Growing Happy Families

We hear loads about resolutions, goals and outcomes around New Year. We set them for our personal life - like a fitness goal or a for business,  -  a certain sales turnover for example. 

It got me wondering if feeling aligned as a family and as a parent, could be helped by having a plan?

When you began thinking of life with a family, probably even before babies came along, you may have had a vision, a dream of what family life would look like. Then, when babies come along, life gets busy, coping with a new child, add in work, adjusting to the changes in dynamics etc. That dream may get lost in the day-to-day coping, with the things that are going on in the house.

What would it be like to have a new look at a vision for our family, so our parenting can serve us in what we want for our children, for our family. 

Have a listen, see what you think...

If you like this podcast and would like to keep in touch, please visit my website, where you can sign up for my newsletter and occasional events notifications. You will get a free pdf with information about the Five Secrets to Happy Children, a super simple system to help raise confident, responsible, independent (and happy!) kiddos.

You can follow on Facebook and Instagram or LinkedIn 

You can contact me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening !

September brings so many changes and transitions for the family to get used to - and not just the little ones! For them, though, it can be quite a big adjustment from the relative freedom of summer to routine in autumn. 

Perhaps it's Big School for the first time, maybe a change of classroom, teacher or expectations. Perhaps there is a move to a different school and the loss of friendship groups. Even for older children or teens, this can be a challenging adjustment -  huge, for their first look at an apprenticeship, student life or work. 

In this episode, we look at some gentle ways of easing the stress and challenges of transitioning from one time to another. Finding ways to help our young ones to cope with the changes that are inevitable in our lives and equip them with the courage, confidence and skills to make it through.  

Some of the ideas may well translate into helping us big people too!

If you like this podcast and would like to keep in touch, please visit my website, where you can sign up for my newsletter and occasional events notifications. You will get a free pdf with information about the Five Secrets to Happy Children, a super simple system to help raise confident, responsible, independent (and happy!) kiddos.

You can follow on Facebook and Instagram or LinkedIn 

You can contact me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening !

A very important component of communication, (Secret No. 1 of the Five Secrets to Happy Children), is listening actively. After all, communication is a two-way process and we sometimes focus on getting our message across first and foremost - and forget the other half of the process. Listening actively is SOOOOO important if we are going to have successful communications with our kiddos (and other people in general, to be honest!).

In his amazing book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective Parents, Dr Stephen Covey said, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." Such wise words. And in order to understand, we must listen - and listen well. 

In this episode of the podcast we discuss how listening can help us nurture our relationship with our kiddos, and help us understand what is going on for them,  (super-important when we start trying to understand and identify children's needs - Secret No 2 of the Five Secrets to Happy Children). 

In fact, listening actively can be an amazing superpower for being a parent and growing happy families as well as being a human and interacting with others!

Finally, Kim and Mairi discuss some quick tips that help take things to even better levels of understanding your young ones and nurturing lovely relationships. 

Enjoy! 

If you like this podcast and would like to keep in touch, please visit my website, where you can sign up for my newsletter and occasional events notifications. You will get a free pdf with information about the Five Secrets to Happy Children, a super simple system to help raise confident, responsible, independent (and happy!) kiddos.

You can follow on Facebook and Instagram or LinkedIn 

You can contact me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening !

Parenting isn't easy at the best of times. There's always something to do! If you have additional responsibilities on your to-do list as well, is it any wonder sometimes things gets missed? 

Trouble is, what often gets missed is looking after your own needs. They get put aside while you see to the needs of every other person that you care for. And someone always needs something! So what can you do? Because if you continue neglecting your needs, you could find yourself with nothing left in the tank - and that's not going to end well for anyone!

In this episode, Kim has a couple of simple shares that might help you to meet your needs as well as keeping everyone else happy. Tweaks which don't add a huge load to your busy life, but might just keep things on an even keel.

If you like this podcast and would like to keep in touch, please visit my website, where you can sign up for my newsletter and occasional events notifications. You will get a free pdf with information about the Five Secrets to Happy Children, a super simple system to help raise confident, responsible, independent (and happy!) kiddos.

You can follow on Facebook and Instagram or LinkedIn 

You can contact me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening !

Parenting isn't easy at the best of times. There's always something to do! If you have additional responsibilities on your to-do list as well, is it any wonder sometimes things gets missed? 

Trouble is, what often gets missed is looking after your own needs. They get put aside while you see to the needs of every other person that you care for. And someone always needs something! So what can you do? Because if you continue neglecting your needs, you could find yourself with nothing left in the tank - and that's not going to end well for anyone!

In this episode, Kim has a couple of simple shares that might help you to meet your needs as well as keeping everyone else happy. Tweaks which don't add a huge load to your busy life, but might just keep things on an even keel.

