Inspired Magazine

Above Maggie
and her husband Steve.
Right Maggie considers
herself a messenger and
has penned six books.
EVENT STATIONERY
impact
BRANDING AND LOGOS
MARKETING MATERIAL
DEALING WITH THE BIG STUFF
Maggie cemented the realisation that suffering
is an important part of the rich tapestry of human
life in her work as a celebrant for funerals. Again
she saw the value in allowing people to feel their
pain, in being real, in holding a safe space for
people who are suffering.
And the skills she learned as a celebrant stood
her in good stead when she returned to teaching,
where kids sought her out when they wanted to
“talk about the big stuff”. “I realised anyone can
teach how to write paragraphs but no t everyone
can help a young teen w ho wants to die,” she says.
So Maggie embarked on a postgraduate diploma
in counselling and ended up leaving teaching to
counsel kids full-time.
A MESSENGER
As a counsellor Maggie started to notice a new
trend in children – stress. She held a seminar for
parents to help them guide their stressed-out kids.
The talk was a hit and almost accidently Maggie
fell into a role that would see her go on to deliver
parenting and teaching seminars across the nation
and author six parenting books.
Maggie does not consider herself an expert,
but rather a messenger. She loves studying the
research on child development and disseminating
it in a way others can understand. She says one of
her biggest jobs is challenging parents to ask “who
is the child who has turned up, and how can you
help them be the best expression of who they are,
rather than who you want them to be?”
She warns of the modern-day trend to ‘over
parent’. “Kids do need to experience life,” she says.
“We are over-parenting, we’re doing our kids’
homework for them, we’re dropping them off so
they’re on time.”
But she believes perhaps her greatest role is
helping parents realise they are normal. “I just
normalise what they thought was something
terrible in their house,” she says. “In nearly every
house it’s chaos getting ready for school, there’s
not something wrong with you, you’re not failing
as a parent, it’s just what childhood can be like.
I think that’s an important message for any
parent to hear – we’re all doing the best we can,
everyone’s doing it, so why not just sit on the
couch and have a cup of tea and lighten up a bit
and say ‘right, this is parenthood’.”
“Our kids are more capable than we give them
credit for.”
Very proud
graphic designer of 0403 053 768
rhianna.king@bigpond.com
www.rhiannaking.com.au
Get involved
To find out more about Maggie and
order her books visit her website
www.maggiedent.com.