About me
I help parents recharge, get creative, and respond to themselves & their children in new ways.
Hello! I’m Caryn Brady.
When I was 23 and freshly landed in the world of adult work, part of my job at Boston Children’s Hospital was to interview first-time parents about their experiences of parenting. I LOVED talking to these newly minted moms and dads.
The catch? The purpose of our intimate chats was data collection. I hated ending those conversations and sending the parents on their way. Even back then when I had little to offer aside from basic curiosity and compassion, I could tell that they needed this kind of connection!
It took me a while, but I found my way back to this work. And I learned a lot in the meanwhile–as a parent, as a therapist, and as researcher and student of child development and attachment theory.
About my work
During the COVID pandemic, I received countless calls from parents who were desperate to find help for their kids. The memory of their suffering stayed with me even as we eased out of pandemic intensity. I decided to devote more of my working life to helping parents (and by extension, helping children). This led me to my first training with Hand in Hand. And I quickly realized just how badly I needed some parenting help.
Within a few months, Hand in Hand improved ALL the aspects of my experience as a parent. I felt competent and proud of myself in ways I never had before. Family life became much easier and more loving. I made it my mission to help other families experience that same transformation.
It can feel like it’s our job to teach our children skills—to help them use their words, to name their feelings, to self-regulate. In my experience, kids learn best when parents embody and enact those skills in relationship with their children and with themselves. It’s we parents who need to learn the skills. Our kids internalize what they live with us.
Why I do this work
I love talking to parents about their children. I’ve learned to trust that when kids’ behavior is perplexing, irritating, or worrisome, parents need the chance to think together with someone.
Designated time and space for conversation with an attentive and nonjudgmental listener can help you rediscover your curiosity about your child, grow your patience, and find your sense of humor. Everyday monotony and mishaps can become the stuff of insight, growth, and transformative play.
As parents we are responsible for growing our kids. With the right support, we get to grow ourselves.
listen
Most of us have been unconsciously trained to quiet rather than listen to our children.
Openhearted listening builds a child’s trust in you and in themselves.
Listening to your child is a powerful way to help them feel understood, important, connected to you.
Listening builds children’s capacity for self-compassion and empathy.
To listen well to children, we parents also need to be listened to.
Parents who learn these skills usually report that listening is easier—and more effective—than correcting, cajoling, reasoning, or reassuring a child out of their upset or unworkable behavior.
play
Play is how children learn, work, practice, and process.
Learning to use play strategically with children can help them overcome fears, build confidence and flexibility.
We parents don’t have many opportunities for play in our hardworking lives! Play can feel uncomfortable and awkward, and it can be difficult to find the energy to shift into play. Fortunately, as with any practice, it becomes easier and easier to make that shift–and to reap the benefits for our children and ourselves.
love
To feel loved is to feel understood and wanted.
As adults, many of us live with these questions unanswered and unsettling within us: Am I wanted? Am I lovable? Am I safe?
Becoming a parent brings a boatload of work and a twofold treasure: the opportunity to reconnect with the child within us and find new responses to those old questions. And to answer them differently and definitively for our children.
“When we’re inspired by the desire to practice and transform our suffering, the mind of that moment is very beautiful. Sometimes we call it the mind of love. It’s because of love that we practice.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh
My Qualifications
Certified Instructor, Hand in Hand
I am so grateful to have learned Hand in Hand’s openhearted, playful, practical, parent-affirming approach. I am equally grateful for the opportunity to share it with other parents.
20 years of experience as a psychotherapist
I am currently in private practice and work only with adults. For most of my career I have also worked with children and adolescents. I trained and worked for many years at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Training (parents and children):
Certification Training Intensive • Hand in Hand (2023-2024)
Level One Foundations Training Certification • Deep Play for Kids (2024)
Foundations Course for Professionals • Hand in Hand (2023)
The Incredible Years: Advanced Training in Parenting Education (2009) • Tufts Medical School, Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Department
Training (psychotherapy):
Inner Relationship Focusing Training Levels One and Two • Maureen Gallagher, PhD (2024)
Rhythm of Regulation: Training in Polyvagal-informed Therapy • Deb Dana LICSW(2019)
Internal Family Systems (IFS) Level One Training • Center for Self Leadership (2017-2018)
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) 24-HourTraining • Luana Marques PhD, Massachusetts General Hospital (2013)
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Postgraduate Fellowships • Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis (2010 and 2012)
Mind Body Medicine 40-Hour Training • Harvard Medical School (2008)
Education:
MSW - Smith College School for Social Work
EdM - Harvard University
BA - Yale University
I quickly saw positive effects in myself and my kids after beginning to learn and use Hand in Hand Parenting tools and techniques. The learning process has been a valuable way to replace bad or middling habits with better, more emotionally-attuned practices.
The content I read was great, but the group experience was where and how things really came alive for me.
– J, father of 6 and 10 year old
“
Where I come from
I am indebted to my own parents Brendan & Mary Brady.
Brendan was a general surgeon who had equal capacity for sharing joy and suffering. His favorite work was providing free care to (and always learning from!) migrant farm workers. Mary trained as a pediatrician and found her way to her life’s calling helping others learn to give good company at the end of life.
From them I’m grateful to have learned devotion to family & community, openness to the new and unfamiliar, and the pleasure of lifelong learning. I hope to keep passing these on.
