There can be particular challenges for parents in building healthy relationships with children born after a miscarriage or stillbirth. Parents who experience traumatic birth, post-natal depression or anxiety might also find the process more challenging. Anyone who experienced mental health problems before they got pregnant or since having children might also find it harder. WhenContinue reading “Building Healthy Relationships with Children After Pregnancy Loss”
Category Archives: parenting
Celebrating your baby’s 1st birthday during covid-19
In ordinary times, people might celebrate with having family and friends round, perhaps having a full scale party. Some people might even hire a hall or combine the occasion with a naming ceremony. While restrictions due to covid-19 are easing in the UK generally at the time of writing, there are still restrictions in placeContinue reading “Celebrating your baby’s 1st birthday during covid-19”
Outdoor Metaphors to do with kids
Metaphors are a big part of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. For children and young people, they need to be concrete and clearly linked to their lives to be accessible. For very young children, they may need to be made or acted out so they can literally experience the metaphor. We’ve been having fun with metaphorsContinue reading “Outdoor Metaphors to do with kids”
Coping compassionately with pet bereavements
We were very sad to lose our guinea pig Fudge recently. I’m a believer in trying to salvage some good from pain, so in Fudge’s memory I wanted to write about supporting children – and particularly ourselves as parents – to cope with the loss of a pet. Child development and grief Depending on theContinue reading “Coping compassionately with pet bereavements”
Parent Anger Management
Apologies in advance as this is a long one – feel free to skim the headings, take what you like and leave the rest. We had an experience of anger management ourselves as a family last week with the tricky combination of my daughter’s typical 3-year-old boundary pushing, connection seeking and risk taking behaviours andContinue reading “Parent Anger Management”
ACTively coping with connection seeking behaviours, meltdowns and separation anxiety in the “new normal”
I’ve been reflecting this week on what it’s like through a child’s eyes to come out of lockdown and into a new world of shifting rules and expectations, change and uncertainty. I’ve also been thinking about how this affects both parent and child attachment styles and what all this means for big emotions, meltdowns (bothContinue reading “ACTively coping with connection seeking behaviours, meltdowns and separation anxiety in the “new normal””
Selective Eating – A Parent Survival Guide
Most of us as parents will likely deal with some level of selective eating at some point. If you bring the subject up at a toddler group, at least someone will relate to the challenge and have some advice from experience. There are lots of opinions and ideas around on the subject from ‘just putContinue reading “Selective Eating – A Parent Survival Guide”
ACTifying our way out of lockdown
We’ve all been living in lockdown for about 3 months now in Scotland. We’re now on a phased plan out towards a ‘new normal’ and it’s a good time to reflect on who we want to be in the process – with our values, our family and friends, our education or work and in ourContinue reading “ACTifying our way out of lockdown”
Mindful parenting choices
As a parent, I notice myself continually making both small and more major choices about how to negotiate the opportunities and challenges that come up daily when looking after children. For example, today my daughter and I were mindfully watching the garden from the kitchen window when we noticed a cat chasing and then tormentingContinue reading “Mindful parenting choices”
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