I would love to work with you!
I offer talks, workshops, presentations and courses on a range of topics. I have over 20 years experience in applying the Hand in Hand Parenting approach to common parenting challenges. We focus on practical Tools for building and repairing relationships, getting support, and solving problems in family life.
I’m more than happy to develop talks and presentations to meet the particular needs of your community of parents and carers. Feel free to contact me to discuss any other topics of interest or concern.
I have worked with the following agencies over the years:
Schools as Community Centres in Marrickville, Fairfield, Lakemba, Glebe and Punchbowl.
Concord Public School
Burwood Council
Randwick Council
Connecting Carers NSW
Glowing testimonials!
“I’ve worked collaboratively with with Madeleine Winter from time to time, jointly facilitating programs for parents across Western Sydney with very diverse communities. These were part of Kids and Dads Playzone, a project to engage fathers with their primary school aged children. We also worked on other programs for mothers and children, focussing on fostering play, limit setting and connection building.
It was always a privilege to work with Madeleine. She has a deep understanding of the struggles for parents as they endeavour to stay connected to their children. She has excellent tools to offer families to help them meet the challenges of parenting. Madeleine is a very special group leader and facilitator. I have no hesitation in recommending her.”
Sandy Wilder, Former Facilitator
Fairfield Schools-as-Community-Centre
Contact Madeleine
Workshops:
Running from from 1-3 hours. Some of these topics can also be presented as three session courses, and others can be grouped as a series of one-off talks around a theme – such as “Helping Your Child at School”.
Workshop Topics
Why Won’t They Just Do What I Say?” Setting Limits and Building Co-operation
Setting Limits Playfully – Using Play to get your Way!”
Setting Limits and Building Co-operation with Tweens and Teens
Helping Children Learn
Starting School with Ease
“Will you Play With Me?” Building Confident and Resilient Children
“I Have To Go Now!” – Helping Your Child With Separation Anxiety
“Why is My Child Afraid?” – Helping Children With Their Fears and Worries
“Helping Young Children Sleep
Homework Hassles: How to Help Your Child
Adolescence and Angst – Staying Close to our Older Kids
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More information about Workshops
“Why Won’t They Just Do What I Say?” Setting Limits and Building Co-operation Limit setting can be a positive experience for you and your child! We believe that it is possible to set limits with your children in ways that improve your relationship and bring you closer. Children need limits, and test limits because they are carrying emotional tensions which are driving them off-track. We offer a parent-tested, practical approach to limit setting that will have everyone thinking well on the other side of it, and make sure that the limits you set today are building the relationship you want with your child tomorrow. Back-to-topics
Setting Limits – Playfully (with Young Children) Limit Setting, in many ways, is what parenting is all about. We have to do it, often, many times a day. Non-negotiable limits may need to be set held firmly, but the good news is this doesn’t mean that you have to be harsh or mean. And when the limit doesn’t need to be so firm, you can try responding playfully, in a way that deals creatively with resistance, and brings you closer to your children. Back-to-topics
Setting Limits and Building Co-operation with Tweens and Teens Parenting really is all about limit setting, but it doesn’t have to be harsh or mean – though it may need to be firm at times. As our children grow older, there’s a different “give and take” as they have their own priorities and concerns. Our relationship with them also has history, which we navigate each time we step in to set a limit. Come and learn about how to repair and build connection in your relationship with your older children, which is the necessary foundation for successful limit setting, and how to set limits which are workable and effective.Back-to-topics or Register
Helping Children Learn Children love to learn, and learn naturally. They learn through play, the behaviour of the people around them, and from their own experiments. They are also experts at making friends. Once they hit school, however, sometimes these things do not come so easily. And as your child gets older, their confidence as a learner can be dented. Come and learn about your very special role in supporting your children at school or with learning anything. Back-to-topics
Starting School With Ease Starting school can be a challenge for both parents and children. Kids are wired to learn, but school can be complicated. There are separations, new social challenges, and challenges in learning. And for us, there is much to learn about how to be “school parents”, how to help our children stand up for themselves, how to assist their learning and negotiate friendship issues. When our children start school it can also remind us of our own early experiences with learning – and that may not always have been easy. Learn practical Listening Tools to build your child’s confidence, prepare for separations, and get the support you need to keep supporting your kids the way you want to! Back-to-topics
“Will you Play With Me?” Building Confident and Resilient Children Children love and need to play. But play also has a key role to play in strengthening your relationship with your child, building emotional safety with them, and helping them work through tensions and concerns. Learn how to follow your child’s lead in play to build their confidence and resilience. Back-to-topics
“I Have To Go Now!” – Helping Your Child With Separation Anxiety Separating from loved ones is a key issue for young children. It is normal for children (and their parents) to have feelings about having to be away from one another – even well into the teens. These feelings can be acknowledged, anticipated and effectively dealt with in ways that increase a child’s general confidence and willingness to separate from loved ones. Come and learn practical ways to help make parting from one another a positive experience.
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Helping Young Children with their Fears All children get scared at some point in their life. It could be a big, frightening event. Or it could just be the accumulation of smaller, scary experiences – watching something on TV or seeing something on the internet, losing track of ones parent or carer in a crowded space, going into a new, unfamiliar environment. Being small in a big person’s world can have all sorts of scary moments. Unfortunately, fears don’t necessarily “go away” once a child is again in a safe place. Early experiences of fear provide the kernel of feelings which can be triggered every time something similar happens. In this way, fears tend to go “underground” and, when triggered, will “snowball”. Fearfulness can show up as either withdrawl, timidity, waryness and shyness, or as aggression. Learn about how to use connectioin, play and limit setting to help your child recover their confidence, bravery and enthusiasm for new things. Back-to-topics
Helping Young Children Sleep Learn why some kids have sleep troubles, and practical ways to help everyone get a good nights sleep. There are good reasons why children have trouble getting to sleep, or staying asleep. Sleep is experienced by young children as a profound separation, and sometimes fears bubble up in the night and wake them. Learn how to set firm, warm effective limits to help your child work through those feelings and sleep easily. Back-to-topics
Homework Hassles and How to Help Homework is one of those perpetual challenges for parents (and children!). Whatever you think about whether there is any point, it’s something that we have to manage once our children hit school. But parents have a key role to play here: we can provide our children with an opportunity to work through difficult feelings and frustrations that they accumulate during the school day, and which get in the way of learning. Learn how to build the connection with your child that is the foundation for effective learning, and help them with hard feelings and frustrations that crop up around learning. Back-to-topics
Adolescence and Angst – Staying Close to our Older Kids Lots is going on for your preteens as they enter adolescence. You’ll need practical strategies for staying close, setting limits and navigating upsets (yours and theirs)! The teen years get a bad rap, but you can stay connected through the ups and downs. Back-to-topics or Back-to-top
*We can present these topics as 3 session courses – sometimes run over 5 weeks.
Please feel free to contact us here and we will be in touch soon.
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The featured photo above is called “God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers” and is the work of Sundaram Ramaswamy, and is made available under Creative Commons Licence CC BY 2.0.
© 2025 by Madeleine Winter.
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