Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. When looking at behaviour related issues, one of the most common strategies or ideas that is given as a solution is a reward system of some kind. This might be a reward chart, a star chart, marbles or pasta in a jar (etc.) - these are all related to encouraging ‘good behaviour’ and, in some situations, these might work.
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“History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children" – Nelson Mandela
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Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Does your child twirl round and round and round all the time or, do they always want to line their cars up in a straight line or, perhaps they want to drop or throw things from a height..?! Do you wonder why this might be?
Children are creatures of habit and it’s with good reason! These repetitive behaviours are all part of your child’s essential brain development, helping them to learn new skills and practice what happens when they do them. As babies you will have seen your child repeating an action until they were able to do it, and, as our children get older, these behaviours become more defined as their interests (and their brains) develop.
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Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Sharing is often something that we want our children to be able to do from a young age. It is of course much more socially acceptable for a child to share things with other children than to snatch or refuse to let them near their possessions. Getting a child to understand that they need to share can sometimes feel like a long and difficult process. It can cause frustration for a child, who has these expectations on them when they might not fully understand, and also for the adults who want so much for their child to share!
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Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. This is a very common issue that parents face and it can be hugely frustrating and challenging when all you want to do is for your child to get dressed, put their shoes on, brush their teeth and tidy up their toys etc. One of the first things to think about is that when our children are babies, we do everything for them and they have very little input or choice in what happens when. Once our children start to find their voice and have the ability to do things independently, then they want to practice this as much as possible, it is a newfound freedom! This can however be exhausting for us as they are taking a great deal of time to do the simplest of things (which you know you can do in 2 mins!) because they are finding it tricky or just want to keep doing it over and over.
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Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Helping children to make brushing their teeth into a twice daily habit is something which will ensure that they have healthy teeth (and hopefully no fillings!) for their whole lives. It is not always the easiest thing to get children to do, there can be resistance and I have seen some parents running around the house with a toothbrush in their hand chasing their child to try and get their teeth clean! In this blog I will give you some practical and helpful hints on how to have a quick and effective teeth cleaning routine.
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Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. There is no right or wrong age to start getting children to help out with chores, it is more about what tasks are age appropriate for you to ask them to do. Firstly, I would try to avoid the word ‘chores’ as this can be seen, and felt, as being quite negative and not something your children are likely to approach with a positive attitude. In addition, chores could be seen as things that have to be done in order to get a reward, but many ‘chores’ or tasks are expected and required actions of our children as they develop into responsible adults.
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Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. In these strange and surreal times, we have been and still are facing things that we have never faced before in our lifetimes. Many families have experienced an extremely difficult time in relation to living and working space, finances and family circumstances etc and this is likely to continue as we start to go into some kind of ‘recovery phase’.
We just wanted to take a moment to look at all of the things we are hearing from families about their experiences through the Coronavirus outbreak and what these changes might mean for us and, more importantly, our children, as we come out of it and into our ‘new normal’ - will this experience change our children forever?
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