I want you to get the care you deserve.
Meet Erika Hardison
Certified Parenting Coach | Relationship Expert | Chaos Translator
Hi, I’m Erika Hardison - aka Slightly Feral.
Certified parenting coach, mentor, speaker-in-progress, mom of five, former corporate VP, and a woman who has walked (sometimes limped) through her fair share of chaos, heartache, and healing. I’ve gone from boardrooms to bedtime battles, from holding it all together to learning how to fall apart - on purpose- and rebuild.
I help moms and families create emotionally safe homes, stronger connections, and nervous systems that don’t go DEFCON 1 every time someone spills a drink, slams a door, or leaves you on “read.”
This isn’t about perfect parenting tips or shiny quick fixes. This is about unlearning the survival patterns, shame cycles, and generational scripts that keep you stuck. Around here, we do things differently - we lead with compassion, get honest about the hard stuff, and take brave, messy steps toward real connection and healing.
If you’re done white-knuckling your way through life and ready to actually enjoy your people again - welcome. You’re in the right place.
The Professional Street Cred
I earned my Master’s Degree from MTSU and spent years in leadership as the Vice President of Operations for a large nonprofit, running HR, finance, marketing, and even an overseas office. I lived in spreadsheets, survived endless meetings, and sat in the middle of high-stakes decisions - until I realized something was missing: heart.
So I jumped tracks. I trained under a therapist and logged hundreds (yep, hundreds) of sessions with women, deep-diving into parenting struggles, trauma healing, dating disasters, boundary boot camps, and how to stop people-pleasing yourself into the fetal position.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, I found my heartbeat in parenting - not the Pinterest-perfect, matching-outfits kind. The real kind. The kind with tantrums in the Target aisle, triggers you didn’t know you had, and the gut-punch realization that if we want different for our kids, we have to be different for our kids.
I trained under Michelle Kenney of Peace and Parenting, becoming a Certified Parenting Coach focused on connection-based, attachment-informed work that honors both you and your child. It’s not always pretty, but it’s always worth it - and I’m here for the brave, messy, slightly feral work it takes to get there.
The Personal Story (AKA My Real-Life Credibility)
Why I Do This Work
II’m a mom of five - two amazing kids my ex-husband and I adopted internationally, and three incredible bonus kids I gained when I married my now-husband. One of them is from Guatemala… talk about a full-circle moment.
My motherhood journey has been anything but a straight line. I’ve survived multiple miscarriages, the ache of unmet expectations, and those quiet, lonely nights where you wonder if you’re getting any of it right. I’ve sat in therapy, screamed into pillows, prayed the kind of desperate prayers you only pray when you’re at the end of yourself, and pieced myself back together - sometimes while still making it to school pickup and bedtime tuck-ins.
I know what it feels like to be stretched paper-thin by love, grief, and the relentless pressure to “do it all.”
My house is loud, lived-in, and full of stories layered with joy and pain, trauma and triumph, detours and deep healing. I don’t show up to this work as some guru with a ring light and a perfect plan - I show up as a woman who’s done the inner work, is still doing it, and refuses to sugarcoat what it takes to raise kids while reparenting yourself.
Around here, we believe in real talk over toxic positivity, tools over shame, and the sacred, messy courage it takes to keep showing up for your people and yourself.
If you’re walking a complicated road - you’re not alone. And you’re definitely not too far gone.
Because perfect is boring, polished is overrated, and a little feral gets results.
Because I know what it’s like to be the strong one. The fixer. The over-functioner. The mom who’s up at 1 a.m. Googling “how to stop yelling” while promising herself tomorrow will be different.
I’ve lived the trauma cycles, perfectionism spirals, and emotional freeze that so many women carry in silence. I’ve worn the “I’m fine” mask while falling apart inside. And I also know what it feels like to crawl out the other side - with more peace, more confidence, and a whole lot more grace (and maybe a little more side-eye for the unrealistic expectations we’ve all been fed).
I believe parenting is one of the most sacred - and let’s be honest, overwhelming -things we’ll ever do. And I believe you don’t have to do it alone.
Around here, we burn the old rulebook, skip the shame, and do the brave, messy, slightly feral work of raising kids and ourselves at the same time.