The Parent Practice Podcast

If you're feeling really over the whole pandemic thing this episode will lift your spirits.

The Covid-19 pandemic has certainly changed our lives. We've been forced to accept changes to the way we live in order to try to control the disease, some of which have been inconvenient, to say the least. Some families have found the enforced lockdown extremely difficult and for some isolation has really affected their mental wellbeing. But it hasn't been all bad.

Carl Honoré has written extensively about the benefits of slowing down –he calls it embracing our 'inner tortoise' - and recently he has been musing about how Covid might be just the force that compels us to slow down with all the benefits that brings us and our families.

Listen to this episode with Carl if you want to learn:

• What the detrimental effects are on us of the busy way we live our lives and what are the prices we pay, the things we sacrifice, for our 'roadrunner' lives, the biggest of which are human connection and opportunities for self-reflection
• How the cult of productivity has grown up in pursuit of the perfect CV but as a consequence children lose may the ability to think and be creative
• How attentiveness, presence, joy, good health and love can be lost in the rush from one activity to another
• How your children can really enjoy activities if they winnow down to a few that they really love. Top tip: you'll know your child is really passionate about an activity if they talk about it even when they're not doing it
• How 'buffer moments' between activities are essential for processing and building memories
• How to create conversation time in which you really get to know your child and indeed yourself
• What some of the lessons of Covid might be, what aspects of lockdown do we want to retain and what do we want to be different when we go back to 'normal'
• How productivity can be increased when people have more autonomy
• How important it is to remember what we value and what we've learnt from our pandemic experience. Memory is impacted by living life too fast so Carl encourages us to write down our thoughts about this to avoid forgetting when life speeds up again, maybe in the form of a family mission statement

You'll enjoy his very simple top tip for raising children to slow down and be adults who have more balance in their lives.

If you want to get in touch with Carl check out the links below:

Links

https://www.facebook.com/carl.honore

https://twitter.com/carlhonore

https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-honor%C3%A9-81806ab3/

https://www.instagram.com/carlhonore/

We are all aware that anxiety is a growing problem amongst our littlies, our tweens and our teens, and a recent Bristol University Longitudinal study ( ALPSAC) has identified that anxiety amongst our young people, children and teenagers has risen over the past 3 months of the pandemic from 13% to 24% during the crisis. So this podcast helps parents understand it and most importantly gives some top tips re what can be done to manage anxiety, reduce stress and how to respond to it.

Our guest today is Juliet Richards, who has been part of the facilitation team here at The Parent Practice since 2008, after taking our Positive Parenting Course in 2004 and then the Train the Trainer course in 2008. She's also a school governor and is the safeguarding lead in a private girls school in London.

After her training with The Parent Practice, she realised what an impact the techniques and ideas were going to have on her family and others. Creating a positive atmosphere, and seeing how she could help them behave well and find their way in the world, was very different to feeling her responsibility was simply to keep them out of trouble. As her sons have grown, the parenting skills have continued to enable her to feel that she is on the same side as her boys and her and her husband are able to actively pass on the values that they feel are important

She leads our HARMONY AT HOME 6 week course and Zoom webinars on a variety of topics and is an adept facilitator with a clear, empathetic and humorous style.

In this episode we look at how to spot anxiety, how to understand it and most importantly how to teach your children to deal with it

Listen to this episode with Juliet if you want to learn:

• How challenging it is to parent, and how easy it is to feel isolated and scared when you as a parent may be anxious.
• How parents can empower their children by starting to understand themselves and equipping themselves with positive parenting skills
• What anxiety is? What is developmentally normal?
• How to deal with anxiety and know when to intervene and not escalate and catastrophise and heighten the situation.
• The idea that prevention is better than cure
• The importance of modelling and how contagious anxiety is
• How important it is for schools to support parents by delivering parenting workshops on topics such as anxiety
• How our brain works in terms of the 'Worry Brain' and the 'Smart Brain' as defined by Tamar Chansky
• The importance of being an emotion coach for our kids and enabling them to talk to us about their fears and worries
• How useful a worry box can be for children to download their negative thoughts and how to set up chatty time on the sofa as a daily ritual to allow children to worry openly
• The importance of teaching your children calming techniques as part of everyday life

Juliet shares huge vulnerability with one of her low parenting moments where she says to her boys, she no longer wants to be their Mummy and she shares that the greatest gift we can give our children is to look after ourselves and our own happiness.

