About Us
Meet Matt & Linda: Founders of The Thriving Home
We created The Thriving Home to help parents protect connection in everyday family life. Not just in the big moments, but in the ordinary, end-of-day ones too.
Before becoming parents, Matt spent many years working closely with children and teenagers, including extensive experience supporting at-risk youth. That hands-on work gave him a deep, real-world understanding of child behaviour, emotional regulation, and what children need when things feel hard.
More recently, Matt completed his formal counselling training, deepening that experience with therapeutic frameworks grounded in attachment, nervous system regulation, and relational safety.
Alongside this, Linda spent years working as a science editor and researcher, immersed in child development, attachment theory, and brain science, translating complex research into clear, practical insights that families can actually use.
Then we became parents ourselves. And all of that knowledge became personal.
We realised that connection doesn’t just happen in busy homes. It takes intention, support, and sometimes, the right tools.
So we brought everything together:
- Matt’s years of hands-on work with children, alongside his counselling training
- Linda’s research and science-based background
- and our lived experience parenting in today’s fast, demanding world
To create tools that are practical, grounded, and usable in real life... especially when you’re tired, overwhelmed, or short on time.
Everything we create is designed to empower parents, not replace them. Your child doesn’t need more experts. They need you.
Our role is simply to offer steady, research-backed tools that make your job easier, so you can lead your family with more calm, confidence, and connection.
BECAUSE Connection isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the foundation.
Why We Do What We Do: The Story Behind The Thriving Home
Our path to parenthood wasn’t easy. After four years of infertility and IVF, we don’t take a single day of raising our children for granted. Motherhood also brought unexpected challenges, including postnatal anxiety, which led us to rethink everything about how we wanted to parent. Out of that journey grew a conviction: connection changes everything. When we began focusing on small, intentional moments of connection, our home transformed, and so did we.
We know many parents long for that same bond but feel overwhelmed, time-poor, and unsure where to start. That’s why we created The Thriving Home: to give parents ready-to-use, research-grounded tools that make meaningful connection simple and doable.
Our Parenting Philosophy: Connection-First Parenting
Everything we teach is built on an approach we call Connection-First Parenting: A practical, research-driven framework for raising thriving kids.
Connection-First Parenting is rooted in neuroscience and attachment research.
It recognises that a child’s sense of connection with their parent is the foundation for:
- Emotional regulation & secure attachment
- Learning, confidence, and resilience
- Long-term mental health & well-being
Instead of starting with behaviour or discipline, we start with relationship. When children feel safe and deeply connected, cooperation follows, confidence grows, and family life becomes lighter and easier.
This philosophy shapes everything we create, from our Thriving Together parent-child date books, to simple family rituals and practical connection tools.
Connection first. Behaviour second. Joy always.