"

Month: July 2021

Categories
Uncategorized

Counselling for parents

Being a parent can be hugely rewarding and it can also be overwhelming. This can increase as your child enters adolescence. Speaking to a counsellor about parenting can help to improve communication and make relationships stronger both in and out of the family.

Being a parent is one of the most important jobs any of us will ever do and yet, despite libraries full of books on the subject, many feel that they are not prepared to do it well. This feeling can increase as your child enters adolescence.

Parents are not only involved in looking after the daily changeable needs of their children, they are also responsible for making sure that their children develop the skills they need to function practically and socially. As a parent, you must protect, look for help where necessary, listen to, spend time with, provide affection, consistency, and age-appropriate limits. All whilst taking into consideration each individual child’s unique personality.

No wonder parenting can become overwhelming! This becomes even more difficult when there are other issues going in on within the family like illness, financial strain or relationship problems or where there are worries about the way your adolescent is behaving. This is where support from a non-judgemental and independent professional can help.

Why see a counsellor for parenting?

  • You may be facing a specific parenting challenge, around your child’s mental health concern or behavioural issue, for example. While your child may well be receiving support, your own feelings and emotions may be left unaddressed which may then impact the wellbeing of the rest of your family.  
  • You may have your own mental health or other issues that impact your ability to parent.
  • Becoming a parent can have a major impact on your relationship as a couple both positive and negative, and can be a contributing factor to relationship strains and problems.
  • Family networks are becoming smaller than they used to be and parenting can be a lonely job. This feeling of isolation can be even more pronounced when sole parenting.

Seeing a counsellor is not only for parents who feel their family is in crisis or their child is acting out in extreme ways, however, and many parents may find it helpful to speak to someone around parenting in general.

Speaking to a counsellor about parenting can help to improve communication and make relationships stronger both in and out of the family. 

Are you ready to make this positive change? Get in touch here to see how I can help.

Categories
Uncategorized

Understanding your tween

The move from childhood to adulthood is one of the quickest and most sudden stages of development. The changes that happen may seem to be universal, but the time and speed varies a lot among and even within individuals. External factors like getting the right type and amount of nutrition or being exposed to an abusive environment will also have an impact on these changes.

The years between childhood and the start of adolescence (typically the ‘tween’ years between around 9 and 12 years old) see all sorts of challenges that can seem to merge into one. Moving from being the ‘big kids’ at primary school, for example, to becoming small fry again at a potentially larger and more impersonal secondary school. The onslaught of hormones and their changes to body development can be really challenging to the young person. Adolescence is a time for young people to establish their own individual identity where they’re more likely to be spending more time with and connecting more closely with their peer group than their family. 

A matter of biology

So what’s happening to your child developmentally? While there are individual differences, overall, biological maturity is reached before psychosocial maturity. The limbic system (responsible for pleasure-seeking, emotional responses and sleep regulation) changes before the area of the brain (the pre-frontal cortex) which deals with decision making, forward planning, organisation and impulse control. This means that, until the pre-frontal cortex catches up with the limbic system, the desire to seek short-term rewards and social pressures from peers override rational thinking. 

What does this mean?

As their ability for decision making is still developing, younger adolescents can be especially vulnerable at just the time they are starting to look outside their family. Some adolescents are especially vulnerable, for example, those growing up in poverty, where there is family violence, where the adults around them have issues with alcohol and other drugs. Certain health issues that may appear during adolescence such as mental health issues or issues around substance misuse reflect both the biological changes of puberty and the social setting in which young people are growing up in. These health consequences can continue to impact throughout adolescence and into adulthood.  Young people and the adults around them need to understand the processes that are occurring during adolescence. Not all young people are the same.

Communicating with your adolescent child

If you are reading this and you are over 25 years old – congratulations, you survived adolescence! Whilst your adolescent child may be happy to hear about your values, opinions and your experiences as a young person no one appreciates being judged or talked down to.

Make the effort to listen without judgement and really try to hear what is being said. Jumping in with an immediate reaction will present a real challenge having a meaningful discussion. Lectures are not heard. A young person who is upset or in crisis will not be able to absorb information unless it is delivered in a really concrete, specific way that they can follow.

Young people may express and exaggerate fleeting feelings, hating someone one day and being best friends with them the next. Empathise but first and foremost, be a sounding board. If you blast the friend they had the fight with you will be in the wrong when they are the best of friends again the next day.

Establish open and loving communication with your child but be consistent. Young people need boundaries and limits and whilst they will push these let them know that, if they do, there will be consequences. Give specifics, so ‘If you do… the consequences will be… but you can still come to me if you are ever in trouble.

Looking after yourself

Finally – look after your own well-being. Parenting through the early years of adolescence can be particularly stressful. Parenting babies and toddlers is recognised as a time when mental health issues, anxieties or depression can become an issue and it is easy to feel overwhelmed. These feelings do not necessarily end when your child turns two. Create a support network rather than depending on the other parent – your relationship will not need the additional strain. Prioritise your feelings and make sure you are getting the love and support you need as well as giving it to children and loved ones. 

Counselling can help. If you are struggling with your relationship with your adolescent child and are ready for change contact me here now to see how we can work together.

