Claudine Norden, FLTI of Colorado trainer and Phase I facilitator at FLTI of Summit County, says she is an “outie” mom raising an “innie” child – and she’s not talking belly buttons.

Claudine explains that as an extroverted person, she uses social energy and was “stretched beyond her comfort zone” when she considered how she parents her daughter Maddie, who as an introvert conserves social energy. She learned more about the differences between what “fills up” extroverted (outies) and introverted (innies) people, and discovered that there were no children’s books that empowered quiet children to be themselves in our noisy world.

And just like that, a new community project was born. Claudine was inspired to write a children’s book to empower and advocate for quiet kids!

Claudine continued to research a way to illustrate the strengths of introverts in an age-appropriate, fun way. Her daughters’ obsession with hedgehogs led Claudine to explore the behavioral patterns of the little animal. What she found led to the creation of Quigley the Quiet Hedgehog.

“Hedgehogs are solitary creatures,” says Claudine in a video on the Kickstarter campaign she created to make the book a reality. “They roll up into a ball to protect themselves and tell people to stay away. And they squeak, squeal, and grunt to communicate – just like my girl!” There is a lot we can learn from picking up on these non-verbal cues.

Norden’s Kickstarter campaign was fulfilled and according to her site:

“Quigley the Quiet Hodgehog is due to be released in July, 2018 and will be available on our website www.quietquigley.com. It will also be available through Amazon, local bookstores, publisher, Hoberman Books and their world-wide distributors.

In the meantime, we thank you for your patience and ask that you please help spread the word by sharing our website, follow us on Facebook, and if you’re an extroverted mom raising an introverted kiddo, join our Outie Moms with Innie Kids Facebook Group.”

Claudine is definitely a doer – she is a mom-preneur, working as a fitness instructor, leadership development manager and facilitator, FLTI facilitator and trainer, and soon-to-be published author.

FLTI of Colorado: In your long-term career/life goals, did you ever think you would write a children’s book?

Claudine:  When I became a mom, I had a dream of writing a book to share my story and leave a legacy for my daughters, but I was not a writer by any means. I had no idea what kind of book I wanted to write, so it was truly a matter of following my passions that led to this project.

When we asked Claudine, “What does Quigley have to do with family and community leadership?” she told us, “Quigley represents empowering children to discover and own who they are, even if it is unique from the world’s ideal. It teaches quiet, shy, introverted and even extroverted children that there is strength in quiet leadership, in observation and picking up what is happening in the room or in the world around them; and then advocating for their needs.”