Everybody makes mistakes. Every parent makes mistakes. And they aren’t always little ones. So, how do you recover and move on when you recognise that you’ve stuffed up? Start by treating yourself with compassion. Recognise that you aren’t alone. You are an imperfect human being, just like the rest of us and we all stuff […]
The relationship between a parent and child is a multifaceted thing, perhaps particularly in the modern world. You will play many roles in your child’s life – parent, teacher, coach, therapist and friend. Even stripped back to its essence the role of parent still contains multiple interweaving strands of nurturance, encouragement, and discipline. So, how […]
Check out my new article on the Conversation, written with the lovely Dr Amy Mitchell, on the shaming of new mothers and why it needs to end: The Shame Game And don’t forget to also check out the MotherCare project. We are currently recruiting mothers of children aged under two.
Experiential acceptance, the ability to sit with difficult thoughts, feelings, sensations and memories, as they arise in the lived present moment, is a cornerstone of the latest psychological therapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Sometimes, within ACT, experiential acceptance is described as willingness, as in willingness to have difficult thoughts, feelings, sensations and […]
Ever been in one of those moments that renders you speechless? Perhaps something tragic and unexpected happened to someone you know. You watched the horror unfold. You searched desperately for the right words and just couldn’t find them. Or maybe you weren’t on the sidelines watching the horror unfold, maybe the loss was yours too. […]
It frustrates me when I hear parental responsiveness being discussed as if responsiveness were a matter of following specific rules. This can make parents feel confused and guilty and it just isn’t correct. It also suggests that all responsive parent-child relationships look the same, when in fact, responsiveness is flexible and creative. Responsiveness is, by […]
To choose to have children is to accept the challenge of finding, within yourself, unconditional love. It is the challenge of accepting into your heart someone who could be anyone. It is the challenge of loving fully someone you could lose. Your children may come easily and quickly, or unexpectedly, or slowly and painfully and […]
Shame is that sinking feeling, which may be accompanied by sadness, fear, anger or disgust, along with a sense of your own unworthiness and lack of worth in the eyes of others. Shame is often accompanied by a tendency to behave in a submissive way, that is, a shamed person is likely to try to […]
In our culture we fetishize willpower. We get hooked on the idea that individuals change themselves through the internal flexing of their own will, somehow pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. We fall into the trap of thinking that we can force others to change through sheer will. Complex and poignant interactions between people […]
What is it about parenting that makes us so judgemental? I hate the judgement that we parent’s suffer, I have years of professional experience in being non-judgemental, and I genuinely believe that there isn’t one ‘right’ way to parent and yet…if I am honest, I must confess that I am tempted to judge other parents […]