Laurie Gray
JD
Free
Parenting and Positive Affirmations Expert
Laurie Gray Quick Facts
- Main Areas
- Parenting, Personal Transformation, Criminal Justice, Child Abuse, Writing
- Best Sellers
- Summer Sanctuary (Luminis Books/2010)
- Career Focus
- Atto ey, Author, Speaker
- Affiliation
- Socratic Parenting, LLC, Sophie's Cafe LLC, Indiana Tech, Dr. Bill Lewis Center for Children
Atto ey, author and child advocate, Laurie Gray created Socratic Parenting LLC as her writing, speaking and consulting business. Socratic Parenting LLC empowers people to feel, think and act with their own spiritual awareness, clarity and confidence. Laurie conducts workshops and trainings in Parenting, Personal Transformation, Criminal Justice, Child Abuse and Writing. Visit www.SocraticParenting.com for more information.
Laurie is the co-creator of Token of Change™, a coin and magnet set designed to help people focus their intention through gratitude and affirmations. Learn more about this personal affirmation tool by going to www.SocraticParenting.com and clicking on “Token of Change.” Laurie is a co-developer and consultant for a boundaries-based women’s empowerment group called Sophie’s Café. Learn more at www.SophiesCafe.org.
Laurie earned her B.A. from Goshen College and her J.D. from Indiana University School of Law. A former high school teacher and experienced trial atto ey, Laurie was a Deputy Prosecutor working with sex offenders, drug addicts and juvenile delinquents from 2000-2010. She has served on the faculty at the National Symposium on Child Abuse in Huntsville, Alabama each spring since 2009. She has also presented workshops at the Best Practices Showcase for Educators at St. Francis University in Fort Wayne, Indiana and at the 37th Annual Midwest Writers Workshop at Ball State University in 2010.
Laurie’s private practice from 1993-1999 included the following areas of law: personal injury (both plaintiff and insurance defense), workers compensation (both plaintiff and defense), medical malpractice (plaintiff only), labor and employment (defense only), immigration, criminal defense, and Court-Appointed Guardian Ad Litem or Atto ey for Parent in numerous CHINS (Child in Need of Services) cases. Laurie has served as an author and lecturer for various Indiana Continuing Legal Education programs and as the co-chair of the Women Lawyers Section of the Allen County Bar Association in 1998. She completed Civil Mediation Training in 2003 and has served as a court-appointed Spanish/English interpreter in both state and federal courts.
Laurie’s debut novel Summer Sanctuary (Luminis Books/2010) won a Moonbeam Gold Medal for excellence in young adult literature and was named a 2011 Indiana Best Book Finalist. She has two additional young adult novels and a parenting book scheduled for publication by Luminis Books: Maybe I Will (2013), Just Myrto (2014), and A Simple Guide to Socratic Parenting (2014). In addition to writing, speaking and consulting, Laurie also works as a bilingual Forensic Interviewer at the Bill Lewis Center for Children conducting interviews in both Spanish and English and as an adjunct professor of criminal sciences at Indiana Institute of Technology (Indiana Tech).
Free Articles & Book Excerpts
Affirmations: The Creative Power of I Am
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Affirmations_The_Creative_Power_of_I_AM.html
Socratic Parenting
http://socraticparenting.com/index.html
Recession-Proof Prosperity
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Recession-Proof_Prosperity.html
The Gift of Gratitude
http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/The_Gift_of_Gratitude.html
Free Audio & Video Samples
"The Poetry and Music of Summer Sanctuary" (17 minutes)
http://afw.pegcentral.com/player.php?video=a6a50969abc01dd2b766447718c64810
Summer Sanctuary-Sleeping in a church and barn (2 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL1QtWzM4nA
Summer Sanctuary-Someone, Anyone poem (1 minute)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q75cyxAu7Jg
Summer Sanctuary-Cover Art (1 minute)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuXHh1-ch_g
Women Lawyers Interview (38 minutes)
http://www.womenlawyersonline.com/tag/laurie-a-gray/
Socratic Parenting from The Learning Curve
http://webtalkradio.net/inte et-talk-radio/2012/02/20/the-lea ing-curve-%e2%80%93-imagine-a-parenting-technique-that-doesn%e2%80%99t-tell-you-what-to-do-but-teaches-the-art-of-self-discovery-that-can-be-implemented-with-your-child-for-its-benefit/
Laurie Gray Books
Summer Sanctuary (YA Fiction, Spring 2010)
http://www.socraticparenting.com/summersanctuary.html
Maybe I Will (YA Fiction, Spring 2013)
http://www.socraticparenting.com/maybeiwill.html
Just Myrto (YA Fiction, Spring 2014)
http://www.socraticparenting.com/justmyrto.html
A Simple Guide to Socratic Parenting (Nonfiction, Spring 2014)
http://www.socraticparenting.com/simpleguide.html
The ABC's of Sexual Assault: Anatomy, "Bunk" and the Courtroom
http://socraticparenting.com/abcs.html
Articles by this expert
SelfGrowth articles and saved writing connected to this expert.
Article
A Safe Place for Kids
There were times during the weeks that followed my daughter’s birth that she would cry, and I would wonder why. She was warm and dry and well-fed, but she still cried. I remember holding her in my arms and rocking her and suddenly realizing that she missed the security of my womb. She wanted to crawl right back up inside me where she was completely protected from the world and all of its chaos. But she had boarded a train bound for independence and there was no turning back.
