Behavioral scientist · Keynote speaker · Founder
I study what it takes to show up for kids and the adults raising them. Twenty years on one question with a wide reach: what moves a person from noticing to acting?
The K.I.D.S. Framework
One page. Four things you can do when you see a caregiver and child having a hard moment in public.
What our research shows
41%
would walk away from a struggling parent
0%
said the same after three hours of training
84%
left ready to act differently
Weaver, N. L., Taylor, M. E., Weaver, T. L., & Kutz, T. J. (2020). Support Over Silence for KIDS: A bystander training program to address public child maltreatment. Children and Youth Services Review. Program evaluation, 2025.
About me
I trained first as a mathematician, then a statistician, and somewhere along the way took up improvisational theater and the science of behavior. Improv has one rule sitting underneath all the others: when you don’t know what to do, turn toward your scene partner and listen harder. That turned out to be the answer to my research questions too.
We have gotten good at screening for trauma. Naming it, treating it, making room for it in a clinic. But what do we do when that trauma shows up at the grocery store on a Thursday evening, after a long day, with three kids in tow? Or at church, or the library? And what would it take to build communities that recognize the nervous system at work underneath behaviors?
These questions have elegant, compassionate, science-tested answers, and I would love to tell you all about them.
The work
Child sexual abuse prevention built for parents. Relationship skills instead of fear based warnings.
Workshops to build communities that support caregivers and their kids with compassion during challenging moments.
The podcast. For the messy, clumsy, hope nobody’s watching moments that come with raising kids.
What to do when you see a caregiver and child having a hard moment in public. Use the K.I.D.S. Framework, on one page here:
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