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Counselling online – A guide

Online counselling can help you get the support you’re looking for, whether it’s relationship counselling, couples counselling, or counselling for parents. So don’t let the thought of therapy remotely put you off. It gives you the choice of working with the right counsellor, regardless of where you are. You can find a counsellor that suits your needs rather than your geography.

As a result of Covid, you may have become more used to speaking with people remotely by telephone or video (who would have guessed that Zoom meetings would become the norm?). During this time, we’ve got used to working arrangements, school lessons, dance classes, and even socialising being held via video. And so, online counselling has also become part of the new normal. While it might seem a little daunting at first, and let’s face it, starting counselling can be daunting, it opens the door for people who might not have considered it before. Remote counselling by telephone or secure video link is a practical, accessible and convenient option for getting counselling. There’s more flexibility regarding time and location, and you can speak with the counsellor to help with your specific issue without worrying about public transport or parking. You can find a counsellor that suits your needs rather than your geography.

Before the pandemic, I hadn’t given online counselling much thought; if anything, I considered it a little niche. Then when I was working over the first lockdown, and it was all online, it made me look at it differently. I recognised that it made counselling accessible to people when they needed it. So I decided that this was something that I could keep going with. Working online means I can work with people wherever they are in the country without being hampered by distance. The relationship between counsellor and client is meaningful. If someone looks and finds a counsellor they think they might want to work with, it seems a shame that this relationship might not have space to grow or develop just because of geography. I know online therapy is not for everyone, clients or therapists; it’s all about choice. I still do face-to-face work for an organisation, and I love it. Working online is a way to help the people I work with best, no matter where they are. It’s convenient; you don’t have to worry about parking, accessibility or other things that might add to people’s stress. Working online from home has made me think carefully about my boundaries. I realised that my pattern has been to keep working, and I have worked to recognise where my workday finishes and where my home and leisure time begins. I love that I get to speak with people from all over the country that otherwise I wouldn’t have met or worked with them. I absolutely will continue working online for the foreseeable future. 

What to expect

Confidentiality is vital to counselling, so you can feel comfortable and safe talking about whatever you need to talk about. We’ll have sessions scheduled for a set time using a secure internet connection on an encrypted web platform. I hold my sessions in a quiet, private room.

It’s also essential that you are sitting comfortably for the session. Find a comfy chair in a private room and make sure you have all the supplies you need (perhaps a cup of tea and some tissues because…well, just in case). The session will last 50 minutes, so you might want to use headphones so you don’t have to worry about holding a phone or iPad up for the best part of an hour.

Your session is time dedicated to you, so you might want to think about putting your phone on silent and sitting somewhere quiet and confidential. I know home working has challenges, so we’ll talk about handling interruptions.

I’m on the telly…

Seeing yourself on screen can be odd (I’m used to it now, but it took a while!), so let me know if you feel like this, and we can discuss it. Your top half should be visible, so place the webcam so we can see each other’s body language. With online couples therapy, you and your partner can either sit together or log in from different locations simultaneously.

Counselling connection

One of the most important indicators of how effective counselling will be is the relationship between the counsellor and the client. Finding the right counsellor for you is essential to its effectiveness. I have considerable experience in delivering counselling remotely and work to ensure you feel comfortable. I’ve found the connection can be positive because we’re both in the comfort of our homes. Online counselling can help you get the support you’re looking for, whether it’s relationship counselling, couples counselling, or counselling for parents. So don’t let the thought of counselling remotely put you off. It gives you the choice of working with the right counsellor, regardless of where you are. Get in touch to schedule your free initial consultation to help you discover whether you feel able and comfortable for us to work together. Find the person you connect with and who you think you will work with to help with your issue, and let that be the factor that enables you to decide.  

Categories
Uncategorized

What’s your parenting style?

What’s your parenting style?

There’s no one right way to parent although researchers have found four different styles of parenting. 

In the 1960s, psychologist Diana Baumarind looked at the different ways parents guide, socialise and control their children. She named three styles of parenting that are still referred to today: authoritative, authoritarian and permissive. A fourth, uninvolved or neglectful, was added later. 

Of course, no parent fits into one of these styles all the time, but they tend to have one main style. Parents will change from one to another according to what is going on. They will also react differently to different children in the same family. Each parenting style is defined according to both how demanding and responsive the parent is to the child. 

Which of these describes you best?

The four parenting styles: 

1. Authoritative parents are warm, responsive and able to communicate with their children positively. They offer support and set firm but fair limits, stepping in where necessary but otherwise letting the child manage themselves. Self-discipline is an important skill to teach children and young people. The authoritative parent can enforce boundaries where needed and apply consequences even though these may cause conflict. 

The child learns to be assertive, can self-regulate and so more likely to grow up to be resilient, happy and responsible adults. As they are better adjusted emotionally, they are more able to form stronger, positive personal relationships. Whilst there are some cultural differences, the authoritative parenting style links to the best outcomes for children regardless of culture. 

