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Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. When your child uses a swear word for the first time, it can trigger a range of reactions. Some parents may find it funny, while others might feel shock, disappointment, or embarrassment (or a mixture of all of these feelings). However, it's essential to understand that children often experiment with language as they learn and grow.
Read MoreWritten by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Are you finding that you are asking your child questions or giving instructions to only be told “no”? Does this make you feel like everything is very hard work? When your child finds their voice and the word ‘no’, this can often create times of frustration and annoyance both from the child and from the adult receiving this response!
‘No’ is a very powerful word - it can often really stop us in our tracks. Our children see this and then use the word in order to fully understand its meaning. Our children very quickly realise the power that the word ‘no’ has and use this to assert themselves and their thoughts and feelings.
Read MoreBy Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. When our little ones have meltdowns / tantrums / outbursts it can be extremely triggering for us. It can mean that we respond emotionally and not always in the way that we would want to. We need to be kind to ourselves and understand we are only human and that sometimes our emotions can go into overdrive and make us respond to situations in ways which we don’t expect or plan for.
Read MoreWritten by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Trying to get your little one into a car seat can often require a great deal of patience and negotiation at times! This can leave us feeling hugely frustrated, especially when we are in a hurry!
In this blog I look at why this might be happening and what things you can do to help the situation.
Read MoreWritten by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. It is likely that if you are reading this blog, you have a toddler or pre-school aged child who has started to say “I’m scared” about one particular thing, or is saying it regularly throughout the day in relation to lots of different things.
The feeling of being scared (or fear being the emotion) is very normal and natural and part of our flight, fight or freeze response. Feeling scared (or experiencing fear) is something which is essential to human survival. This response helps to let us know when we are in danger and can then trigger us to take steps to protect ourselves and get out of the dangerous situation.
Read MoreWritten by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. At some stage we will all experience a child telling a lie (big or small) - it is a natural and normal part of development. However, this doesn’t mean that it is right, or something that we ignore, but it is something that we need to appreciate is quite a complicated concept for our children to understand. I will go into this a bit more below, but if you think about lying and what goes around this you will see what I mean when I say it is complicated!
Read MoreWritten by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. This is a very common question that lots of parents ask. These battles are in relation to everyday things such as getting them to clean their teeth, put their shoes on etc. as well as things like not wanting to go to certain places or just refusing to be cooperative in general!
The first thing we need to do in these situations is to look at what’s happening from their perspective; they are on their agenda and we are on ours, but neither party is considering the other. If your little one thinks that they are doing one thing and you think they need to be doing another, this can trigger a big outburst but also frustration from both sides. This is completely natural – think about how often, when we are told not to do something / how to do something or continually instructed to do things, we might get annoyed, frustrated and ultimately resistant to doing what we are being asked to do.
Read MoreWritten by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Do you have a toddler or an older child who, every time you are speaking with other adults on the phone or in person, or even to your other children, continually interrupts you or generally doesn’t let you speak to anyone else?
This can be a very common situation and can lead to frustration from both sides when it is happening frequently. However, we also need to keep in mind that this can be a skill which even some adults can struggle with ;-).
Read MoreWritten by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Our children can be very set on things at times and this can even be in relation to wanting one parent to do everything for them and to be with them all the time. We can often find in these situations that we have one parent who seems to be favoured over the other.
This behaviour can be extremely draining for the ‘preferred’ parent at the time and can be very difficult (and upsetting at times) for the other parent (the ‘rejected’ one) who feels that they are not wanted or, sometimes, not even liked or loved.
We must remember that this is not about who your child does or doesn’t like, it is all about your child learning and developing, which includes learning what relationships feel like and how to manage them. They are practicing something that they will have to deal with for years to come through friendships, relationships and also with work colleagues. It is all about making sense of how and why we feel what we do!
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