Testimonials

““Undertaking Dr Gordon’s Parent Effectiveness Training was one of the best training courses I have taken to date. As an Early Childhood Educator (Montessori) my personal and professional belief is children thrive best in environments that support developmentally appropriate learning experiences. The use of these effective communication skills by those who care for our youngest in society marry beautifully, to support truly wholesome child/adult relationships.”

Anne Curtis – Montessori educator, and parent of four”

“Together with my husband, I first undertook Parent Effectiveness Training with the view to improving my own parenting. From the very first session our family dynamics became calmer and we continued to gain confidence as we learned the skills of effective communication, assertiveness and conflict resolution. The improvement in our family was so significant that by the end of the course I decided to embark upon training to become a P.E.T Instructor. Throughout P.E.T. and the Instructor Training, my Instructor Trainer brought the content to life with real stories and practice, as well as continually modeling the Effectiveness Training Skills for which she was advocating. I cannot recommend her highly enough for her knowledge, expertise and ongoing support. Thank you!”

“Undertaking Dr Gordon’s Parent Effectiveness Instructor Training was one of the best training courses I have taken to date. As an Early Childhood Educator (Montessori) my personal and professional belief is children thrive best in environments that support developmentally appropriate learning experiences. The use of these effective communication skills by those who care for our youngest in society marry beautifully, to support truly wholesome child/adult relationships.

I was fortunate to have my Instructor Trainer as the facilitator of the course. I benefited greatly from her ability to draw on her personal and professional experiences both as a mother and as an instructor, over the many years she has personally been committed to using Dr Gordon’s effective communication skills.

Facilitating my first P.E.T. course was a very rewarding experience and having weekly catch up sessions with my Trainer was very beneficial. These enabled me to revisit and reinforce certain aspects of course content I was unsure about and get some extra ‘Active Listening’ practice in as well. No doubt I’ll be calling on her for continued consultation and insight as I make my own journey as a P.E.T. facilitator over the coming years.”

“I met my Instructor Trainer for the first time at her Instructor Training in the spring of 2013. That was one of the happiest weeks of my life. I got to immerse myself in the Gordon P.E.T. model and under the tutelage of someone with over 30 years of experience!  I watched as my trainer compassionately and clearly corrected us and deepened our understanding. She cracked jokes, shared personal stories, assertively managed time and participants’ issues and was about as genuine as it gets. That course with her  jumpstarted my P.E.T. skills in a major way and my family became a lot more peaceful.”

“I learned most from the role plays. They really helped me practice real world scenarios. In school, drama is destined to occur – this class definitely helped me deal with issues. I used Y.E.T. on my mother once or twice and it definitely got her to calm down. I wish I took Y.E.T. earlier.”

“Y.E.T. was very enjoyable and worth my time. Loved meeting new people and improving my conflict resolution skills. The course helps me communicate better in tight situations and will help especially in the years to come.”

“I have learnt a lot and Y.E.T. will help me for the rest of my life. It has already improved my relationship with my parents. I think it was a great experience.”

“This course is helpful for reading situations and keeping the emotional temperature low.”

“Y.E.T. was very interesting as we don’t learn this at school. The role plays were very fun and made me want to do more. Mrs. B made sure we were enjoying the lesson and stayed focused.”

“When I read ‘Be your Best’ it captured my interest immediately and having done the course I found the skills and techniques I was learning could be applied to all aspects of my life. The course showed me practical ways of dealing with situations of problem areas of communication and having shared these issues with other members of the course, revealed I was not alone. It’s a course for people who feel there’s room for improvement in communication skills.”

“I highly recommend the ‘Be Your Best’ course. Skills learned in this course help you to communicate more effectively in all aspects of your life by active listening, resolving conflict and achieving personal goals. Thanks to the skills of this course and my increased awareness of my needs I confidently applied for a new job and was successful. Consider this course a ‘tune-up’ for your everyday communication skills. It’s a life enriching opportunity.”

“After taking the P.E.T. course and instructor course, the B.Y.B. course really gave me the chance to internalise the skills and helped me to start practising the skills with my husband and other adult relationships. All these 3 courses mentioned have changed my life. I am much more aware of my own needs and it has made me happier and a more confident person. Because of using the skills I feel myself a better person than before. These courses have been like psychotherapy for me.”

“I feel much more empowered to control and set goals for my life. On top of that I have an awareness of how to communicate effectively about my needs and dreams in my relationships – friends, husband, boss or co-workers. The very professional and empathic coaching of my instructor (and course participants) gave me personal empowerment to define my needs and communicate them in my relationships in a respectful and constructive way.”

“I have participated in Effectiveness Training courses 3 times now. Each time for a different reason. Be Your Best has not only given me communicative skills for my complex family relationships, it has helped me in dealing with conflict in the workplace and everyday life with any situation. I now constantly ask myself, “Who owns this problem?” Be Your Best (and Parent Effectiveness Training) has been so beneficial for my life and I highly recommend it to anyone.”

“The PET course has genuinely affected the way I engage with my kids, wife and even my staff!

Being a Dad of four kids from eight years old down to one year old, I have swung from believing I knew everything there is to know about raising a child to thinking that parenting is a lost cause and I am just along for the ride.

PET connected with me as it wasn’t a magical parenting formula to follow and that I didn’t need to be the perfect parent. Instead it was a set of communication skills that recognized that I as a parent have important needs and that my child also has important needs and these skills help us both get what we need. Previously, I felt guilty if I met my work/social/sporting needs at the cost of my child’s needs. Other times I felt frustrated when my child’s needs were met at the cost of mine. Finding skills to get what we both need in win-win situations has helped immensely.

