About Me
Hello, my name is Vera Braghiroli.
I am a Mother, an Home Educator, a Parenting Coach, and the Co-Director of a SDE Learning Community for children 6 to 12 years old.
Originally from Italy, I attained a Master's Degree in Communication and Social Sciences, in Milan, where I met my life partner. Together, we moved to London in 2007, where our family still currently lives.
My first professional career was in advertising and marketing. I have been Promo Producer / Director for several international television networks, between Italy and the UK, for 12 years. Until I became a mum.
Determined to avoid the childrearing methods I grew up with, I started researching pedagogy, child development and parenting practices since I became pregnant. In 2011 our child was born and I have been home educating him to these days.
Following this passion, I became a certified instructor of the Hand in Hand Parenting pedagogic method in 2020 and I am currently pursuing a Diploma Integrative Transpersonal Counselling.
Through the stories other parents, child carers and parenting coaches have shared with me, I have learnt to value all forms of learning. Yet, my deepest learning has come from my own child, my mothering experience and our family’s journey with autonomous education and unlearning.
My areas of interest and expertise include working with children with a history of trauma, who are highly sensitive, display anxious or explosive behaviours, asynchronous development and learning and sensory differences.
My aim is fostering authenticity, autonomy and secure attachment through mind-body-soul connection, intentional parenting and self reparenting. I am keen on emotional education, neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology, attachment theory, positive discipline, non-violent communication, trauma-recovery, de-schooling and self-directed education.
I love working with anyone seeking greater connection to themselves and others. I am looking forward to walk alongside you the “path back home” that parenthood can be, through all the depths and heights that becoming a parent brings into life.
About Udaya
This is the village I am summoning. The one it is said that you need in order to rise a child. A community of adults - parents, grandparents and professionals - committed to children’s holistic well-being. Whoever cherishes children for who they already are (rather than what he will be), cares for them and advocates for their needs, is welcome.
Ours is a village built on care.
One where children can rest within loving hands and safe boundaries. A learning environment that fosters a healthy development. One where we teach children that everyone has challenges and feelings. That those challenges and feelings matter. And we can show them healthy ways to get through them both.
If we have any hope of raising children who can contribute to making this troubled world of ours a better place, the leaders of a better tomorrow, let’s teach them emotional resiliency. If we want to teach our kids to be strong, let’s teach them to care. To take care of themselves and care for others in healthy and productive ways.
This village is a safe space for adults to learn and to help each other grow too. Without judgement about where anyone is the journey. Just with curiosity, compassion and a touch of self-irony. We practice together until we become confidently proficient. So we can pass these core skills on to our children.
Adopting respectful ways to raise children to their full potential can feel challenging and uncomfortable. It might involve questioning old paradigms, surrendering cosy habits and breaking trans-generational legacies. Yet it is also a golden opportunity to confront, prevent and dispel the energy of childhood wounds. And a powerful way to tap into our deepest instincts and wisdom.
Overpowering and manipulating children has a long tradition. It might achieve short-lived effects, sometimes, but it undermines children’s integrity and, in time, it instigates more dysfunctional behaviours and unhealthy coping mechanisms. Above all, it erodes the relationship with our children, so we risk loosing our ability to influence and guide them.
The latest relational neuroscience and the ancient heart wisdom agree on this: people are strengthened through relationships based on respect, empathy and trust, regardless of gender or age. This is surprisingly the only way some children can be led. It is unsurprisingly the way all children prefer to be let. And it is the way we all deserve to be treated.
Teaching how to deal with boundaries and conflicts constructively, allows us to open up new spaces to coexist and learn about coexistence itself. It’s possible to teach our kids to be strong and gentle. Assertive, without becoming bullies. There’s no reason why a collaborative approach to education should be at odds with the development of self-discipline, self-motivation and politeness.
Life is naturally filled with all sorts of feelings, dramas and conflicts. There’s no need for adults to intentionally manufacture additional adversities. Life will naturally try to tear our children down. Just as it tries to tear us down. Whenever that happens, it is an opportunity for us to show our children how to cope with the pain, get back on our feet and push forward.
With courage, determination and positive action.
With love.