Journeying with fellow parents longing for heart-felt understanding. Yup. That’s what I do. Thanks for dropping by. I’m Wendy McDonnell.

I help parents create trusting, open relationships with their kids and their partners through my weekly radio show Family Matters, workshops, and coaching. I homeschool with my four spirited children, two girls, two boys, ages 5-12 years, and my husband. I participate in and assist Family Camps and Leadership Programs to understand, live, and share parenting practices that encourage families to live with compassion, connection and peace. You can also find me spinning tricks with my hula hoop, walking in the woods, and curled up reading a good book alone or with my family.

I share what I’ve learned as a mother and educator. I invite others to share their wisdom. I hope this sparks your own life and love within you. When parents support each other, we experience peace of mind, understanding, and enjoy parenting more without all the pressure of doing it “perfectly”. Did I tell you that I’m a recovering perfectionist too?

Along with producing my radio show, I love to playfully lead parents through games and lively workshop discussions to transform family challenges into heart-felt understanding, resolve conflict, and create a concrete action plan to make family life easier.

I love to meet up with other conscientious, imperfect parents who are also interested in creating family relationships based on trust and openness.

I’m looking for people willing to host me for parenting workshops. In return for your help, I offer personal coaching (a $150 value) and the workshop for free.

Many worried parents have asked me if it’s ever too late to restore trust and connection.

I know that it’s never too late. I’m re-united with my own parents after I divorced them for eight years.

Family life wasn’t always this easy for me. For eight years in my 20s, I divorced my own parents after growing up scared, bitter, and depressed. Surrounded by substance and physical abuse, I slowly grew to resent and mistrust people, particularly my parents and myself. My relationships were strained and conflicted. Like so many, I tried hard to be a perfect parent so that my own children wouldn’t suffer like I did or leave me the way I left my parents. Those were my greatest fears!

After more than twenty years of tireless learning and healing, I’m re-united with my parents, I’ve found self-acceptance and love, and I don’t suffer from self-doubt anymore. One critical benefit to being a perfectionist is a fierce, unwavering, commitment to protect what’s most important. That is, my family. It is this fierce love that has led me to a life of peace and compassion and keeps leading me back when I stray.

Now, I have beautiful, strong, dynamic relationships with my four children and loving husband. I trust the life in myself, my kids, and my partner. Even if the worst happens, I have faith that we’ll figure out what our family lifestyle looks like then. I have loving, intimate friends who get me from the inside-out and nurture me. I’ve made a ton of mistakes and, being human, will keep making them. However, I screw up a little less everyday. Being a parent is my spiritual practice…a never-ending invitation to practice mindfulness and compassionate curiosity. I deepen my capacity to hold myself and others with loving kindness each day. I call it “living the divine in the mundane”. I’ve found grace where I used to feel panic.

I’m especially grateful to La Leche League Canada and the Guelph Leaders for showing me the importance of love and family. When my first baby was three weeks old, I attended my first evening meeting with a huge diaper bag over one shoulder and my baby in a sling over the other. I met like-minded parents and learned how to fall in love with my children. When I was afraid I could never love another child like I did my first, I learned how to grow my heart. I AM the mother I AM today because of La Leche League. La Leche League, I will never forget you! I miss the days when we talked over tea and coffee while our babies, toddlers, and young preschoolers nursed and played around us. While I was a leader, I learned how much I enjoyed facilitating groups, listening to troubled parents over the phone or in person, and exploring the concepts of loving guidance and compassionate communication. When I retired in May 2008 to live a crazy dream I had about producing a radio show, I left with these guiding questions…

When we grow older (and hopefully mature), how can parents and children feel love and tenderness like when our children nursed in our arms?

How do we develop from being dependent to interdependent? How do humans mature?

How do we live deeply attached to those we love AND be autonomous with internal choice? Is it that our autonomy lets us see so many ways to love?

When we forget how much we love each other, what helps us remember?

I keep asking.

I dedicate my work to my loving mother who did the very best she knew how. She died May 19, 2004. After most of her belongings have been given away, our relationship and her legacy endures.

I’m a certified Master Family Communications Coach and the Host of Family Matters Radio every Sunday morning, 8 to 9 AM Eastern, on CFRU, Guelph’s Community Radio Station. I have trained in Coaching, Psychology, Nonviolent Communication, Restorative Circles, Mediation, Collaborative Divorce, Grief and Bereavement, Reiki, and Teaching. I’m a volunteer community mediator with Community Justice Initiatives. With Hospice Wellington, I am a volunteer communication workshop facilitator and journey with people who are grieving the loss of their loved ones.

From September 2010 to June 2011, I participated in a nine month leadership training program called the Parent Peer Leadership Program through Bay NVC. My goal, like the program’s goal, is to understand, live, and share parenting practices that encourage families to live with compassion, connection and peace. From October 2011 to June 2012, I’m assisting leadership.

You can also find me spinning tricks with my hula hoop, wrestling with my kids, walking through the forest, dipping my toes in the river, and curling up in bed with a good book and my kids on a cold winter’s morning. I’m learning how to climb and rappel.

I totally groove on science experiments. Our family has memberships to conservation areas and museums. I enjoy cooking, baking, and sharing meals with friends and family. I love swimming, cycling, scrapbooking, and learning new things. Recently, juggling and making shapes with balloons fascinates me. In my spare time, I play string games, board games, cards, and do puzzles.

Share your story and see if we’re a good fit to work together with a complimentary consultation.

“..nothing is impossible when we follow our inner guidance, even when its direction may threaten us by reversing our usual logic.” Gerald Jampolsky

“The path to enlightenment is not a path at all, it’s actually a metaphor for the time it takes for you to allow yourself to be happy with who you already are, where you’re already at, and what you already have – no matter what…The “no matter what” part is big.”  Notes from the Universe