If you are interested in doing a 6 week Harmony at Home course or a webinar on anxiety or booking a school workshop, check out the links below

Links

Harmony at Home Course and Webinars with The Parent Practice

https://www.theparentpractice.com/events-calendar

School workshop to support parents

https://www.theparentpractice.com/programmes/parenting-workshops-in-schools

Books

Alicia Eaton -First Aid for your Child's Mind

Tamar Chansky - Freeing your Child from Anxiety

Lawrence Cohen - The Opposite of Worry

Resources

Place to be -https://www.place2be.org.uk/

Young Minds - https://youngminds.org.uk/

Child Mind institute -https://childmind.org/

Anxiety UK -https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk/

Some of you will have children who have already returned to school, albeit part time, and some of you will have children who will be returning for the first time in September, so this episode has relevance for everybody whatever transition you are going through. Some children are terribly excited about going back and some are quite apprehensive. And parents may have mixed feelings too.

Our guest today is Louise Treherne who is Head of Character Education at 'Role Models', an organisation which supports children to be resilient and creative problem solvers.

Louise has a degree in Psychology, 12 years' experience as a teacher and 5 years as a Senior Deputy Head at a London Prep school. She now works as a qualified coach working 1:1 with adults, teenagers and children to help them move forward with specific goals, explore limiting beliefs and develop their direction and confidence.

'Role Models' has a programme of life skill courses for children age 5-11. Louise has developed this programme with new and exciting ways to help children explore the four key areas of resilience, leadership, creative problem solving and collaboration, in order to be the best version of themselves and reach their potential.

In this episode we look at how to manage children's worries, what modelling parents need to do, and how to help your child focus on positive conversations, talking about what's in or out of one's control. We talk about the importance of the 'soft skills' for children and also for ourselves as adults have to cope with transition too. We all have feelings about returning to school that we may need support with.

Listen to this episode with Louise if you want to learn:

• What 'character education' is (as defined by the Department for Education)
• Why parents should focus on positive conversations about going back to school and not project adult feelings onto the children while allowing children to express any anxieties they may have. (Emotion coaching will be a familiar skill for regular Parent Practice Podcast listeners)
• Talk to children about what they can control and what they can't and put their energy into the former
• About the worry box and how that can help children, and adults, to compartmentalise their worries and preserve energy for other things
• How vital adult support (from parents and teachers) is for children right now to look after their mental health(especially 5-11 year olds because they are developing crucial skills in this age group)
• About what might be difficult for children to cope with on return to school, including socialising, and how we can prepare them for that:
  • How allowing an adjustment period might be what your child needs
  • Acknowledging feelings of overwhelm and anxiety about separation from family, and having simple strategies like a note in the lunch box or have a matching drawing on both parent and child's wrist that each can look at
  • Helping your child Identify 3 things to talk to friends about
  • Reminding them that communication is just as much about listening as speaking –preparing some questions might be helpful
  • Developing rituals of connection on their return home at the end of the day
  • Using love-bombing
• How Role Models workshops for children can help them build resilience, leadership, creative problem solving and collaboration through experiential learning techniques, including helping a child really develop a growth mindset around challenging problems
• How it helps to teach children to identify what learning zones they are in for different activities, about neuroplasticity and about the power of their thoughts in shaping their feelings and their actions
• How to help children feel they have more control over their own lives
• How helpful it can be to put structure and routines back in place sometime before school goes back, including practicing the school route which might allow all the feelings to be aired

Louise shares her top tip for preparing children to return to school and for them to be happy, confident and successful and a surprising uplifting moment that has come out of the past few months.

