Promoting resilience and wellbeing

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Parenting: Our teenagers are supposed to have intense emotions

I was speaking to a friend this week and she was talking about the focus on mental health and wellbeing in her daughter’s new school. Like most parents she was pleased to see the school shift in this direction but she had also observed a change in her daughter’s choice of words. Words like worry and sad were being replaced with words like stressed, anxious or depressed. And while more sophisticated use of language is part of the normal developmental trajectory it got me wondering about how our young people are making sense of their feelings within this new world of embracing mental health. Mood swings are a defining feature of adolescence. During this period of development our kids will experience their emotions more intensely than any other time in their lives. This happens because their brains are under construction – they are getting faster and more specialised, ultimately supporting our kids move into adulthood. ...

Parenting: Moving our children from “BUT” to “AND”

Next week is children’s mental health week and the theme this year is “ Know yourself, grow yourself”. In our schools our children will be exploring the different parts of themselves – the kind part, the mean part, the lazy part, the super competitive part. They will be meeting their big feelings and learning that all our emotions have a place and a job and it is important to make room for every single one. The tide has finally started to change and we are now beginning to support our young people to shift themselves from a “BUT” to an “AND” From “I would like to go to the party BUT I am feeling anxious about going” to “I would like to go to the party AND I am feeling anxious about going” This may appear to be a benign change but within these small words lies so much agency both for ourselves and for our children. Within this context imagine your child has been invited to a playdate. They are super excited and they are super anxious. Their mind ...

Parenting: How we build confident kids

Confidence is something we all aspire to. The confidence to speak our mind, the confidence to take the risk, the confidence to trust our instinct. But what exactly is confidence? According to Dr Becky Kennedy, Clinical Psychologist, confidence is self-trust. Confidence is the ability to trust ourselves, trust our instincts, trust that we are making the right decisions. When we don’t understand something to trust that that is OK and put our hand up, when something doesn’t feel right to trust our instinct and take the relevant action. This is what we want for ourselves and this is what we want for our children. But how do we get there and how do we support our children to get there. We start with small moments. When our child comes homes from school in tears and explains to us that they feel sad because they were picked last for the football team what is our default - to immediately make them feel better. ...

Parenting: Competence as an Antidote to Anxiety

Anxiety is a normal healthy part of being human. If we don’t feel anxious when there is an angry dog heading our way it is very possible that we will be attacked – we need anxiety to keep ourselves safe. However, for many of our young people their anxiety shows up in situations that are primarily safe but often uncomfortable or embarrassing. This might be starting a new school, reading out your English essay or going to your fist disco. This happens because the part of our brain that is responsible for processing danger, a tiny little almond shaped structure called the amygdala, is not very good at knowing what is dangerous and what is not. And when the amygdala is not sure it always errs on the side of caution and sounds the alarm. This means that our kids can feel super anxious in all sorts of situations even though we know (and they sometimes know) that nothing bad is gong to happen. It is helpful for our kids to under...

Parenting: Why normalising can protect our children from future shame

Much of what we feel comfortable talking about stems from our home environment. What was allowed and what wasn’t. Parts of our bodies smell bad sometimes, it is normal and part of being human. But what if, when we start to talk about the weird smell, we immediately get shut down “no more of that talk please” or “that’s private and not something you share.” Many of these comments are made from a place of good intention, we want our children to follow the social norms of whatever culture we live in. But when our children voice valid experiences and these valid experiences are hushed up or ignored this creates feelings of shame and isolation. If our body smells bad and we can’t talk about it we have no way of knowing that everyone’s body smells bad from time to time. If on the other hand we take a normalisation approach and say something like “tell me a bit more about it, my body sometimes smells bad too” …. This normalisation m...

SOMETIMES IT IS GOOD TO SAY NO

We all know someone, or maybe we are someone, who always says yes. Is anyone available to do the extra shift – yes, is anyone able to lend me money – yes, is anyone able to do my French homework – yes. Saying yes is good, in fact saying yes often creates opportunities and experiences that we otherwise might not have. Saying yes can also leave us feeling exhausted and resentful especially if we feel we don’t have much choice about what we say. The term psychologists use to describe someone who really struggles to disappoint other people is people pleasing. Being a people pleaser makes lots of sense, you feel good for helping, other people like you because you are always willing to help and you will be labelled reliable, good team player, always willing. These labels are attractive, they make us feel good and make us valuable to other people, reducing the risk of being pushed out of the group. So, what is the catch? Choice. Feeling like w...

