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How to hold love and limits together
when parenting feels impossible
Parenting today can feel like walking a tightrope, trying to stay loving without losing your limits,
and setting boundaries without breaking the bond.
If you’re exhausted by conflict, unsure whether to push harder or soften more,
and quietly afraid that either choice might do damage, you’re not alone.
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The Parenting Paradox offers a compassionate, evidence-based way forward for parents who want connection and change, without yelling, giving in, or losing themselves along the way.
If this feels familiar,
this book was written for you
You might be:
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Walking on eggshells around your child’s anger or meltdowns
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Dealing with aggression, defiance, or constant power struggles
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Parenting a child who avoids school, shuts down, or retreats into their room
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Locked in ongoing battles over devices, routines, or expectations
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Trying so hard to stay calm and connected—but feeling worn down, resentful, or unsure
You don’t want to be harsh.
You don’t want to be permissive.
You just want a way forward that doesn’t cost the relationship—or your sanity.
What The Parenting Paradox Offers
This book shows why love alone isn’t enough,
why limits alone don’t work,
and how holding both—through calm, consistent parental presence—creates meaningful change.
Drawing on real-world stories and decades of clinical experience,
psychologist Tamar Sloan introduces a clear, practical framework for parents navigating:
This is not a quick-fix or a behaviour chart. It’s a way of parenting that helps you:
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Stay grounded during storms
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Hold boundaries without escalating conflict
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Reduce giving-in without becoming rigid
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Rebuild influence when it feels like you’ve lost it
Who We Support
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Who this Book is for
The Parenting Paradox is for parents who are tired of the battle but still deeply longing for connection.
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It’s for those raising children who:
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Won’t listen
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Won’t engage
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Push back hard
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Or pull away completely
It’s also for parents who sense that something isn’t working, even if they can’t quite name what.
And it’s for caregivers who want a framework that respects:
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Neurodiversity
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Trauma histories
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Parental burnout
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The realities of modern family life
This book doesn’t ask you to choose between empathy and expectations.
It shows you how to hold both.
The official companion workbook
The Parenting Paradox Workbook is the practical, hands-on guide
designed to help you apply the principles from the book to your real life.
It walks you step by step through the Presence Pyramid, helping
you strengthen connection while holding clear, steady limits.
Inside you'll find reflective exercises, scripts, planning pages, and structured
tools to reduce escalation, respond to aggression or avoidance, and rebuild
your confidence.
You don't have to do this perfectly.
You just have to stay present.
And presence changes everything.
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The Focused Guides
The Presence Pyramid is designed to be applied to real life. Not in theory. Not in perfect conditions. But in the messy, repeated challenges many families face. The Focused Guides apply the Presence Pyramid to some of the most common issues parents are struggling with:
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Anger and aggression
Device addiction
Anxious avoidance (including anxious school avoidance)
At-risk behavior (e.g. running away or drug use)
Neurodivergence
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These guides are designed to be practical and easy to digest. A go-to resource you can return to when you’re in the middle of it. When you need clarity. When you need structure. When you need reminding that you are not powerless.
These next guides are here to help you apply the Presence Pyramid.
To your child.
To your family.
To your reality.
Supporting you to make it yours.
Tamar Sloan
Registered Psychologist
Tamar Sloan is a psychologist with over 25 years’ experience supporting children, young people, and families across community services, education, and private practice.
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She specialises in working with parents navigating aggression, anxiety, avoidance, and high-conflict dynamics—especially when traditional strategies have made things worse.
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Her approach, Relational Parenting, is grounded in the internationally researched Non-Violent Resistance framework and adapted for modern families who need clarity without cruelty, and strength without disconnection.