If you want to get in touch with Louise and Role Models check out the links below:

Links

Online: https://www.rolemodels.me/courses/online-learning/

Offline: https://www.rolemodels.me/courses/day-courses/

Role Models website: https://www.rolemodels.me/

Louise's coaching website: https://www.thecoachingconcept.co.uk/

Role Models Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/role-models-childcare-and-education

Louise Treherne Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/louise-treherne-036055177

There is no doubt that in this era of the Covid-19 pandemic there has been a huge amount of uncertainty and with that some anxiety. You may be feeling some anxiety yourself and perhaps your children are too. Well, the antidote to stress is empathy and our guest today has many, many ideas about how you can build empathy in your children.

Dr. Michele Borba is an educational psychologist and former classroom teacher who is recognised globally as a parenting, bullying and character expert whose aim is to strengthen children's empathy and resilience, and break the cycle of youth violence. She is an in-demand speaker who has delivered keynotes and workshops to over 1,000,000 participants and written 24 books translated into 14 languages as well as appearing frequently in broadcast and print media. We'll put a list of Dr Borba's books in our show notes rather than list them all here but the one that introduced me to her work, her latest, is Unselfie, Why empathetic kids succeed in our all about me world. I loved that this work is firmly grounded in science but also has many, many practical ideas about how parents can raise kids to be empathetic. Dr Borba has been writing another book during lockdown Thrivers, the surprising reasons why some kids struggle and others shine. I can't wait to read it She is also a parent of 3 now adult sons.

Listen to this episode with Dr Michele if you want to learn:

• About the 3 factors present in a person's upbringing that lead to a person developing altruism
• How an 8 month old baby can teach children a thing or two about empathy.
• About today's empathy deficit and how that has arisen. Yes, technology does play a part. But there are a number of reasons including the way we parent. Ouch!
• About the extraordinary outcomes when parents take active steps to teach children empathy and kindness
• That empathy is not just an innate quality that we are either born with or not, but it is something that can be cultivated even from an incredibly young age
• How empathy can be the antidote to stress, both your children's and your own and how learning emotional regulation can help in times of uncertainty
• About how empathy is made up of habits. You can encourage emotional literacy and help your child develop a moral identity. Family mission statements can help a child to define themselves as a caring person. So can praise provided it is used to identify moments of caring in your child's behaviour, since what we notice in our children is the behaviour we prioritise
• How parents can encourage children to understand others' perspectives through role play, theatre, film and literature. Encouraging children to read widely through family reading rituals will help them develop empathy
• How some aspects of conventional discipline methods (yelling, time out, spanking) get in the way of a child developing empathy. (For more detail see our positive discipline module in our six week course)

And her top tip for raising children to be kind and tolerant adults who will create a better future for us all. It's a very simple idea. And her idea for encouraging hope in difficult times is inspiring.

If you want to get in touch with Dr Michele check out the links below:

Links

Website: https://micheleborba.com.

For a full list of Michele's books see https://micheleborba.com/books/ and look out for her new book next year 'Thrivers'

Twitter: @michelborba

Ted talk -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVTiplEG91s&feature=emb_logo

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drmicheleborba

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drmicheleborba/

Alex Webb is an experienced coach and facilitator, working with young people on an individual basis and in teams to become resilient leaders. Alex focuses on behaviour change, self-awareness and the understanding of self. Her belief is that if you understand yourself, you can then understand others, allowing you to adapt your behaviour to improve relationships. Her business is called Flying Start and she has been working with The Princes Trust to help young adults with leadership skills and confidence in their Future Leaders Programme. They help young people understand the future of work and how they can be flexible and thereby gain confidence.

