emotionally, you feel stressed.

Parents often send their children to see therapists, yet the parent is the person who is with the child the most and who potentially has the most influence. A parent's role is beyond compare to optimally support, guide, and bring out the best in their children.

But, if you’re like most parents, you didn’t earn a PhD in child development or psychology. Instead, you may be a successful entrepreneur, musician, attorney, real estate developer, or physician. You thrive professionally, but you were not trained on how to parent optimally.

Typically, parents either raise their kids the same way they were raised or they do the opposite…often with less-than-optimal or even quite frustrating results. The world has changed considerably, advancements in technology require new parenting strategies that previous generations did not have to consider.

It’s common for someone to work with a personal trainer or nutritionist to improve their physique; many CEOs join professional organizations or hire a business coach to scale their company. Yet, hiring a parent coach to optimize your family life and your child’s health, well-being, and future is not as common. Why not?

When asked, “What’s most important to you in life?” the majority of parents answer, “My children.” It is a love like no other. Yet, little time is spent learning how to parent optimally, and books only go so far. Every child is different, and all parents have unique histories and circumstances. Often, co-parents need help to get on the same page. Specific, personalized guidance works best.

There is no shame in things going wrong at home. Parents do the best they can with the information they have. Parents with successful careers are often unsure how to best raise their children.

With the help of a highly educated, credentialed, and skilled coach, these same parents can make prolific, positive changes for their families.

About Dr. Carrie Mackensen

Educational Background: Dr. Carrie Mackensen holds a PhD in Individual, Family, and Child Psychology and has over 25 years of experience studying child development and relationships.

Clinical Experience: She has worked in a multitude settings, including schools (K-12), Community Mental Health, as an attending Psychologist at Cedars Sinai, as a Director at high-end Residential Treatment Programs for addiction and eating disorders, and in Private Practice in both Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach.

Personal Life: Her favorite title is "mom." Dr. Carrie and her husband have two energetic boys who keep them on their toes. They couldn't be more proud of their kids. They also have a beloved dog named Grace. Being connected and active with her family brings her the greatest joy.

Shift in Focus: Dr. Carrie shifted her focus from clinical practice to parenting after having her first child. She holds certifications in Reflective Parenting, Mindful Parenting, and Mindfulness Meditation, as well as expertise in Attachment Theory and Interpersonal Neurobiology. She is certified as a parent coach.

Mission to Empower: Now ready to help others as a parent coach, Dr. Carrie emphasizes that successful parenting relies on understanding and tools to be both loving and firm. She aims to empower parents to positively impact their children's lives.

Click here for Dr. Carrie’s in-depth background

Parenting Approach:
Loving and Firm.
Effective Parenting is Both.

Dr. Carrie draws from the fields of Interpersonal Neurobiology, Attachment Theory, and the tenets of good enough parenting from developmental pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, among others. She also has twenty-plus years of clinical experience and is battle-tested as a mom.

The relationship between the parent and child is ultimately what helps children to develop a strong sense of self. Dr. Carrie credits emotional attunement and connection as the foundation for successful parenting.

However, successful parenting is about balance; love and attunement void of boundaries isn't healthy.

The current "gentle parenting" trend may work sometimes, but firm boundaries are essential. Our children need our love and firm, unwavering presence and boundaries.

Clear boundaries allow children to feel safe. Furthermore, having to accept a boundary develops frustration tolerance. When parents coward to their children, the kids feel in charge–this reverse order creates anxiety in the child. Kids who never get told "no" become indulged and entitled. They also become fragile; they lose it or come undone when things don't go their way.

Dr. Carrie believes children are antifragile, so allowing them to experience or endure some frustration builds resilience. Life isn't going to give anyone what they want all the time. Being able to handle a firm no allows children to go with the flow amid life's challenges rather than explode or melt. Parents who hold loving boundaries raise respectful, resilient children.

Lastly, parents only need to get it right a portion of the time. It is impossible to parent perfectly, and there is tremendous value in making repairs when we mess up. Repair reinforces attunement, the boundary between parent and child, and teaches how to communicate feelings and resolve conflict effectively.

Dr. Carrie teaches parents how to understand and emotionally attune to their children, to set and uphold healthy boundaries, and to repair mistakes. She empowers parents with science-backed research and the tools to become the successful parents that the whole family deserves.

Click here for more on Dr. Carrie’s parenting approach