We were lucky to catch up with Victoria Clarke recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Victoria, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I remember sitting at my desk, tears in my eyes, as I frantically texted my mom.

“I have no idea what I’m doing! I need help!”

A year previously, I had moved from China, where I had been living for 20 years, to Colorado. I moved in with my boyfriend and we got married not long after. Between us, we had five kids and I was struggling to figure out how to blend our multicultural family across three cities and two continents.

I had a background in child psychology and was a schoolteacher for 12 years prior to moving to the US. I was also the second of seven kids and had helped to raise my younger siblings from the time I was a tween. I thought all my experience would make my new challenge a piece of cake.

I was wrong!

Now, I was no stranger to chaos and confusion. From the time I was a preschooler, I was separated from my parents, brought up in large groups of children in the Children of God communes I lived in, moved country every few years, suffered exploitation and abuse, and when I grew to be a teen, didn’t even know how to answer the simple question ‘Where are you from’ without hemming and hawing, as many third culture kids will attest to.

Yet this new situation I found myself in was exposing a part of me that I had been trying to ignore for years: I wasn’t being the parent my kids needed.

I knew it was time for me to be honest with myself and admit that I couldn’t do this alone and I needed help. I had hit rock bottom in my relationship with my kids and stepkids and it was time for me to do something about it.

Over the next 3 years, I threw myself into studying counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, neurolinguistic programming, life coaching, and mindfulness. I didn’t just study it either. I hired a therapist and took multiple courses and workshops to help me work though my own childhood trauma and parental triggers. I’ve received so many beautiful breakthroughs and eureka moments from my therapist, coaches, and mentors.

I started this journey to heal my relationship with myself and my kids. I had no idea that it would lead me to coaching other parents and kids to do the same.

Once I started doing Inner Child work by myself, I realized just how early negative beliefs and thought patterns are developed. I wondered why so many people had to wait until they were adults in therapy to receive love, validation, and acceptance as well as learn coping skills and tools to persevere through life’s challenges.

Why couldn’t they learn these skills as a child or teen?

What I do now as a Kids and Teen Coach is something I know is going to make a difference. I believe that working in a preventative measure with kids and teens, helping them learn about their thoughts and emotions, empowering them with practical skills, and teaching them to love and accept themselves is what’s going to change the world. We can’t build a world of love and acceptance without first learning how to give it to ourselves. These are the skills our next generation need now.

I also work with parents to help them heal and rediscover their Inner Child, the one who didn’t receive the love and compassion they deserved. I often tell parents that the change starts with us. Just like I saw on my own healing journey, when I focused on my personal growth and healing, that’s when the changes started to happen in the people around me too.

In my coaching, I focus on three core skills: confidence, communication, and connection. I believe that when kids and teens have strong self-belief, effective communication skills. and a close connection with their family and loved ones, this is what gives them the ability to bounce back after any challenge life throws at them.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Victoria Clarke and I’m a Family Resilience Coach.

I help kids and teens ages 8-18 to build confidence, effective communication skills, and an authentic connection with others.

I work with parents to educate them on Peaceful Parenting, help them become more confident and effective leaders in their homes, and cultivate a unbreakable connection with their children.

I support teachers and schools by offering talks, workshops, and after school programs on topics like healthy habits, mindset techniques, setting goals, and stress management.

What sets me apart from many other coaches is that I offer both parent and child/teen coaching. My years of working with kids and teens has given me a lot of knowledge and insight into what kids respond best to and the ability to build rapport and trust with them quickly.

I utilize my background of teaching art, music, creative movement, dance, cooking, and drama to help kids and teens tap into their senses and feelings during our sessions. I believe that kids and teens learn best when they’re having fun.

I’m also a parent and step-parent. I understand the challenges that many parents face and bring compassion and empathy to our sessions, while also partnering with them to create personalized strategies that work for their families.

One of the common misconceptions I often hear from both parents and teens is that therapy and coaching are the same. While there are some similarities, coaching focuses on exploring where the client is right now, deciding where they want to be (setting a short or long term goal) and establishing clear steps to take on how to get there.

Another important aspect of coaching is accountability. I check in with my clients on a regular basis, reminding them of their action steps, and celebrating all of their wins and progress. I’ve witnessed clients make incredible progress over a short period of time because of this.

My belief is that all parents and kids need a coach, someone who sees their potential, believes in them while helping them learn to believe in themselves, and encourages them every step of the way. This is why I’m so passionate about what I do!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I probably have more of these than there’s room for!

I touched on it briefly in my main story but to give a bit more insight, I was born and raised in the Children of God, a religious cult founded in Huntington Beach, California in 1968. There have been numerous documentaries, books, and articles done on the cult so I won’t go too much into detail about the environment I grew up in. Needless to say, it wasn’t a safe place for children and the impact it had on my childhood and early teen years was substantial.