Listen to this episode with Alex if you want to learn:

• What behaviour preferences are and how being able to make different behavioural choices increases our flexibility -leaving your comfort zone is easier in a safe environment
• How understanding yourself can help you to understand others
• How Colour-me profiling (a psychometric tool using colour to show behavioural preferences) can help you understand yourself and how you relate to others, including other members of the family
• How understanding behaviour preferences of others in the family can help you to realise the value they bring and to cultivate empathy as well as self-compassion
• How frustrations can arise from similar or different behavioural styles in work colleagues or family members
• How profiling that focuses on behaviours rather than personality types allows for more adaptability and more choice about how we're showing up in different contexts
• About the C-me profiling, how it relates to extroversion/introversion and how it helps people understand their strengths and preferences, but also why an individual might struggle in certain situations, like lockdown!
• How understanding your child's behavioural preferences allows you to do bespoke parenting for the children you've got
• How older children understanding their own behavioural preferences, and particularly their 'native genius' allows them to make better choices for their academic options and careers

Alex shares stories from her own life with her sons that highlight how understanding everybody's behavioural preferences avoids conflict. She talks about Surprising Uplifting Moments from lockdown and like many parents has loved having time together as a family and to focus on self-care. Family Horrible Histories were a highlight! Alex also shares with us her number one tip for raising children with different needs and different ways of hearing things and understanding things.

Alex is offering a webinar for listeners of this podcast. Get in touch via the links below.

Links

Contact: [email protected]

LinkedIn: AlexWebb(neeSpring)

Website: www.tlrdynamics.com

C-Me website www.colour-profiling.com

C-Me are actually running a family offer at the moment, especially during lockdown, focusing specifically on family dynamics. You can each run a C-Me report based on how you behave at home and then use these to start a conversation about how you have different needs, strengths and focus. The cost is £50 for a family of 4 or £15 each so if you are a family of 5 it will be £65.

You may have been provoked by the recent death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer in Minnesota or by similar events in the UK and Australia, and elsewhere, to think really hard about racism. Were you galvanised into taking part in a protest against racism and against police brutality? Are you wondering how to bring up your children not only to not be racist themselves but to be outraged by discrimination on the basis of skin colour and to speak out against it? If you want to raise children who are going to be kinder, more tolerant adults who will create a better future for all this is the episode for you.

Listen to this episode with Dr Laura Markham if you want to learn:

• Why it matters to talk to children about race if you are living in a society where your skin colour matches the skin colour of the dominant culture and what our responsibility is if we want our children to grow up in a non-racist culture
• How we can celebrate difference between people at the same time as recognising our common humanity
• How you can talk to even quite young children about racism and police brutality without scaring them
• How you can spark great conversations with kids by tapping into their already keen sense of what is fair and by talking about how people feel when the subject of unkindness
• Why 'colour-blindness' should not be our goal and how that invalidates the experience of someone suffering discrimination and how seeing race is not the problem but making judgments about a person because of racial characteristics would be
• How important it is to develop your own self-awareness and your reactions to people of different races and be aware of the modelling you provide to your child
• How using questions, rather than telling your child what to think, is such an effective way to stimulate your child's thinking
• How you can talk to even young children about white advantage
• Why reprimanding children for making comments you're not happy with is not the best way to teach them
• How to engage older children with these issues and to empower them to feel they can effect change themselves, by taking part in peaceful protests to demand change or to write letters
• How you can influence children's thinking by what they're exposed to in their everyday environment through the toys they play with, the films they watch and the books they read as well as the people they spend time with
• How to move beyond feelings of shame and awkwardness or guilt about historical or current racism to educate yourself and your child for a different future. Acknowledging pain is the key to opening up for positive action
• How to give children messages of hope

And her top tip for raising children to be respectful, fair adults who can create a better future for all of us.

If you want to get in touch with Dr Laura check out the links below:

Links

www.ahaparenting.com

https://www.facebook.com/AhaParenting

https://twitter.com/DrLauraMarkham

https://www.instagram.com/drlauramarkham_ahaparenting/

Do you have a child for whom there is a disconnect between level of intelligence and academic performance? Do you have a teen who has issues with time management, who can't get up in the morning? Maybe you've even got a young adult who is struggling now that the scaffolding of school has been taken away and they're trying to manage on their own at university. Do you have a child with a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD or any other neurodiverse condition? Chances are he has executive function challenges.

