• May 16, 2025 04:14 PM Central
  • Sarah Porter-Braun
  • 0 Comments
Hey you!  Thanks for your interest in EPIC Parenting!!
The passion for parenting practices and how they can help our kids thrive started for me, naturally, when I became a mom.  When my daughter was born, instead of the blissful moment one expects after a perfectly healthy, normal delivery (you know, skin-to-skin contact, happy hormones a-flowing, birds chirping, etc) ...I took one look at my tiny, perfect human, and had a full-blown panic attack. Who the F*** trusted me to keep her perfect?  OMG! It was all downhill from here for her.  

In an instant, I accepted that after infancy (I was pretty sure I could do that part), the parenting training wheels come off and we're left figuring out how to grow a human from about 12 months onward by ourselves.  It was clear that most women I knew were comfortable in the belief that they could 'figure it out' because their own upbringing was A-OK!  I, on the other hand, grew up with what I've come to call "Well-Intentioned, Under-Prepared, & Under-Supported" parents.  My parents had the very best of intentions and expectations.  They also had trauma of different sorts during their early and formative years and didn't have good parenting role-models or experiences.  And despite being highly educated and mom's great efforts to learn, our collective knowledge about human development and needs was lacking.  Dr. Spock, while well-regarded in the 60s and 70's, got a lot of things wrong.  But he was the "expert" du jour.

Fast forward to today - the challenges our parents experienced are radically different from those parents face today.  In addition, the science on human development has exploded over the past 25 years, revealing how some once 'common' parenting practices are detrimental, and new practices nurture brain development at critical moments resulting in better capabilities. behavior, and long-term outcomes.

I've been working on EPIC Parenting for more than a decade.  It's gone through a few previous formations.  But all of those have aided in honing the idea and simplifying the approach. Parenting simply shouldn't be as has as it's become.  While we work on the environmental factors that make parenting (and being a kid) hard today (i.e. outdated education structures and school start times, declining after-school programs and supports for working parents, and more), we have only distant control over the pace at which those change.  But we have direct control over the choices we make in the way to parent our kids.

Through this platform and community, I hope to help make your parenting journey easier, and help you achieve those sometimes elusive goals of happy, healthy young adults and a connected, warm family relationship.  

EPIC is the acronym to get you there.  The learning experiences, reflections, and support will give you the knowledge and skills to use EPIC in everyday life to help your kids soar. 

E - Emotionally Attuned
P - Prepared
I -  Identify Needs
C - Connected /4 C's

The title of this blog, "The Perpetual Rookie" is a nod to the fact that parenting is a learning profession.  Just when you think 'you've got this', your kid grows into a new stage, and everything you thought you knew no longer applies.  Do you recall when you finally got your 4 month-old to sleep for more than 5 hours/night?  And it was great for a week max!  Suddenly, they were teething, and all over again, no more blissful sleep for you! Their needs changed.

Parenting is an epic journey of discovery - who is your child becoming? what are their needs now? how are they changing? how do I adjust my approach to meet their needs? - There is always something new. If you can take a rookie's eager and curious mindset into your parenting you'll be great.  Just keep curious, keep learning, and keep loving your child unconditionally.  

Yep, even when they won't let you sleep, or sneak out the door at midnight.  It's all developmentally normal.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to learn, understand and steer your ever-growing, amazing human.

Thanks for being here, you amazing parent!! 
Let's get on with it.
Sarah


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Hi!  Thanks for being here!  I know your time is tight, and I'm humbled you've carved out a minute or two for this page.  I'm Sarah and I'd love to help you.  

We're living in a crazy, dynamic world where change is constant and accelerating - I know I don't have to tell you that.  There are few places where one feels this more than when you're trying to raise kids in the midst of what feels like chaos!  You're not imagining it - it's hard, confusing, and unsettling all at once in part because your kids are changing just as fast, at the same time!  