Being on our own team : Self-talk matters

Imagine this scenario: You are walking along the corridor at work and you accidentally drop your bag and everything spills out all over the floor. Some people laugh, some people ignore you, some people stop and help you. We’ve all been there one way or another. We spill coffee on our white shirt just before an interview, we fail our driving test because we forget to check our mirrors, we try to make a joke and nobody laughs. This is part of being human. We all get things wrong and we all experience situations that don’t feel great. So, what happens after you drop your bag? How do you show up for yourself? If you are like the majority of humans, you have probably been pretty unkind to yourself in those moment – “you absolute loser, why can’t you just walk down the corridor without doing something stupid” or “why can everyone else mange to get to their desk without dropping their bag, I’m so clumsy” or any version o...

Parenting: Is there a right way?

A few weeks ago, I overheard a conversation in a coffee shop. It was between two mothers in their mid-thirties. They were speaking about another mother at their school and her approach to parenting. They recognised the warmth and love she felt for her children but were flabbergasted at her laissez-faire attitude to structure and boundaries. Essentially, they were describing what psychologists call permissive parenting. Diana Baumrind, a developmental psychologist, who identified the three styles of parenting in the 1960’s, defines permissive parents as “more responsive than they are demanding. They are non-traditional and lenient, allow considerable self-regulation, and do not require mature behaviour”. Now a days permissive parenting is generally identified by low demands and a high level of responsiveness. Parents who are incredibly loving and available for their children… who do not place many limits on their children’s be...

Parenting: Managing the inevitable bumps in the road

You have gone away with the kids for a weekend by the sea. You have some lovely moments – running in the rain on the beach, cycling through a meadow of wild flowers, fish and chips on the pier…. gorgeous and exactly what you were hoping the weekend might bring. The weekend also brings some very bumpy moments, the flamed tempers over who had the last strawberry, the chain breaking on one of the bikes, the merciless teasing that only siblings can engage in. In most families these moments are inevitable but while we all acknowledge this inevitability it is often these moments that define the weekend. Leaving us feeling sad and deflated. If we think about our kids from a developmental perspective there are so many moments when it is healthy and developmentally appropriate for them to push boundaries and make their own choices. When we see a two-year-old defiantly walking over to see the ducks after being told not to that is developmentally appropr...

Parenting: The difference between shame and guilt and why this matters SO much

Many of us use the terms guilt and shame interchangeably. We talk about feeling shameful and guilty about something difficult that has happened. But shame researchers, including Brene Brown, believe that there is a profound difference between shame and guilt. Guilt “I did something wrong” Shame “I am wrong” In these two statements there is a subtle difference in language and labelling. But this difference carries a monumental weight. Guilt is our friend. Guilt makes us feel uncomfortable about something we have done and this discomfort pushes us to address the situation – going back to the shop with the item we forgot to pay for, saying sorry for being mean, allowing someone else to choose this time. Feeling bad when we do something wrong might not feel great but it is important. Otherwise, where would we find the motivation and drive to do better next time or repair the situation this time. Sha...

Procrastination: What It Is and What We Can Do About It

This is the 4 th time I have tried to start this blog. I have been distracted by the washing up, texting my mum, scrolling on Instagram…… and so the list goes on. The definition of procrastination is “unnecessarily and voluntarily putting off tasks despite the consequences.” The potential consequence in my case is not posting my blog on time which is something that is important to me. So why does this happen. I enjoy researching, I enjoy writing and I enjoy the satisfaction I feel when I finally get to post what I have written. It’s a curiosity. For many years we believed that procrastination was all about time management and this seemed to make sense. We often think we have more time than we have, which means we often understand procrastination in the context of time management. Why do something now when we have time to do it later. But what we are now beginning to understand about procrastination is that it...