Helping kids with big changes – moving house, school or country
How should we prepare children for big moves – like a new school, or a new house, or living in a new country? There’s a lot of advice out there: keep children involved in the process, get them to imagine the change, have them keep a diary of all the steps along the way, talk […]
Now look what you’ve done!!
Last week I had a question from a parent wondering  what to do about a five year old girl who ignored her mother’s requests to stop playing with a snow-globe in the home of someone they were visiting. Fearing a breakage, this Mum upped her requests to a clear (and no doubt reasonable) insistence that […]
How do I help my kids be resilient?
Resilience is the word psychologists use to talk about the ability to get back up after you’ve been knocked down and keep going. I think of it as a kind of psychological strength. It’s been found to be a key indicator of who will thrive rather than falter following difficult or traumatic experiences. I think […]
Help! It’s the school run…
When I pick my two kids up from school it’s fair to say that they’re not always at their best! One is an introvert.  He really needs some quiet time for introspection and re-charging after spending all day in such close proximity to so many people. The other is an extravert.  She is just dying […]
Mummy, am I a crybaby?
This was what my 7 year old son asked me last night just before bedtime. I paused for long enough (was it half a second or was it longer?) to realise that my answer was going to be really significant and that it better cut the mustard. (To tell the truth I’m not totally sure […]
Be careful how you speak in front of them
… every word spoken within the hearing of little children tends toward the formation of character. Let parents bear this ever in mind. Hosea Ballou, US clergyman and writer (1771 – 1852) I used to like telling stories of bath-time battles and school-run woes. I liked hearing them too. It helped me to feel normal. I […]
