Today we’d like to introduce you to Carlee Krichmar.
Carlee, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My childhood experience was the textbook case-study of what it looks like to grow-up in a dysfunctional and dis-regulated environment. My mother was the addict of multiple vices, my brother had severe ADHD, my sister parentified herself at an early age and my dad was a workaholic that ultimately enabled all the unhealthy behaviors that would snowball to this day. As a result, I grew very angry, resentful and confused throughout adolescents and by the end of high-school I set out to learn why.
During college, I applied my interest in development and my passion for writing by majoring in education with a concentration in English, I immediately went on to earn a master’s degree in educational counseling in order to assume a role that enabled me to work with and support elementary school children in strengthening their academic, social and emotional development, something I was never empowered with in school. Incidentally, I fell into a job teaching a second-grade special education classroom for children diagnosed as emotionally disturbed. I fell in love with trying to understand and connect with my students and resonated so much with their misdirected and painful anger. The more I learned about each of my students, the more I was forced to see myself and the familial roots of my thoughts and behaviors.
Once I earned my master’s I packed up my car and drove west with very little besides a vision, a good friend and my sweet Australian shepherd. I quickly received a job as a behavior interventionist working with children diagnosed with or at risk for Autism and fell deeper in love with the concept of challenging behaviors and the core feelings underneath of them. Over that time, I began training myself to understand more about my psychological triggers, the scientific benefits of yoga and meditation and what behaviors and self-limiting beliefs often caused me to inhibit my own success and happiness.
Over the next few years I would become certified in children’s yoga, open a social skills groups company for children with special needs, become an early childhood developmental assessor and continue to grow my understanding of how adults are molded from the moment they are born. The more families I worked with, the more parents shared with me how ill-equipped and supported they felt in their parenting experience. It finally began to occur the full scope of how all my adverse childhood experiences were a direct result of my parents not having been properly equipped and supported in their parenting.
After a few months of therapy and untangling all of my stored resentment and resistance, I finally surrendered to my pain, let myself feel the sadness under my anger and began to unlock my inner potential that resided under the limitations held from my childhood. In May 2020, I opened Building Blocks Parenting- a remote parent guidance service designed to be the support that every parent’s needs, no matter how functional and healthy their life is. I recognize that some parents need more support than others, but that every single parent can benefit from having a safe place to unpack their constant life-changing experience and receive expert insight and education as they grow to be their best self as an individual and as a parent.
I know that helping others will never resolve me of the pain I carry from my childhood, but my mission is to prevent children from having to experience it as severely as me all on their own and to do that by empowering parents in a way I wish someone had empowered mine.
Has it been a smooth road?
I have experienced so many road blocks throughout my ongoing journey, but I don’t believe I would have been able to have the impact I have on others had I not been given opportunities to overcome my own challenges. In fact, less than five years ago I needed to stay with my sister in Los Angeles for a month in order to pause and reset. The months leading up to that were the most painful and uncomfortable I have ever experienced so far in my life. I so heavily began to doubt my potential for being happy and finding a career or relationships that were capable of filling all the “potential space” (as my therapist calls it) that existed within me and that realization brought me to a very dark and lonely space I had never visited in me.
But I exercised, I meditated, I played with my dog and I read everything I could find that aligned me closer to my passions and myself. For anyone who is in their mid to late twenties questioning the purpose of their life, my heart goes out to them. It can be an incredibly scary time, especially if you were never told you were good enough or what exactly is even good about you throughout your life. But one thing I have become certain of is that we create our life and we need to believe in ourselves in order to do anything and everything.
Building Blocks Parenting – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?.
Building Blocks Parenting is the culmination of everything I have learned, trained for and worked through in order to be able to show up for children. My program is designed to guide parents to understanding where their limitations or barriers are, what they look like and how to shift, modify or transform them.
I specialize in supporting parents that experience challenging behaviors in their child, have trouble finding balance between their and their partner’s parenting style, parenting kids while reparenting yourself, understanding a child’s development, learning how to support and cope with a child with special needs or a diagnosis and simply guiding parents to seeing their own strengths and potential.
There are a lot of amazing professionals that support parents in a similar way to me, but what I think sets me apart is literally my unique brain and the experiences that drove my passion for empowering parents. I have an uncontrollable ability to empathize and see people in a way that enables me to help them grow and, in some cases, heal. I can’t quite articulate how energizing and empowering it is for me to witness parents feel supported and understood when I am working with them, but I recognize that every moment of my life has led me to starting this business.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I absolutely love the communities of San Diego. Over the last seven years here, I have become active in several communities including ultimate frisbee pickup group at Balboa park, the dance community (fusion, salsa, swing, blues), the writing community of So Say We All as a writer, performer, producer and mentor for VAMP, and the vegan community (a woman’s vegan meetup and the larger scale community that organizes festivals, protests and food markets). I have built such wonderful friendships with locals and transients here and fed my passions in a way that was not possible for me in other places that I have lived. I also love how progressive and involved the San Diego Community is when it comes to supporting each other and advocating for each other.
And I can’t leave out the beautiful beaches and palm trees. I don’t think I have ever been able to gaze at the ocean or palm trees here and not feel an immediate sense of relief and peace. It has been a vital part of my transformation because of its beauty and serenity.
The homelessness breaks my heart. When I see a homeless person, I see them as a child, and I wonder what happened in their life to bring them to this point. I know a lot of mental health centers were shut down in the late sixties because of a decrease in funding and so many of the patients just became homeless and began a perpetual cycle of poverty. I don’t believe the city has ever really recovered from that.
Contact Info:
- Website: buildingblocksparenting.com
- Phone: 619-738-4282
- Email: carlee@buildingblocksparenting.com
- Instagram: @buildingblocksparenting
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