After the first session of real practicing and tutorials, I was amazed at how helpful the single skill of active listening was for engaging my kids. I suddenly started paying attention in this first session as I realized how valuable these seemingly simple communication skills are. The practice in the sessions was crucial for me to get the confidence to put it into practice.

I now engage my kids in a connected and meaningful way each day, I feel that my kids deeply respect me for connecting with them and I suddenly feel more present when I am with my family.

I now have the skills to have deeper and more meaningful relationships with my kids. I will be able to communicate my values to them and I will be ready to help them through the difficult issues that they will face in life.”

“This course gave me a new outlook into my own education and the traps it has created in the way I look after (my son). It reminded me that what I called “instinct” was more a repetition of what was done to me. Attending this course makes me feel (again) that opening up to new ideas, teachings, discussions is key to my relationship with my son and myself. Furthermore, I’ve been integrating some of these communication techniques into my broader life with powerful outcomes.
Finally, my Instructor was very generous with her time and great at guiding exchange amongst participants, making this course a real learning experience.”

“The Parent Effectiveness Training course was genuinely enlightening, practical and impactful. What I learned in the course has improved my relationships at home as well as at work. Additionally, taking the course with other parents (who have children of all ages) provided a level of inspirational peer sharing and learning that I had not initially anticipated.”

“Recently my husband and I attended the P.E.T. course. I describe the course and the skills learned as the missing puzzle piece! As parents we knew how we didn’t want to parent – no smacking, no threatening, no bribing or punishing, yet we struggled to find an appropriate alternative and were at risk of being too ‘soft’. Using P.E.T. has helped us to fill in the blanks and provided us with those much needed alternatives. The benefit of doing the course together has meant that my husband and I are now on the same page in terms of our parenting styles. Our confidence to be the parents we want to be has returned.
Both our children, despite being very different in personality, have responded well to us acknowledging their feelings and working together to find solutions that work for the whole family. Our Instructor continually models the P.E.T skills, giving us first hand experience of the gentle, yet assertive style she is advocating. We are very grateful to have had the P.E.T. experience with her and believe that we will be better parents as a result!”

“As a parent have you found yourself in a world of ‘consequences, time outs and 1-2-3….’ to get action from your child or just to get them to listen! You are not even sure how you got there, you are not happy being there, but you have no idea what other options you have?

Well P.E.T has changed all that for us.

With one of our children incredibly strong minded, everything became a power struggle.
The more we tried to get him to do something or stop him from doing something, the more he would challenge, the more charged our tempers would become; and the ‘moment’ would escalate into yelling, frustration, anger…for both parent and child. The time and energy it was taking to navigate everyday things was becoming exhausting. Why? What were we doing wrong? How can it be this hard?

There had to be a better way! P.E.T.
Before even completing P.E.T. we noticed a remarkable difference in the behaviour of both ourselves and our child. Our home environment has become calmer, more loving, happier, and huge amounts of time and energy are no longer being wasted resolving disputes. We are committed to P.E.T. being our new way of life, throwing previous parenting advice out the window! “I feel…”, “my needs are…”, “what could a solution be?” are becoming the common language in our home. As a parent, being open and honest about how we are feeling toward our child’s behaviour and how it is impacting us is liberating; creating a more harmonious family environment.

Our Instructor’s facilitation of P.E.T made it easy to understand and enjoyable to learn. She kept the entire group engaged and interested throughout the entire day. It was particularly refreshing to have her share many of her own first hand experiences of using P.E.T. with her own children. She encouraged group participation through open conversation, interaction, lots of examples and on the course practice.

P.E.T. has changed our world, and we can honestly recommend it to all parents.”

“When I first started P.E.T. I was struggling with my 2 little kids – a girl aged 3 and a boy aged 1.5. There was lots of shouting by all family members in the house and it was achieving nothing. I was desperate to try something new and reign back control of my life.
I didn’t really think it would work on my very young kids, but time and time again, it has. I’m so glad that I did this course when they were so young as it gives me lots of time to practice! I’ve become a much calmer mummy around my kids as I now know how to handle problematic situations. Our household now talks about problems instead of bottling them up and is a much more loving family unit. I’ve also tried the skills on my husband and friends and the difference in how conversations and situations have evolved is unbelievable. With P.E.T. both parties end up happy, a win-win situation for everyone!”

“The most amazing things in the world are just starting to happen in my family, thanks to P.E.T.
My 4-year-old, without asking gets up from the breakfast table, washes his hands, gets dressed, cleans his room! Seeing the change in him and how active listening alone, has helped my communication with my nearly 3-year-old twins. This makes me feel so proud of them and gives me belief, that my dream of having a close, loving connected family can be a reality.
I know now, I will never go back to the only discipline I knew. No more screaming, no more time outs. The shame I felt, when I smacked one of my kids; I know this was wrong, and this was making me feel sad and more anxious every day. I knew I had to change.
Parent Effectiveness Training came my way, and as soon as I read the words, “active listening,” I was in! This was the best investment, worthy of my time.
I can spend $$$ on making the cosmetic appearance of my home appealing, but to pay under $400 on something that hits the heart of our home is the best feeling.
Thank you, for giving all your professional knowledge. The way that you taught Parent Effectiveness Training, was inspiring. You helped me believe that I can change into the parent and person, that I am now proud to be.”