Meet Martha Burich
Parenting expert. Author. Speaker. Someone who’s been on both sides of needing help.
Her Story
I didn’t start out as an expert. I started out as a mom with a strong-willed kid and absolutely no idea what I was doing.
That’s what sent me back to school first to become a Child Psychology professor, then sixteen years as a special education teacher, working with the families everyone else had already given up on. I learned fast that behavior is never random. A kid acting out is a kid trying to tell you something, and most parents just haven’t been handed the tools to hear it yet.
Here’s the part I don’t usually lead with, but I’m not going to hide it either: a few years into that career, my own life fell apart. I won’t pretend it was dramatic it was quiet, and it crept up on me, and one morning I woke up and realized if I didn’t change something, I was going to lose everything that actually mattered. So I did the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I walked into a recovery meeting terrified, ashamed, and more alone than I’d ever felt and then I showed up again the next day. And the next. That’s really what recovery is. Not one brave moment. Thousands of small ones, repeated, when nobody’s clapping.
That experience didn’t derail my work with parents it deepened it. Because now I understood something most parenting experts never have to learn firsthand: how hard real change actually is, and how much it matters when just one person believes you can do it anyway.
These days I split my time between two things that turned out to be the same thing wearing different clothes. I coach parents who are exhausted and out of ideas. And every week, I walk into jails and treatment centers to sit with people rebuilding their lives from nothing the same way, once, somebody sat with me.
Credentials & Recognition
- M.Ed.
- Child Psychology Professor
- 16 Years as a Special Education Teacher
- Outstanding Teacher Award, St. Louis Community College
- Volunteer of the Year Nominee, Blue Water Recovery Community
- Weekly volunteer, local jails and treatment centers
- Author, Yes You Can Raise Happy Responsible Children — endorsed by Jack Canfield, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Soul
When I’m not coaching, writing, or sitting in a visiting room somewhere, I’m probably out walking with my rescue dog, Banche. Turns out the patience he taught me isn’t so different from the patience this work requires.
→ Read Banche’s Story on the Blog
Want to see what working together could look like? → Get in Touch
