Mission Statement
It’s easy to feel like childhood itself has gotten harder to hold onto, with kids exposed to more, sooner, than any generation before them. A lot of that shift comes down to something simpler than it looks: the family unit under more strain than it used to be. Marilyn believes it’s worth actively working to rebuild that foundation, one family at a time.
Families come in every shape and size, and what actually makes a family isn’t its makeup, it’s the foundation parents give their children: unconditional love, nurturing, respect, protection, and a genuinely positive self image. How children see themselves shapes who and what they let into their lives. Give kids that foundation, and they grow up equipped to build happy, productive lives and to shrug off the negativity that comes their way.
About Marilyn
Marilyn Padget is the founder of PosiTive Strokes Worldwide and its associated Teen Council. She’s a certified parent educator and motivational speaker whose focus has always been children, and she’s spent her career promoting awareness among both parents and teachers. She speaks for organizations and businesses, teaches parenting and self-esteem classes, runs workshops, and works directly with individual families.
Marilyn developed a training program to help teachers handle classroom problems more effectively, and served as a parenting consultant for First Lutheran Preschool. Her focus throughout has been getting parents and teachers working from the same playbook, in service of kids’ wellbeing. She writes a column called “Ask Marilyn,” answering questions from parents and teachers alike, and created a seminar for teachers called “Remember Why You Became a Teacher,” aimed at reconnecting educators with the motivation that brought them into the classroom in the first place.
Over the years, Marilyn has launched programs including The Single Parent Dad, Parenting 2000, and Children of Divorce, and has done classroom observation and consulting work with social services offices across California. She’s written parenting articles for a number of publications and websites, and has been associated with KidsDirect, ParentsDirect, and BabiesDirect’s Parents Database as a parenting expert and advisor.
Marilyn’s Articles
“To give happiness to our children, we must find it within ourselves.”
— Marilyn Padget