Skip to main content
For parents & carers

Circle of Security Parenting

An eight-session parenting program that helps you read what your child's behaviour is actually asking for.

Book a SessionFees & funding

Every behaviour is a need, wearing a disguise

Circle of Security Parenting is an eight-session program built on decades of attachment research. It’s less about techniques and more about understanding — once you can see what your child is reaching for underneath the meltdown, the door slam or the clinging, you already know more about what to do.

The program uses video, discussion and reflection. There’s no homework, no scoring, and no expectation that you’ll get it right every time. One of the program’s central ideas is that ruptures are normal and repair is what counts.

What you’ll take away

  • A simple map of what children need — and how those needs shift minute to minute
  • The ability to spot when a behaviour is a miscue: a child asking for one thing while appearing to want the opposite
  • An understanding of your own responses, including the moments you find hardest
  • Language for repairing after the times it goes badly, which is most parents, most weeks
  • The relief of realising other parents in the room are finding it hard too

The eight sessions

Sessions run weekly, around 90 minutes each. Groups are kept small so there’s room to talk. We also run the program one-to-one where a group isn’t the right fit — for parents who’d find a group overwhelming, or where the material is likely to touch on your own experiences of being parented.

Who it’s for

Any parent or carer of a child from birth to early adolescence. You don’t need a diagnosis, a referral, or a problem to bring. Many parents come because things are mostly fine and they want to understand their child better; others come in the middle of a genuinely hard season.

Foster carers, kinship carers, grandparents raising grandchildren, and separated parents attending separately are all welcome.

A gentle warning

Circle of Security asks you to look at your own patterns, and that can stir things up — particularly if your own childhood was difficult. Facilitators are experienced with this, and it’s normal and expected. If you’d like to talk through whether the timing is right for you, get in touch before enrolling.