Welcome to the Satuni Blog – Meet Anne Tiihonen

A warm hello from the brand-new Satuni blog!

My name is Anne Tiihonen, and I'm the newest addition to the Satuni team and the author of this blog. I'm a mother of two small children, and our family life is filled with dragon, train, and pretend-home games, endless hugs and cuddles, messes and tears, bedtime stories, joy – and occasionally squabbles – and, of course, love. A sweet chaos, as life with young children so often is.

By profession I'm a psychologist. Throughout my career I've had the privilege of meeting many children, young people, and families, and of walking alongside them for a moment on their journey. Following other people's paths from close up has felt like a gift, and many of those encounters have stayed close to my heart.

Since becoming a mother myself, my professional interest has turned more and more toward the relationship between child and parent, and toward supporting healthy development. A child's growth rests on parenthood – something that deserves to be strengthened and supported in every way we can. In this day and age, many parents feel uncertainty and even burnout as they navigate the stormy seas of everyday life. In the middle of it all, I hope every parent could pause now and then and tell themselves: “I am enough,” and “I am the best possible parent for this very child.” And just as importantly: “I can keep learning – about myself and about being a parent.”

Behind the professional and the mother, I'm a sensitive observer and experiencer of life, and I keep practicing how to return to that sensitivity in the middle of hectic days. My deepest strength comes from small things. I love the warmth of a sauna, the scent of the forest, and diving into lake water (I'm a landlocked soul!). The warmth of a child in my arms, the aroma of cardamom, and the rustle of aspen leaves in the wind make my nerve cells tingle with happiness.

I love reading, books, and stories. Losing myself in stories captivated me already as a small child, and as a schoolgirl I carried home a backpack full of library books every week. In elementary school I wrote my own stories. Sometimes I had to ask the teacher for a second notebook because the tale I was making up grew and grew until the pages of the first one ran out. Stories have been my superpower from childhood to adulthood. I still read a great deal, both on my own and together with my children.

Working with Satuni lets me combine two of my passions: the world of stories and the exploration of the human mind. Today's technology opens up new ways to build storytelling from each child's unique inner world. Satuni's guiding idea is that every child should get to feel like a hero. It's wonderful to be part of creating a new, safe, and trustworthy way for families to step into the world of fairy tales and stories.

Through my collaboration with Satuni, I'll be writing in this blog about parenthood, child development, and emotional skills. My first piece will explore the meaning of everyday moments of interaction. Part of its inspiration comes from my own experiences as a parent of young children – as will surely be true of many texts to come. I hope I can offer readers up-to-date knowledge, a shared sense of recognition, and small breathing spaces in the whirlwind of parenthood. I warmly welcome feedback and suggestions for future blog topics!

Magical moments of insight await here in the Satuni blog!