Parents arrive at this training from two directions. Some are preparing for a child not yet born and want to arrive at parenthood with something more substantial than instinct. Others are already parenting and come with something specific in view: a moment that keeps recurring, a place where they reliably lose their footing, a reaction whose size they cannot account for. Both are properly placed here. Nothing in the work measures a parent's history or their performance to date, and neither group stands further along than the other.
Circumstance is the only difference between them. The curriculum is identical for both, and the reason is that the capacity it develops belongs to the adult. Presence is a property of the parent's own condition, and it develops independently of a child's age, temperament, or the particular difficulty currently in the room. The steadiness that meets a newborn at three in the morning is the steadiness that meets a seven-year-old refusing to leave the house. It is established the same way in each case, and no stage of family life constitutes a wrong moment to begin.
Each circumstance is described below, along with where the material tends to land in it.
The parent preparing before a child arrives
Parents in this group arrive with time in hand and no immediate difficulty to resolve. Most have thought carefully about the kind of parent they intend to be and have recognised that intention alone gives way under pressure. The recognition is accurate, and it is the reason preparation is worth undertaking.
The training gives you something to practise before the demand arrives, so that the capacity is familiar in advance of the conditions that will call on it. Why presence matters, what presence consists of, how to return to it under load: all of this can be developed before a child is here. There are practical reasons to develop it early. A first year leaves very little room for study of any kind.
Competence and a wish to prepare well are what the work assumes. It is capacity-building for an undertaking that asks for it.
The parent already deep in it
Parents in this group arrive with a recognition already formed, usually a specific one: a particular moment that keeps happening and keeps going the same way. Close attention to one's own parenting is the condition under which this work is most useful, and these parents have it.
The training meets the situation as it stands. It offers steadiness usable in the present week and builds the ground beneath it for the longer term. Waiting for a calmer period is unnecessary, and in practice a live difficulty gives the work something immediate to be tested against.
Changes produced beneath the level of scripts and strategies hold across situations and persist beyond the difficulty that prompted them. Parents who find this training during a demanding stretch frequently report that it is the first approach to have reached the actual problem.
One training for both
The curriculum is identical and so is the sequence. Where the material lands is what differs: in an anticipated future for one parent, in the present week for the other. Each brings something particular to the sessions. The preparing parent brings unhurried attention and room to absorb the material; the parent already in the relationship brings live conditions to test it against.
If you are uncertain which of these describes you, or whether either does, begin with a conversation. There is no qualifying condition and nothing you need to establish before reaching out.