So, first, congratulations on finding this page and taking the time to read it.  I'll make this short and sweet:

There's good news:  we have information and science today that previous generations didn't have.  Over the past 25 years developmental science has exploded, overturning centuries-old parenting 'wisdom', and unveiling insights into growth at each stage of development, from birth to death.  And amongst that, we've learned that adolescence - the period between roughly 10 and 25 - is the transition from childhood to adulthood, and with it comes more change than at any other period.  Adolescent brain growth only rivals the first few years of life!  Most importantly, we've learned that adolescent growth, while complex, happens in a predictable order.  And, as different parts of the brain grow, related needs are heightened, and behaviors follow.  

This is HUGE, because now we can better understand why kids do what they do, and flip the script on adolescent behavior!  It's a magical growth adventure!! And YOU are lucky enough to be along for the ride...if you know how to let them drive, and be the passenger-guide they know they need.

Adolescents aren't prone to stupidity!! Quite the contrary - they're prone to fulfilling important developmental needs, and perhaps stumbling in their process to figure things out.  What might appear as dumb, unnecessary, or even ludicrous choices or behavior from an adult perspective, is likely a bumbling attempt to fulfill the critical and changing needs of adolescent growth.

If you can understand their driving needs, you can understand their wants, choices, and behaviors.  And, best of all, you can change your parenting approach to meet their needs before they are even aware of them ... putting you in the most important passenger seat you'll ever occupy.

I've made it my mission to use this new science to simplify the job of raising kids into healthy, prepared young adults.  Less guesswork. More progress. Better relationships today and into the future.

If you understand them and know how to prepare and respond, it's so much easier!  And the ride is SO fun!

Sign up, tune in, and let's help your kid become the best version of him/her/them-self!! It's a journey and they need a guide.


Why should you listen to me?  Great question... Here's my story.
While raising my two kids, I became increasingly disturbed by the difficulty I had finding resources that helped me learn how to parent as my kids evolved and grew.  Things kept happening, and I found myself lamenting, "Oh, I wish I knew that before!" too frequently.  After sharing these situations with friends and strangers alike (at the soccer field, at work, at the gym), I discovered that I wasn't alone.  Many parents shared that after infancy, usable information and support decreased rapidly and they were just making it up as they went along, hoping for the best.

After a few years of this, I realized that we were all parenting looking backward!  We were in constant reaction mode, and most of the existing resources told us how to REACT to common behaviors or situations that were objectionable.  But, as my kids approached the tween and teen years, I seemed to be exacerbating the problems that were cropping up by misinterpreting their behavior, presuming that I knew what was going on, and responding in ways that were not helpful and not meeting their needs.  The fact was, I didn't understand their foundational needs. "How could I be so unprepared for something so important?!".  

So I enrolled in a certification course on Human Development, realizing that I had an MBA and needed an MHD (Masters in Human Development)!  Finally, so many experiences I'd had with my children made sense!  I also realized that many of the challenges we experienced were due to my lack of understanding, and in many cases, my response!  I learned that, like me, most parents were well-intentioned, under-prepared, and under-supported for this incredible journey of raising humans.  

Leveraging my career in Education Technology and online learning, I founded my first company, Lemonade Lessons, followed three years later by Well & Ready both of which offered science-based content to parents.

During the pandemic, we closed Well & Ready, and I embarked on further exploration - how to support today's parents best.  The neuroscience of brain development was still exploding, technologies had advanced, Childhood emotional distress had been declared an epidemic, and our society had become exceedingly comfortable with online learning.  This opened up all kinds of opportunities, and parents needed easy-to-access, get to the chase,  help and support that evolved as their children evolved.

I launched EPIC Parenting to address the "Well-Intentioned, Under-prepared, and Under-Supported" condition of today's parents; to help parents become more proactive in the way they approach parenting, decreasing their stress and worry, and increasing their kids' health, vitality, and success.

Thanks for being here.  I'd love to get to know you and help you learn to be EPIC!
Sarah

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