Meet Carol
• Certified Professional Coach
• Member ICF-NYC
• Founder of Family Pathways Coaching
• Mother of four neurodiverse sons
Welcome! I’m Carol Siege, and my inspiration for creating Family Pathways Coaching are my four sons, each of whom has been diagnosed to greater and lesser degrees as neurodiverse. That is, they display neurologically atypical patterns of thought or behavior.
I adore my sons and now have the immense pleasure of watching them begin their own journeys into adulthood. But ours has not been the so-called “typical” path – not for them and not for my husband and me.
When our kids have special needs, no matter what they are, we parents must navigate some extraordinary challenges. Every day, we must jump through hoops to accommodate our children; work to keep the peace inside and outside the home; and somehow manage our own emotions as we tend to those of everyone around us.
Of course, it took some time for me to accept that life would not unfold in the way I originally expected. There were some rocky times, for sure. But there was also determination, hope, and love. And today, as a Certified Professional Coach, I can bring my experience, education, and hard-earned, real-life understanding to parents in similar situations.
The way I see it – and I hope you do, too – we all hold the keys to our own happiness. But sometimes life gets in the way, and it's hard to see clearly. It helps to have someone there for you, someone you can trust, who won’t judge you. Someone who can help you see through the haze, find the real questions that need answering, and then help you create a plan and follow through.
We deserve this self-clarity, self-awareness, and self-determination. And when we have it for ourselves, we can bring it to others in our lives.
My Inspiration
All four of my nearly grown and extraordinary sons have been diagnosed with an array of special needs, from ASD to ADHD, from GAD to OCD and then some. I like to say our family is a veritable alphabet soup of diagnoses. And yet all four young men have surpassed expectations and continue to astound me with their resilience. Our family is tight knit and loving, despite – and because of – the challenges we have all worked together to overcome.
My Qualifications
I am an Certified Professional Coach (CPC), with an additional certification in Energy Leadership Coaching from iPEC coach training, and a member of ICF-NYC. I received my undergraduate degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania and my master’s in journalism from New York University. While working as a stay-at-home mom for my four sons, I served in numerous volunteer leadership roles, including president of our local school district’s CHILD (Children Having Individual Life Differences) Committee and president of our synagogue.
My Fun & Recreation
As recent empty nesters, my husband and I have started traveling, together finding that – while we enjoy exploring cities – we both come alive when we are hiking, biking and otherwise exerting ourselves in the great outdoors. Surfing the coast of Spain checked off a box on my bucket list! Cooking with my sons continues to bring me enormous joy, alongside anything that makes me laugh (including my boys).