Hi!

Professional background

My name is Jolene (yes, from that Dolly Parton song) van der Kaap-Deeder and I work at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway) as an Associate Professor in child development. After obtaining my bachelor’s and master’s degree in psychology at Maastricht University (the Netherlands), I moved to Belgium to pursue a career in research and education. Besides enjoying Belgian fries and chocolate, I also enjoyed learning so much on parenting and child development from a positive psychology perspective (focusing on the Self-Determination Theory). I obtained my PhD in psychology in 2017 and continued doing research as a post-doc on parent-child interaction. In 2020 I was offered a position as an associate professor in Norway (yes, it’s cold here, but nature makes up for it), where I focus on parenting but also children’s emotional development.

Across my 10 years as a researcher, I have published about 40 scientific articles and worked together with researchers across the globe. During the past decade, I have taught over 1,000 students on topics such as parenting, self-esteem, adolescents’ emotion regulation, parent-child reminiscing, and postnatal depression.

Personal background

I am a proud parent of five children. Although the chances of having 5 boys in a row are only about 3% , I managed to do this (ok, with help of my husband of course). Right now (2021), my children are 4, 10, 12, 13, and 16 years old. So, besides my professional experience within the domain of parenting, I also had the chance to try out my new insights on my test subjects… uh, my children, I mean. Just kidding, my children are the world to me and I feel very privileged to be the mother of these five inspirational and wonderful children.

I was only 19 years when I had my first child (ok, I know you now can calculate my age). At that time, I often felt overwhelmed by parenting advice from family and friends (and even strangers!). And even now, when you look at all the information that is out there on parenting, it is very difficult for parents and professionals to determine what information is valuable and what is just written from a commonsense intuition. This inspired me to create this course on parenting called “Beyond common sense: A scientific positive parenting course”. This course will provide you with real data and facts about parenting based on recent science. So, if you want to gain more knowledge that will change your life as a parent or professional, join this course now.