I was 17 when I decided that I wanted to leave and live on my own so that’s what I did. I had been working since I was 12 to help support my family so while I was determined and responsible, I also lacked knowledge of what life outside the cult was like.

I can remember walking into a bank when I was 18 to deposit my first real paycheck and I had no clue what to do or how a bank account worked. At times, it felt like I’d been thrown in the deep end of a pool and I had to learn to swim pretty darn quick.

I ended up marrying my first boyfriend at 19. The marriage lasted a year. Like my childhood, it was filled with abuse and manipulation.

My next relationship wasn’t much better. We stayed together for 11 years and had two kids but my self-esteem and confidence was in tatters. I finally realized that no one was coming to save me and I had to get myself out of the mess I was sitting in.

What happened over the next 18 months was a whirlwind of destruction. I ended up losing my job, schooling for my kids at the private school I taught at, and my house.

My two boys went to live with their dad while I scrambled to find my feet. They told me soon after that they no longer wanted to see me anymore and wanted to stay with their dad.

That was the hardest time of my life. I felt like I had lost everything I spent my adult life building, in one fell swoop: my family, my career, my stability.

But if I knew anything about myself, I knew I was a fighter. I had faced challenge after challenge since my childhood and I had gotten through it. I was adaptable and resilient.

Little did I know but it was those challenges I faced in those 18 months that led me to where I am today.

-I met and married the love of my life.

-I repaired and rebuilt my relationship with both my boys.

-I became a stepmom to three amazing stepkids who have taught me so much.

-I’ve healed so many of my childhood wounds.

-I’ve found my purpose through the pain I went through: coaching kids, teens, and parents to become their best selves.

Those hard years taught me more than I ever expected and looking back, I wouldn’t change a single thing. Truly.

A valuable question I’ve learned to ask myself is, ‘What’s the lesson here? What do I need to learn so that I can move forward?’

I’m living proof that tough times don’t last, but tough people do.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

If I had to give one piece of advice for people starting to build their social media presence it would be this: there is so much garbage out there that people absorb on a daily basis. Show up, determined to offer value, and your ideal clients will find you and resonate with what you have to say. The rest don’t matter.

I invested in a business coach over a year ago and through her, I’ve learned how to do organic social media marketing. This was incredibly beneficial when I was a new business owner with not much cashflow yet. I had a few other mentors who encouraged me to start a website, invest in paid ads, join networking groups, etc. which I did for awhile.

The ROI I received from those avenues was not worth it and turned out to be just one more thing I had to stress over.

I do the majority of my marketing on Facebook, where I can interact with my client base. It gives me the ability to show up in a way that feels authentic and genuine to who I am as a person, a parent, and a coach.

This was something I really struggled with when I first made the leap to showing up on social media. I didn’t want to be put on a pedestal and have people look up to me as some kind of parenting ‘guru’ when I felt like I was slogging through the trenches daily, just like they were.

Even more terrifying was the idea of receiving judgement from others. The internet can be a unkind place and for every 2 people that agree with you, 2 more will disparage or troll you. For someone who grew up the way I did, I felt like my past was lurking around every corner, waiting to discredit me.

For me personally, I know I resonate the most with people who are honest about their daily struggles, their wins, their losses, their determination to keep going. I scroll by the people who promise you the world in 30 days and have a perfectly curated Instagram page. I want the real, the gritty, the ‘I got you’. And this is how I want to show up for my audience.

It takes a level of honesty and bravery. It takes finding the balance between authenticity and authority. Too much unfiltered authenticity and while people can relate, they may wonder how you can help them. Too much authority, and you come across as all business and cold.

My business coach taught me how to present a mix of value offering, audience engagement, social proof, and influencer style posts. I also do a once a month call to action post where I offer a freebie or invite to my free parenting course. People love free stuff so it’s a great way to get your audience interacting with your posts.

Building your social media presence takes time as you need to build your KLT (know, like, trust) factor with your audience. The best way to do that is with consistency. Having a schedule where you know what type of post you’ll be doing, when, can take the last minute scramble factor out as well as having a collection of previously written posts. When inspiration hits me, I can knock out 5 or 6 posts at a time which I keep in a Story Bank, that I choose future content from.

One last tip for hacking social media algorithms: people want to see your face, not a stock photo image. So if you love taking selfies, you’re in luck. For those of us who work from home and rock messy buns, no makeup, and leggings on a daily basis, remember to snap a few photos of yourself when you’re feeling fancy.

Happy posting!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.victorkidslifecoaching.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/victoria.clarke.165
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-kids-life-coaching-92271220a/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/victor_kids?lang=en
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@victorkidslifecoaching