About Laurie Kanyer, M.A.

Trained as a counselor, Laurie Kanyer runs parenting courses in Yakima, Wash. The descendent of an Irish immigrant family, she has spent the last two decades as a parenting educator and consultant in central Washington. A graduate of Central Washington University and St. Mary's University of Minnesota, she is a certified family life educator and the author of two parenting guides.

Kanyer's parenting articles also appear in many different periodicals and online resources. She has a special interest in coping with different kinds of loss, including the loss of family and place associated with immigration, and the grief caused by terminal and chronic illness within a family. Kanyer and her husband are the parents of three—a college student, a high school student and a middle-schooler.