The Heart Behind Elm Sprouts
I never got the emotional words at home either. So I built them.
Young children are sprouts. They grow into strong, broad elm trees.
You don't teach from above... you relearn beside them.
Monica Au Yeung,
Elm Sprout’s Founder
“Cultivating Compassion.”
MY WORK
Elm Sprouts was shaped by my years as an educator, my work supporting children and youth, and my journey as a mother.
For over 15 years, I worked with neurodivergent children, including children with autism and trauma histories, alongside their typically developing peers. I built practical, structured strategies to help them understand and manage their emotions.
Then I became a mother, and those strategies became personal. I brought them home... and watched how even a very young child can learn the language of emotions when it's taught with consistency and care.
THE PART I DON'T ALWAYS SAY OUT LOUD…
When I became a mother, I lost some of myself too. I'd been told the biggest thing a woman could become was a mother... and when I got there, all my years of schooling, all my work... meant nothing. It was a real hit to my self-esteem.
I was teaching my child to value themselves... while quietly forgetting how to value me.
So I started learning both at once. My child's emotional language, and my own worth beyond motherhood. Small steps. Joining groups where other parents felt the same. Showing up at the school gate in a language I could speak but couldn't read, Google Translate in hand, refusing to disappear.
That's what Elm Sprouts really is. Not just the words I give my child... the words I had to find for myself, too.
The cycle stops with you... and it starts by remembering you're still in it.
THE THREE SEEDS
At the core of emotional learning are three values I hold close... self-love, self-esteem and self-confidence. They're the seeds of every child's growth.
Self Love
A home where a feeling can be said out loud... and still be met with respect.
Self Esteem
Progress counted in small steps. Trial. Error. Grace. Their pace.
Self Confidence
The quiet knowing of how far they've already come.
How Motherhood Shaped My Mission
Children don't need complicated systems.
They need a sentence. A person who'll sit with them. And enough repetition that the sentence becomes theirs.
Parents need the words too. Most of us were never handed them.
So I built the place I wished I'd had... where a parent and child learn the words together, and neither one has to figure it out alone.
If you're ready to start, it's here.
My Professional Qualifications And Training
These are the tools schools quietly hold. This is where I learned them... and why I could hand them to you.
The Mandt System (2014–2019) — building healthy relationships, effective communication, and calm conflict resolution.
Cognitive Behavioural Intervention / CBI (2014–2019) — identifying and shifting the thoughts, emotions and behaviours behind a child's challenges, using the Antecedent–Behaviour–Consequence (ABC) framework and Positive Behaviour Support
Positive Behaviour Support Training (2019)
Trauma & Attachment Training (2019)
Mental Health Training — Canadian Mental Health Association (2019)
Bachelor of Arts — Simon Fraser University.