In this episode, Kim plays around with a creative idea, comparing 'Helicopter' parenting with 'Ninja' Parenting. 

Maybe you've heard the expression 'Helicopter Parenting' which describes hovering around, taking a lot of interest in the children's activities, swooping in to make sure everything is managed and fixing any glitches in plans or processes to ensure that nothing upsets the day. 

 In comparison, Kim & Mairi discuss how 'Ninja Parenting' can take a less attention-heavy approach, with observation 'from the shadows' and allowing children to find solutions themselves, only stepping in to show children how to do something new or to prevent danger or harm. 

Allowing kids to sort things out for themselves can be very encouraging, helps foster independence and builds resilience and persistence. Hear what Kim and Mairi discuss in thinking about this idea!

If you like this podcast and would like to keep in touch, please visit my website, where you can sign up for my newsletter and occasional events notifications. You will get a free pdf with information about the Five Secrets to Happy Children, a super simple system to help raise confident, responsible, independent (and happy!) kiddos.

You can follow on Facebook and Instagram or LinkedIn 

You can contact me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening !

Many times, raising children, you will find yourself faced with things that go wrong! It might be accidents - major or minor, or a fight between siblings, homework that hasn't been done or a sports kit that hasn't been washed ready for lessons. 

Whatever is happening, often we parents like to spin round fast, put on our superhero cloak and swoosh in, to rescue and fix. Now, sometimes that is definitely the right thing to do, especially if there's injury and danger. But there are occasions when we might make more work for ourselves all in service of feeling like we're being good parents, only to find that we feel exhausted and resentful if the children continue expecting to be helped out at any given moment. 

What we probably want, is for our children to learn how to sort things and solve problems for themselves. But we have to help them learn how! 

This is where the four little words come in! 

This conversation is about helping children think things through...     

If you like this podcast and would like to keep in touch, please visit my website, where you can sign up for my newsletter and occasional events notifications. You will get a free pdf with information about the Five Secrets to Happy Children, a super simple system to help raise confident, responsible, independent (and happy!) kiddos.

You can follow on Facebook and Instagram or LinkedIn 

You can contact me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening !

Change is a constant in our lives. Whether it is going from holiday time to school time, from one school to another, moving from house to house between parents, or studying and preparing for exams, there is always some transition from one 'place' to another. 

For children and young people, this can be a challenge at the best of times, and during the pandemic, there has been an added layer of uncertainty to spice things up!

This episode is a conversation between Kim and Mairi, looking at the kinds of things that might be helpful to parents, grandparents and others with caring responsibilities, to outline some thoughts that might be helpful to help kids manage change. 

If you like this podcast and would like to keep in touch, please visit my website, where you can sign up for my newsletter and occasional events notifications. You will get a free pdf with information about the Five Secrets to Happy Children, a super simple system to help raise confident, responsible, independent (and happy!) kiddos.

You can follow on Facebook and Instagram or LinkedIn 

You can contact me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening !

In this episode, Kim & Mairi talk about how sometimes our 'parent' buttons get pushed and we jump into protective mode, and come out all ready for a fight! 

Often this button is more related to something that was a sensitive spot for ourselves as children and is not necessarily in our child's best interests. 

If we look at the bigger picture, we can see that our job as a parent is to prepare children for being grown-up. Therefore,  it might serve them better if we allow (where it's safe and possible for them to do so), the children to learn to find their own solutions to challenges. 

We look at how this might be achieved.

If you like this podcast and would like to keep in touch, please visit my website, where you can sign up for my newsletter and occasional events notifications. You will get a free pdf with information about the Five Secrets to Happy Children, a super simple system to help raise confident, responsible, independent (and happy!) kiddos.

You can follow on Facebook and Instagram or LinkedIn 

You can contact me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening !

This episode was originally recorded during lockdown 3 in February 2021 but didn't get used immediately.

The ideas around encouragement are still useful though, as we continue to adjust to post-lockdown life and getting back to doing all the things we have to do in the everyday.

Challenging times need lots of encouragement to deal with. But how do we do it? Firstly, understanding what encouragement actually is.  Describing the difference between praise and encouragement and why knowing the difference is important. Encouragement is the act of increasing courage - the everyday kind. 

Self-encouragement is important because living in the world is challenging and learning how to be encouraging to ourselves is a huge skill to develop - so even if our cheerleading team isn't around, we can keep ourselves resourced.  We all need to feel connected, valued and competent in the world. This episode offers some thoughts on how to do that - for yourself and others.

If you like this podcast and would like to keep in touch, please visit my website, where you can sign up for my newsletter and occasional events notifications. You will get a free pdf with information about the Five Secrets to Happy Children, a super simple system to help raise confident, responsible, independent (and happy!) kiddos.

You can follow on Facebook and Instagram or LinkedIn 

You can contact me at [email protected]

Thanks for listening !