About Sheila

The Beginning
I became a single mother in 1994 following my divorce after twelve years of marriage.  Alone and with four kids under the age of ten, I found myself confronting the challenges of finding a job, a home, and managing a household on my own. At the time of my divorce, I felt the need to start a support group for single mothers in my community.  The group started off small, with three women and grew to fifty.  I credit the rebuilding of my life to the help, advice, friendship and support I received from this group of single mothers.

After writing two books on the topic of divorce, I began to focus my attention on creating a program where single moms could get information and meet each other.  My goal was to create a community for single moms, so all could find the support that was so crucial to me. At first I had a fill-in form on my website where women could write about themselves. Then, I’d sit on my living room floor each Sunday night, read the applications and try the best I could to match women according to the challenges they were facing in their lives. I still have the 5 original boxes of those applications stacked in my garage! Years later with the advent of networking sites like facebook, my space and ning, I was able to set up a single mom community that allows women to find their own support partners. To join that community CLICK HERE and you’ll receive an invitation from me to join.

My Bio
I’m the bestselling author of ten books and nationally recognized speaker on successful parenting, women’s growth and development, relationships and family fun. My advice has been helping over a million parents creatively feed, play with and raise their children. Equipped with a B.A. in psychology from the University of Southern California and inspired by my children, I created and co-authored the ‘365′ series of parenting books, including, 365 Games Babies Play, 365 Games Toddlers Play, 365 Days of Creative Play, 365 Afterschool Activities, 365 Foods Kids Love To Eat, and 365 Ways to Raise Confident Kids.

I am the author of The Courage to be a single Mother, Becoming Whole Again after Divorce, The Courage to Love Again, Relationships After Divorce, How Does She Do It? 101 Life lessons from One Mother to Another and I’m the editor of If Women Ruled the World. I’ve appeared on Oprah, the Later Today Show and CBS Early Show.

My books and articles have been featured in O Magazine, Parenting, Family Circle, Glamour, Complete Woman, New York Daily News, San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland Tribune and I’ve appeared as an expert on hundreds of radio shows across the country. I’m the founder of SingleMomsConnect.com and CompleteMom.com–both are website communities that focus on supporting moms through every stage of their lives. I continue to write, teach, coach and live in Northern California with my four children ages 23, 22, 19 and 17, her husband and two step children ages 22 and 19.