To function in the 21st century with everything we're juggling we need to have finely tuned executive functions; we need to be able to manage our time, to control our emotions and we have to keep track of our belongings. Just now when everyone has been having to adapt to lockdown and deal with anxiety we've had to call on cognitive flexibility and we've had to really reign in our limbic systems. We need to slow down and give ourselves a break and let our executive functions help us out.

Victoria Bagnall is an education professional passionate about improving opportunities for people with executive function challenges. She is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Connections in Mind. She has recently launched an online learning platform www.cimlearning.com as part of her EVOLVING MINDS, EVOLVING TIMES initiative.

As a dyslexic Victoria was challenged with her executive functions and so her mission to help with this is a personal one. She trained as a teacher and then in SEN teaching. Victoria is also a mum of 3.

Listen to this episode with Victoria if you want to learn:

• What executive functioning is and how it operates like an air traffic control system for our brains, being responsible for executing tasks all day and controlling our instinctual responses to the world
• What is grit or goal directed persistence or resilience
• How executive functioning can help with organising thoughts on paper and writing essays
• How before neuroscience had really developed in this area deficiencies in output were attributed to character flaws like laziness or not being willing to try
• What are the signs of challenges with executive functioning – eg differences between verbal abilities and what the child can get down on paper
• How academic challenges can really affect a child's identity
• Where executive function challenges come from and what role environmental factors like sleep, nutrition and stress levels have
• What parents can do to help children with EF challenges like initiating a task and sustaining attention
  • Task initiation difficulty can be to do with fear of exposing a lack of ability so parents can help a child feel more relaxed about failures
  • What role routines and expectations play
  • Being able to sustain attention is to do with motivation and parents can help to motivate their children through breaking tasks down and using rewards and acknowledgments and using praise effectively (see TPP's module on DP in our positive parenting courses)
• How important it is to give children autonomy in developing EF

Victoria really recommends Smart but Scattered Teens by Richard Guare PhD, Peg Dawson EdD, and Colin Guare.

Victoria finishes with a very profound tip for parents in raising happy and successful children, whether they've got EF issues or not. She also shares a Surprising Uplifting Moment with us as she has turned to gardening to cope with the stresses of lockdown and what she has learnt from that.

Links:

www.connectionsinmind.co.uk

New online learning platform www.cimlearning.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/connectionsinmind/

Linked in: www.linkedin.com/company/connections-in-mind-ltd

Have a look at Victoria's free questionnaire about executive functioning together with some suggestions for what to do about it.

Parents https://su.vc/executivefunction Children https://s.surveyanyplace.com/dczybljg

Conflict is normal in a healthy relationship, and relationships have definitely been feeling the strain in lockdown as we're in each other's company 24/7 and the division of responsibility in the family around childcare, supervision of schoolwork and domestic duties becomes strained. Parents are used to putting the children first but our guest today believes that the primary relationship is between the adults. The couple relationship can get lost if parents become a child-rearing unit.

This episode looks at how we can communicate our needs in an effective way,

Pam Custers is an experienced Psychotherapist and Coach with a history of working successfully with individuals, couples and families. Skilled in Relationship Counselling and coaching for those wishing to have a flourishing relationship in both their personal life. She runs a thriving business in Wimbledon, SW London called The Relationship Practice.