2. The authoritarian parent is strict, controlling and values discipline. They are more demanding than responsive and they expect the child to obey without any explanation. The parent is also more likely to interfere, shout and threaten a punishment that they might not even follow through. At the extreme level, there may be physical or emotional abuse to control the child. With such rigid and harsh parenting, the child is highly likely to have low self-esteem and be prone to anxiety and depression.

4. The permissive parent sees themselves as more of a friend than a parent to their child. Indulgent and lenient, they set few expectations and will avoid confrontation at all costs. The permissive parent may be trying to make up for what they feel their childhood lacked or they may believe that giving the child material things means they do not demand time and so seems like the easier option. 

The child has the upper hand but this lack of boundaries causes them to feel insecure as they look for limits to their behaviour with no consistency or predictability. This can reach challenging and aggressive behaviour in adolescence as there are no consequences for rude, careless or hurtful behaviour. This aggressive behaviour is usually towards a parent so, whilst the child likely ends up with good social skills and high self-esteem, their parents may struggle. 

 3. The neglectful parent is severely uninvolved to the point of neglect and therefore abuse. 

Problems can arise when two parents use differing parenting styles; where one tends to over-react whilst the other is overly permissive, for example. The child is likely to feel anxious and insecure and may also find it difficult to tolerate emotions. 

The good news is by developing a positive parenting style you can reduce the negative impact of the authoritarian, permissive or uninvolved parent. 

Develop a positive parenting style

The biggest influence on your children is you! So model the values that are important to you.

As your counsellor, I will work with you to look at your child’s behaviour AND yours, to see how you are contributing. Therapy will help you recognise what you can do to make the change in your family that you want without leaving you feeling overwhelmed. You will be supported in your parenting as a team (whether you are still together as a couple or not) and strengthen your communication, making it consistent and clear. 

Has this resonated with you? Get in touch here to see how I can help.  

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Teens and body image: A practical guide for parents

If we don’t like what we see in the mirror and have a negative body image, we feel more self-conscious; impacting our confidence and relationships. 

So how can you help your child love and accept the way they look and have a healthy, realistic body image?

What is body image? 

It’s how and what you think and feel about your body and includes the image you have of your body in your mind.

Bodies change during adolescence and questioning who we are and where we fit in at this age is totally normal.

Tweens and teenagers are particularly vulnerable to issues around body image – think of all the changes that happen to our bodies due to puberty!

During puberty, our bodies go through a lot of changes over a relatively short amount of time. At the same time, fitting in with our friends and peers, not just in what we do but how we look becomes hugely important. 

It is not just important to adolescents, it’s part of their development – feeling that they’re different and that they don’t fit in can be a real struggle for them. 

 At what age do tweens and teens start to notice their body image? 

The 2019 Girl Guiding Survey noted that children as young as seven years old had noticed that society values how you look more than for your character or achievement. 

Social media has a real impact on all of us. Tweens and teenagers can be especially susceptible to an unrealistic perception of how they look and how they think they are supposed to look.

  • Selfie culture – what looks good in a photo can look a bit unusual in reality 
  • The images they see on social media are often literally not real; they have been photoshopped and edited beyond all recognition
  • Idealised looks have been manipulated and young people are still aspiring to look like that even though they know this is not realistic. People want to look like their filtered and edited photo but this isn’t easy to achieve – not even through surgery

There are positive aspects of social media. There are plenty of body-positive people to follow, showing a side that we do not often see in mainstream media. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could see more body ‘neutrality’? 

Focus on the whole person; not just how they look

Of course, your child is beautiful and perfect just as they are but it is no use telling them that and then complaining about your own body within earshot. The adult body is not a problem. There is no need to create fear around becoming an adult. 

Children learn through repetition. If they are in a house where they hear people complaining about their bodies, they learn that this is the way to speak about themselves.

You don’t want your kids to not like the way they look so what are some things you can do?

  • Encourage them to follow body positive (and body neutral) influences and help them make their social media feeds more diverse.
  • Compliment behaviour and values over looks – ‘look how kind you can be’ ‘look how strong you are’ ‘look how hard you’re working’

The number one best thing you can do is to learn to love your own body

Do you struggle with your body image? Are you constantly body shaming yourself? It’s almost taboo to be satisfied with how you look. Show yourself some self-compassion particularly in your appearance. 

Be mindful of what you say about physical attributes and how you say it to young people 

  • Don’t complain about your own body in front of them 
  • Smile at yourself when you look in the mirror
  • Learn how to accept a compliment
  • Stop talking about naughty, bad or wrong food
  • Appreciate the things our bodies do without us even thinking – breathing, digesting food
  • Stop making comparisons to others

So much pressure is already put on young people – leading to high anxiety and other mental health issues. One of the easiest ways to channel your anxiety or stress or lack of control is through body image – it’s visible and tangible and there are practical steps that can be taken to change this which gives a sense of feeling in control. But this is the thinking that can soon spiral towards disordered eating.

The Perfect Storm of puberty and menopause

If there is someone in your home going through puberty, there is likely to be someone in your home going through perimenopause or menopause. Maybe that’s you?!

Both of these stages involve physical and cognitive changes – an even better reason to show yourself some care and compassion!

If this sounds like you, why not get in touch and see how I can help.