Dr. Kimberly Palmiotto has a great deal of experience with motherhood after raising four daughters. Now, she uses that experience to help other mothers bond with their daughters.
After spending nearly 25 years working as a school psychologist, Palmiotto opened Root to Bloom, a creative therapy studio, in June 2025. It offers workshops and classes for tween and teen girls and their mothers, often incorporating art therapy and spiritual components.
Palmiotto lives in Annapolis with her husband, Peter, and their daughters: Priscilla (19), Sabrina (16), Presley (13) and Francesca (9).
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What first made you interested in pursuing therapy as a career?
I’ve always enjoyed psychology, and I’ve always enjoyed art. When I was working in schools as an aide while getting my bachelor’s degree, I was seeing a lot of [kids with] behavioral challenges. I wanted to help them address some of those things, but not as a teacher. Psychology classes in my bachelor’s program fascinated me. I love the mind and how it works. When I found a program that was a blend of art and psychology, I was like, “Oh, this is perfect for me,” because it blended my interests so well.
What led you to start your own small business?
I’ve always had a little bit of that entrepreneurship in me. Private practice has always been my passion. I love being able to create treatment plans and programs for people that are unique to them. I had the idea for [Root to Bloom] when I saw the impact that the art therapy was having in the individual sessions I was having, and I really wanted it to be more of a generally accessible way for people to do some inner work or get some tools and strategies to be able to manage different phases of life without feeling like they had to do a lot of deep work internally.
What services do you offer at Root to Bloom? How have you seen them help mothers and daughters’ relationships?
I have a number of different circles for people to choose from. There’s tween and teen classes and workshops that are very arts-and-crafts-based. We have beginning and intermediate sewing classes, and we’re rolling out a crochet club. And then we have some programs with more of a social-emotional spin. We’re currently doing a friendship foundations class for girls ages 7 to 9.
We have a couple of workshops coming up that are more inner child work to help mothers discover the triggers that may be impacting their relationships with their daughters. What I see a lot in the therapeutic milieu is that when their daughters hit adolescence, they act as a bit of a mirror for them, and all of a sudden they’re triggered by things from when they were that age, and it impacts their relationship. We try to help them navigate some of those things.
Is there anything you’ve learned from raising your daughters that you’ve used to help others?
There’s so much, and I feel like I’m still learning. Every time I go through a transition with them, it’s different for every daughter I have. Every child that we raise is different, not just because they’re different people, but because the way we parent them is different, even if we think it’s the same. We’re in different phases of life just like they are. So, I learn with every transition that my girls make the mistakes that I’m making, the triggers that are coming up, the successes that I’m having … all of those things I really try to bring into my work with other moms to help normalize it. Getting overwhelmed and feeling confused is normal, but we tend to pathologize it, because that’s how we’ve been taught. It’s more about understanding what we’re bringing to the table in terms of our history and baggage and how that might be impacting some of the ways that we’re interacting or teaching our daughters.
Your work involves blending psychology with some more spiritual, artsy aspects. How do you strike a balance between the two?
I think all of us have a sense of spirituality in us, regardless of what you call it. We all are spiritual beings. So really, it’s about tapping into what that means for you, and the therapy piece of it is really more about exploring your own history and how that brought you to where you are now, and what’s working and what’s not working. Even though they feel like two separate things, they kind of mesh into one, because as you’re a spiritual person, that then leads you to how you’re approaching the world.
Family Favorites
Meal: Butternut squash soup with chicken pot pie
Local Spot: Quiet Waters Park
Vacation Spot: California
Game: Half of us like Scrabble, and the other half likes Monopoly.
Family Activity: Thrifting
