Helping your child talk about anxiety – the descriptive toolbox
Finding the right words to describe your feelings in any given situation can be a challenge, even for adults. It can be even more difficult for a child. As a part of equipping our children to monitor, modulate and modify their emotions, learning to regulate their...
Curious parenting – A way to reduce child anxiety
What if we could break our child’s anxious thinking patterns by asking a few consistent but curious questions? What if we could help our children to reframe challenges in their word, by asking them to be curious, and exploring emotions with them? What if we could...
Being the coach – Tips for setting yourself aside to help your child in distressing situations
Being a parent is incredibly rewarding, but let’s face facts, sometimes it can be really hard. Our heartstrings are often torn when we see our child experiencing a particularly stressful or upsetting situation. Our first instinct is to rush in and save them, or to...
Book Review – You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy
I have been in the business of listening for over 30 years. In various career moves, I’ve had to listen being a teacher, a counsellor, and a report interviewer. I thought I knew a lot about listening. I’m not being arrogant about things, but I didn’t think that...
Back to school after holidays – dealing with anxiety and school refusal.
Many parents would be familiar with the morning struggle of getting a reluctant child back to school. The teeth gnashing, the tantrums, the threats. School refusal can be really tricky to deal with especially at the start of a new year, especially during a pandemic....
Let’s not make this school year one in which we add to children’s anxious behaviour.
I’ve just finished Eli Lebowitz’s amazing book, Addressing Parental Accommodation When Treating Anxiety in Children. I wanted to share my reflections with you, as we head into a new school year. It was an absolutely heartening-read for the most part and yet, at...
The answers to childhood anxiety could be as simple as a conversation.
Recent reports in the media are once again promoting the use of trained mental health professionals to remedy childhood anxiety. However, effective remedies are available to each adult in a child’s life, not just to clinical-level professionals. The answer to the...
With virus news all about us, how can we hold it together and NOT affect our children’s well-being?
A lot of people are experiencing an incredibly troubling time now, particularly in Victoria – more than ever before in their lives. Clearly life has changed, sadness and distress are now major emotions being experienced by families and children. It’s not just that...
