Christina Lee Billyard

Discover three parenting books we often recommend at Ripple Effect Services: Brain-Body Parenting, The Whole-Brain Child, and Self-Reg. Explore how these books can help parents understand children’s behaviour, nervous systems, regulation, and neurodivergence with greater curiosity and compassion.

The Best Back-to-School Preparation Doesn't Fit in a Backpack Every August, parents start checking off lists. ✓ Backpack ✓ Water bottle ✓ Lunch bag ✓ School shoes ✓ Permission forms to sign But there's one thing that often gets overlooked: Your kid’s nervous system. As a twin mom and children's therapist, one conversation keeps coming up both in and outside of the therapy room this time of year: back to school. Parents are wondering how to ease the transition. One part of you may be grieving...

Confession time. I used to hate golf. Well, not golf itself… necessarily. But what it represented. As a wife and mom of toddler twins, golf used to feel like dedicated hours of freedom that I didn't have. While I was home navigating diapers, naps, meltdowns, and the endless mental load of parenting, my husband would head out with friends to do something he genuinely loved. I'd watch him leave feeling equal parts envy, resentment, and if I'm honest, a little guilty for feeling that way. Then...