“Becoming the Parent They Need” is TAPP’s fundamental initiative.
As you dive in, I want to offer a bit of context for why this post—and this perspective—matters so deeply to me. I’m one of the co-founders of The Attuned Parent Project (TAPP), a work that’s been quietly—and very intentionally—taking shape over the past few years.
TAPP was co-founded in 2023 by four women: Mary Filice, PhD; Grace Vitale, PhD; Rosaleigh Neal, and yours truly, Suzanne Dion. A philosopher, a child psychologist, an elementary school teacher, and an Enneagram teacher and coach.
As we prepare to launch our core parenting program in April of 2026, I wanted to share a bit about “our why” concerning the Enneagram, because it captures something foundational to our approach.
One of the most deliberate choices we’ve made is to teach the Enneagram as part of our core curriculum—not as a personality shortcut, but as a powerful tool for self-awareness, compassion, and repair. This article offers a glimpse into why we believe parents’ inner work is inseparable from how we show up for our babies, toddlers, and kids.
Parenting calls us into relationship with our own inner world: our temperament, our emotional reflexes, our stress responses, and the unconscious patterns we carry into moments of fatigue, fear, and deep love. At The Attuned Parent Project, we believe that becoming a conscious parent begins not with mastering schedules, but with understanding ourselves.
This is why we use the Enneagram of Personality as a foundational framework in our parenting programs. The Enneagram offers us a compassionate and precise map of human patterns—how we perceive, feel, react, and protect ourselves under stress. Rather than labeling or limiting us, it illuminates the automatic strategies we rely on when we feel overwhelmed or undone, especially in the intensity of early parenting. With this awareness, we gain the ability to pause, regulate, and respond fully and consistently to ourselves as well as he needs of our little ones.
TAPP is not about parenting techniques, we’re about self-awareness, emotional attunement, and conscious relationship—because the inner work we as parents do becomes the emotional environment in which our children develop.
Becoming a parent does not simply introduce a child into our lives—it awakens parts of us that may have been long forgotten, unexamined, or unconsciously defended. The Enneagram offers parents a compassionate mirror, revealing our emotional patterns and coping strategies that quietly shape how we respond to stress, fatigue, fear, and love. In the intensity of early parenting—sleepless nights, relentless responsibility, and the vulnerability of loving so fiercely—our habitual ways of seeing and reacting are amplified.
Understanding one’s Enneagram type allows us to recognize why certain moments frustrate us, why particular behaviors trigger strong reactions, and how our personality structure seeks safety and control when things feel uncertain or exasperating.
This self-knowledge is not abstract; it is profoundly practical. When parents can name their emotional reactivity, frustration thresholds, and automatic defenses, they gain the capacity to pause rather than react. The Enneagram helps illuminate the difference between a child’s actual needs and a parent’s unconscious fears, expectations, or unresolved wounds being activated.
With this awareness, emotional regulation becomes more accessible—not through suppression or perfectionism, but through understanding. Parents learn to track their inner experience, soften self-judgment, and choose responses rooted in presence rather than pattern. Over time, this builds a steadier nervous system, greater emotional resilience, and a deeper capacity for attunement.
Perhaps most importantly, learning the Enneagram invites parents into a more conscious relationship with love itself. Children do not need flawless parents; they need parents who are willing to see themselves clearly and repair when they miss. By understanding their own personality structure, parents cultivate humility, empathy, and responsibility for the emotional field they create.
This inner work becomes an act of devotion—one that interrupts the unconscious transmission of patterns and opens space for greater freedom, connection, and trust. In this way, the Enneagram is not just a tool for parenting well; it is a pathway toward raising children in an atmosphere of awareness, emotional safety, and authentic presence.
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