Heartfelt Primary was built from the classroom first.
These tools and this approach come from years of watching toddlers build and lose emotional confidence depending on how adults responded.
Who We Are
I spent years as a lead preschool teacher and afterschool counselor working with two and three year olds. I also studied child development so I could understand what I was seeing in real time.
What I saw was this. Toddlers came into my classroom with natural boundaries. They knew what felt good and what did not. They said no clearly. They walked away from play that hurt. They covered their ears when rooms got too loud. They advocated for themselves without apology.
Then I watched adults accidentally socialize those boundaries out of them. Parents would say "we do not say no to adults" or "you need to share right now" or "give your cousin a hug or you are being rude." What those kids learned was not politeness. What they learned was that their voice did not matter.
Those same kids would come back to my classroom a year later and they had stopped saying no out loud. But they were still saying it. They were just saying it with their bodies instead. Meltdowns. Shutdowns. Aggression. Withdrawal.
I realized the problem was not that kids could not regulate. The problem was that nobody taught them how to process emotions instead of avoiding them.
That is why Heartfelt Primary exists. To give parents the tools and language to protect the voice their child is born with instead of accidentally erasing it.
What We Believe
01
Identity First Over Behavior Control
We teach kids who they are, so nobody else can define them. This is not about stopping tantrums. This is about protecting self-worth.
04
Kids Already Have Boundaries
Toddlers come into the world knowing what feels good and what does not. Adults accidentally socialize those boundaries out of them. We protect them instead.
02
SEL as Armor Not Decoration
Social emotional learning is protection. It is how kids build boundaries, resist bullying, avoid relationships that steal their joy and protect their peace.
05
Parents are The First Teacher
If parents never learned SEL, their kids probably will not either. We speak with empathy for parents while telling the truth about what needs to change.
03
18 to 48 Months Are Vital
These early years are when emotional identity forms. Teaching SEL later helps but teaching it early changes the entire structure.
06
Emotions are Information
We stand against distraction parenting and screens as emotional pacifiers. We stand for helping children process emotions so they can regulate and move forward.
The Founder Story
While I was learning to see boundaries in toddlers I was also learning I had none of my own.
I grew up as an only child in America with siblings back in Africa. My parents loved me deeply. I was especially close to my mom. She worried about everything. Her anxiety made me careful with what I shared. My dad has strong narcissistic traits so emotional honesty never felt safe there either.
I learned to be quiet. I learned to perform calm. I learned to carry my feelings inside so I would not rock the boat. That silence followed me into friendships where I made myself small to keep the peace. It followed me into a relationship that became seven years of mental and emotional abuse.
For seven years someone else narrated my identity for me. When you do not have social emotional grounding you start to believe those voices. You think control is clarity. You think survival is self awareness.
While I was rebuilding myself I was also spending my days with toddlers who already had pieces of these skills naturally.
They knew what they liked and what they did not like. They walked away from play that felt bad. They said no clearly. They felt everything without apology. The problem was not that kids did not understand. The problem was that adults did not know how to handle it.
If learning these skills as an adult was this hard and I had already seen how powerful they were why were we not giving these tools to children in the years when their brains and identities are most open to it.
That is why I created Heartfelt Primary. I wanted to protect that natural boundary voice toddlers are born with instead of socializing it out of them.
Heartfelt Primary is the voice I needed as a child. Now it is the voice I am determined to give to the next generation.
It took me years to have one honest thought that cut through all of that. I do not think I deserve to be treated this way.
Leaving that relationship at 25 did not magically give me my identity back. Social emotional learning became the framework that saved me. It gave me language for emotions I had always swallowed. It taught me how to process feelings instead of pushing past them. It helped me define myself so nobody else could do that for me again.
Our Approach
We Start with Identity
Most programs start with behavior management. We start with helping kids understand who they are. When identity is clear behavior follows. When identity is missing behavior becomes the focus.
We Focus on Prevention
We do not wait until kids are struggling in middle school. We reach them at 18 to 48 months when emotional patterns are forming and still flexible.
We Use Real Moments
Our tools are not activities. They are supports for actual emotional moments. We teach parents how to use emotion cards during meltdowns not during circle time.
We Tell The Truth
We do not promise easy. We promise worth it. Building emotional identity takes practice. But the alternative is raising kids who do not know who they are.
We Train Parents Too
Most parents are teaching skills they never learned themselves. Our guidebooks show parents how to respond in ways that build identity instead of stopping behavior.
We Combine Experience With Study
These tools come from years in the classroom watching patterns play out across hundreds of children plus child development study to understand why those patterns exist.
Ready to start protecting your child’s voice?
Explore the kits or reach out to work together.