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Article
The Spirit of Christmas
“And they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” --Matthew 1:23 (KJV) The Christmas story is one of light, love and joy—the light of the star, the love inspired by a precious child, and the joy of hope ete al. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, we light Advent candles representing hope, peace, love and joy. We move from a season of gratitude into a celebration that the Christ is born within us and God is with us. We celebrate the spirit of Christmas.
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Article
Without Consent or Force
One of my jobs as a deputy prosecuting atto ey was to review cases of sexual assault, determine what crime (if any) had been committed, and assess the likelihood that we would be able to prove every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. While the specific laws are different in each state, every sex crime requires either a lack of consent on the part of the victim or the use of force on the part of the perpetrator. Too often people think that “without consent” is the same as “by force,” but that is not true in a legal sense.
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Article
Surround Yourself With Love
Most of us have grown up with some version of the Golden Rule that includes doing unto others as you would have them do to you and loving your neighbor as yourself. Most of us think of the rule as encouraging us to be kinder to others. Such thinking is completely backward. We already do love our neighbors as ourselves. The problem is that most of us have never learned to love ourselves and to see ourselves as a source of love.
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Article
Socratic Parenting
Parenting isn't about having all the answers. It's about helping children learn to think for themselves and rediscovering yourself and the world through the eyes of your child. Socratic Parenting focuses on knowing yourself, knowing your child, and becoming the change you wish to see in your child. In order to develop their own authentic parenting style, parents must honestly examine their own habits and beliefs while building a healthy relationship with their children. Parents are never any better at disciplining their children than they are at disciplining themselves.
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Article
Grooming: How Child Molesters Create Willing Victims
There’s an old urban legend that if you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, he’ll naturally hop out; however, if you place a frog in a pot of cool water and gradually increase the heat, you’ll end up with a cooked frog. I can’t say whether this is true for frogs, but it certainly is true for many children who are sexually molested. The gradual cooking process is known as “grooming,” and the increased heat is the evaporation of physical and emotional boundaries.
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Article
Prosperity begins with Gratitude
Gratitude has completely transformed my life. There was a traditional blessing often recited as I was growing up that said, “For what we have and what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful.” Yet I never understood what it meant to be truly grateful. I confused gratitude with a sense of obligation—something I owed to someone who had done me a favor. Like Jonathon Edwards, I was a sinner in the hands of an angry God. There was always an underlying sense that things could be much worse, and I should thank God that they are not.
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Article
Follow Your Bliss
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3:28 (New King James Version) As human beings we grow up perceiving the world around us as a structured system of competing dualities. We are either male or female, free or enslaved, Christian or non-Christian. Every action is judged as good or bad, with an emphasis on being good. Aren’t we all taught that we should do the right thing? Isn’t “doing good” the best anyone can do?
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Article
Affirmations: The Creative Power Of “I Am”
In Hamlet Shakespeare asked the most famous question in all literature: “To be or not to be?” The answer to that and to all of our questions lies in the first person present tense of to be: I AM. When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush and told him to deliver the Israelites out of ...
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Article
The Gift Of Gratitude
“For what we have and what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly grateful.”n --Traditional grace before meals What does it mean to be truly grateful? On the one hand, gratitude may arise out of a feeling of obligation for a favor shown; on the other, gratitude may reflect a ...
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Article
Recession-Proof Prosperity
Every night before she goes to sleep, my six-year-old places a Token of Change™ on her forehead and affirms, “I am grateful. I am kind. I create what’s on my mind. Perfect health… Prosperity… My world reflects the change in me.” If you ask her what prosperity means, she’ll tell you, ...
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Article
Who is Socrates?
“You are the noblest, the gentlest and the best man who has ever come here,” said the jailer to Socrates. The jailer had guarded Socrates for a month following his trial. A jury of 501 men found Socrates guilty of corrupting youth by teaching them to question everything and to think for themselves. The jury sentenced Socrates to death. At the appointed time, the jailer brought a poisonous hemlock drink to Socrates.
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Favorite Quotes & Thoughts from Laurie Gray
"There is nothing more useless than a mind filled with someone else's thoughts." --Laurie Gray
"I surround myself with love by loving everything around me." -- Laurie Gray
"I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make people think." --Socrates
Contacting Laurie Gray
How to get started
Socratic Parenting: KNOW YOURSELF. KNOW YOUR CHILD.
Imagine a parenting book that doesn't tell parents what to do, but teaches the art of self-discovery using the same methods parents can use to encourage their children's growth and learning.
A Simple Guide to Socratic Parenting (Luminis Books/2014) focuses parents on the need to examine their own values and goals in order to select wisely from the overwhelming assortment of parenting tools available in this information age. Parents must know themselves and be themselves to raise their children with confidence and consistency.
Other highlights
Token of Change TM
Unleash the power of intentional thought in your life. Place your Affirmation poem on your refrigerator and carry the Coin with you as constant reminders of your decision to transform your feelings, thoughts and actions. Your life really does reflect the choices you make.
Token of Change™ is a 1 5/16th inch gold colored, bright bronze coin and an Affirmation poem printed on a magnet. Together they empower you to become who you really want to be. The Coin and Affirmations are designed to remind you to let go of what you don't want and think only about what you do want. Affirmations flip the light switch in your mind, and gratitude generates feelings of joy and peace in your life. Change begins with awareness; then physical matter changes as life energy increases.
SOPHIE'S CAFE
Created and facilitated by women for women, Sophie’s Café is a support group intentionally designed to empower women to break self-defeating patterns and establish healthy boundaries. Participants from all walks of life connect in a safe and affirming circle to explore and honor each woman’s unique, inner wisdom. As we learn to accept and love ourselves, we build a respectful and loving community around us.