Listen to this episode with Pam if you want to learn:

• Why the relationship between parents is so important and needs greater focus, in fact needs to be privileged over all else. (Note: this does not mean neglecting the children!)
• How important it is for parents to present a united front to the children and how failure to do this can impact your parenting
• How the 'hot spots' of family life can become a battle ground between a couple when there is no united front
• How the burden of decision-making around family life can get taken on by one parent (often women) and breed resentment and the other parent can feel left out of an intense relationship between the other parent and the child
• How a good relationship is co-created
• How to be a team that together construct the home
• Why having a united front is so important in holding boundaries
• What to do to build a strong team, including
  • having a 'family' meeting each week where the couple takes time to plan their week, compare the diaries and work out priorities. The idea is to construct the day/week to set up for success. This pre-empts the emotional resonance of the week. These practical ideas mean that each partner is really supporting the other and puts the couple on the same page.(see the module on Setting up for Success in our positive parenting courses)
  • recognising that a united front needs to be continually worked on and compromise is essential
• How dealing well with conflict depends on connections in our lives (and at the moment we are relying solely on our partners for all those connections) and how it is important to create some moments of separation, to demarcate between work time and home time
• Why now is not a good time to have a big re-think about our relationships and it is a good time to show your partner some compassion, cutting them some slack
• How it can help to ask the question of your partner "how can I support you to support me?"
• About the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the worst of which is contempt, and how if this is present it might be time to get professional help because there will be needs underlying the negative lens through which partners are viewing each other that are not being met

And as usual we finish with our SUMs. We are celebrating some Surprising Uplifting Moments, some good things coming out of this pandemic. Pam shares a story about her team pivoting to online therapy and everybody working hard together to make it work.

Links:

https://www.pamcusters.co.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therelationshippractice/

Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamela-custers

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pamcusters

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/the_relationship_practice/

Right now every couple relationship is being stress-tested. Being forced into close proximity with your other half 24/7 and with other possible anxieties around work and finances and child care and education and concerns about your own and others' health may mean that cracks are developing. If your relationship was already under strain before the arrival of this coronavirus it may have reached breaking point now. If you're listening to this particular episode presumably you have an interest in helping children deal with the breakdown of a relationship, whether that is something that has already happened or is imminent.

My guest today can help with that. She is Elizabeth Fletcher, a director of Family Law in Partnership and she has a lot of experience working with individuals whose relationship with their partner has broken down and all the emotional upheaval that brings with it for the adult and the children of the relationship. She is very familiar with the problems that come with the end of a relationship where children are involved and guides people through this difficult time with empathy and integrity.

She is also a mum to two young children herself.

Listen to this episode with Liz if you your relationship has reached the end of its road or you are already separated or divorced from your partner and you want to learn:

• How to manage the stress of relationship breakdown when it is compounded by the restrictions of lockdown and possibly being still under the same roof as your estranged partner
• How to manage communication with your partner. Top tip: verbal communication is often more nuanced than the written word
• What to do if there is physical or other abuse in a relationship, especially if you are living with an abusive partner (for information about reporting abuse click here)
• What help to get if you are subject to coercive control by a partner
• What remedies are available under the legal system and through other support agencies to help with these situations
• About 7 ways to support your children through the trauma of family break up: (see here for details of the Parenting after Parting 3 part workshop developed by TPP in partnership with FLiP –the next series commences on 2nd July)
  1. Understand and get support for your own emotional needs
  2. Understand your children's needs and reactions at different stages of development
  3. Empathise and provide a safe space for children to express their emotions
  4. Reassure the children that the end of the relationship was nothing to do with them and that neither parent will ever stop loving them
  5. Support the children to have a positive relationship with both parents
  6. Provide the children with many messages that they are valued
  7. Provide safety and support at home
• About the basic rules for contact during lockdown, and otherwise, and what happens if these rules are infringed
• How mediation can help (even during lockdown) when parents are having trouble communicating and finding solutions to parenting arrangements
• What to do when communication is really problematic and how to make use of technologies like Our Family Wizard https://www.ourfamilywizard.co.uk
• How to manage differing points of view about how to deal with the lifting of restrictions
• What the rules are on moving with a child or taking a child out of jurisdiction and what recourse parents have if they disagree with their partner's position on travel

And as usual we finish with our SUMs. Liz shares with us a Surprising Uplifting Moment, one good thing coming out of this crisis, concerning her daughter's involvement in an online disco party.

