Simone Derman

Simone Derman is the founder of My Mindful Co, a mother to three boys and a qualified conscious parenting coach residing in Cape Town, South Africa.

While struggling to deal with her seven-day-old baby boy’s sudden and traumatic death in 2017, she realised his brothers were struggling as much as she was. They were sad and angry that the brother they met in hospital never got to come home. They developed anxiety and worried about death and what would happen to them if their parents were no longer around. Short of taking them for therapy, Simone really wanted to connect with them and help them as their mother, but she didn’t know how to because she was still trying to help herself.

She searched high and low for resources, activities, and stories but came up empty-handed. She wanted an all-in-one guide that could teach social and emotional concepts in a child-friendly way. Then it became clear. Through her own therapy, she had been learning all these wonderful, helpful tools to heal, regulate herself and grow as a person.

“Why on earth are we not teaching our children these same strategies at an early age?” she asked herself. “Why did I have to experience trauma to learn these things? What if we could raise a whole generation of happy, resilient, confident children with a growth mindset and give them the tools to cope with life’s unavoidable obstacles?”

Over the course of two years, Simone completed a conscious parenting coaching course with the Dr Shefali Coaching Institute, after which she began compiling the Mindful Me Lifeskills Journal. During this time, she forged a special connection with her boys, working through the journal with them and helping them along their healing path. Through her books, she hopes to help other parents raise an emotionally intelligent generation with all the healthy coping mechanisms and life skills they need to thrive in life, one little human at a time.