Links:

Website: www.flip.co.uk

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/family-law-in-partnership/ see their post about kindness in divorce

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/familylawinpartnership

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FLiPLtd

Podcast: https://www.flip.co.uk/news-resources/our-podcasts-and-videos/

Free helpline on children and parenting law and domestic abuse https://www.flip.co.uk/free-children-and-parenting-law-domestic-abuse-advice-line/

Individual counselling support for those going through separation

https://www.flip.co.uk/counselling/

Those of us working in the coaching space right now know that many parents are feeling overwhelmed, stressed and depleted as our expectations of ourselves are through the roof. We're supervising learning at home and many of us are working from home too; we're getting the kids off electronic devices and coaxing them to take some exercise; we're sorting out sibling squabbles and getting them to make their beds and put their clothes in the laundry basket, while also cleaning, shopping and cooking, all in closer proximity to our partners than usual. Never before has the phrase "For better, for worse, but not for lunch" had such great meaning!

So this is a great time to be talking to Sharon Charlton-Thomas about self-care, radical self-care. You probably know that it's a good idea to care for yourself, don't you? But do you prioritise it? No? Why not? Do you think it's indulgent? Do you not have time for it? Yep, me too. Well Sharon gives you some very strong reasons for changing that thinking. One of those compelling reasons is that we are modelling for our kids how to be kind to themselves. (see TPP's module on Setting up for Success) Imagine a future where your now-adult child rings you up, distressed because they had made a mistake at work; wouldn't you want them to show themselves the kind of compassion they would show someone they cared for?

Sharon has been an executive coach for over 20 years specialising in working with working parents. She is a partner in The Working Parent Company, an organisation the Parent Practice has done a lot of work with, that believes parents are remarkable. (We agree.) She offers a blend of coaching and psychotherapy and mindfulness.

She is a mum to two adopted children aged 12 and 15.

Listen to this episode with Sharon if you want to learn:

• What self-care really means, given that the term is so overused
• Why self-care is so often neglected and how that is a reflection of the busyness and productivity that we value and reward in our society
• How radical self-care is so different and such a controversial idea for parents who are used to self-sacrifice, being programmed to be a nurturer or provider
• Why our relationship with ourselves is so critical and how self-exploration is at its core
• How this reflective capacity can be encouraged through mindfulness
• About the six steps of self-care:
  1. Knowing that caring for myself fundamentally impacts how I treat others, so self-care is in service of something bigger
  2. Looking inwards –what do I think about self-care right now? This is examining our beliefs about this –is it self-indulgent? What stops me from making a larger commitment to myself?
  3. Checking that our basic physical needs are being fulfilled rather than stuffing more into our day
  4. Think about what tires and what inspires your soul - sometimes it's ourselves, our inner critics, that tire us
  5. Practice compassion toward yourself
  6. Make self-care a habit to reinforce an identity of who you want to become; focusing on that long term outcome helps form the first steps to forming habits
• How to be guided by a belief that self-care is a good thing rather than being guided by your inner critic, acknowledging your inner critic rather than trying to get rid of it (which you can't do)
• How important it is to reinforce good self-care habits in our children and not placing too much value on busyness

Radical self-care is about learning who we are and what our needs and limits are and learning self-compassion; it is about learning to treat myself as I would others that I love.

And as usual we finish with our SUMs. We are celebrating some Surprising Uplifting Moments, some good things coming out of this crisis. Sharon shares a story about the Head of her children's school sharing with the school community in a way that was vulnerable and inspiring. That authenticity was an inspiration.

Links:

www.theworkingparentpcompany.co.uk

Linked In : www.linkedin.com/in/sharoncharltonthomson

Linked in: www.linkedin.com/company/the-working-parent-company

Podcast: www.theworkingparentcompany.co.uk/the-working-parent-podcast