Author: jenny.warwick27@gmail.com

No is such a tiny little word, so how come it can so often feel overwhelmingly impossible to say?

It’s all about boundaries

Our ability to set a boundary – or to be on the receiving end of one – may come from a belief we are not even aware of. Experiences from when you were a child, past trauma or the way your parents treated you, could well be being played into. Perhaps you feel that you aren’t good enough, or fear you’ll be rejected if you say no. You worry that other people will think you’re not a good person when you act as yourself with healthy limits and that you’ll lose them. 

Speak up for what you need. Show that you are someone who has healthy limits. Constantly putting all your energy into worrying you’re letting other people down and that they’ll somehow think less of you is exhausting and gets you nowhere.

Weak boundaries can feel like:

• You’re giving a lot and not getting much back.
• You’re exhausted, tired, burned out.
• You’re being misunderstood or unheard.
• You are taken advantage of.

Humans are social beings. We worry that by saying no, we might upset people. We can worry that everyone else is doing something that we might be missing out on (FOMO anyone?). Decision-making is hard, so it feels easier to say yes. 

No wonder saying no is difficult

You want to say yes, not necessarily because you want to say yes, but because it feels rude to say no. The problem with being a people-pleaser is the only person you aren’t making happy is yourself. It can really impact on your mental health leading to anxiety or depression. It’s time to start putting yourself back in the central position in your life.

Remind yourself that you are not powerless anymore. Use your voice and exercise your boundary muscle. And if someone gets angry that you’ve said no, it doesn’t mean that you should have said yes.

Some ‘go-to’ no phrases you can use

Starting with ‘thanks’ can make it feel easier. Such as:

• ‘Thanks for thinking of me… but I won’t be able to come.’
• ‘Thank you, that sounds lovely, but I won’t be able to… maybe next time.’
• ‘Thank you. Let me think about that and get back to you…’ (This buys you some more time, so can be handy in you understanding how you really feel).

Or how about a simple, ‘No, thanks’?

Boundaries are good for you and the people around you. No doesn’t mean rejection, it just means ‘not now’. It reflects your current situation, not how you feel about them.

Practise setting boundaries and saying no

Boundaries can be hard to set, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. And if things don’t go as you might have wanted them to, then that’s OK too. Taking one step at a time is often all it takes to feel unstuck.

If people aren’t used to you saying no, that’s OK too. They’ll get used to it.

When you feel like you want to say no but don’t speak up, consider this a chance to learn. What might you do differently? Did you want to say no but felt too overwhelmed? If you could turn back time, what would you say differently? Have that in your mind and practice saying it to yourself. 

Please don’t beat yourself up!

You can feel stuck in the moment and it might be easier in the short term to say yes. The truth is, saying yes can come at a cost if you end up doing something you don’t want to. It may be you’re stuck in a pattern of avoiding your feelings and needs. And the result of this can be a cost to your mental health and wellbeing. 

Think of the consequences of saying yes to something you don’t want to do

Will this lead to me feeling resentful, angry, anxious? Or that the other person now ‘owes’ me. Will it make it more difficult for me when this person next says no to me? How will saying yes when I’d rather say no, impact the other person and our relationship? Is it really worth it?

If you see saying no as a way to help to strengthen your relationship, it might make it easier to do. It also means the things you do say yes to you’re likely to enjoy – quality over quantity – which will help you feel calmer, happier and better able to engage and be present with people. This means that it’s easier to be there when your loved ones need you to be there for them.

Think of being able to say no as your superpower! 

Seeing a counsellor can help you by talking through patterns of pleasing people you might have.

It will help you get a better understanding of yourself. Counselling is also an opportunity to delve a little deeper into where these patterns have come from and how putting boundaries in place are good for you and your family.

If this has resonated with you, why not get in touch HERE to see how I can help you. I’m based in East Sussex but I work online so you can have the therapy you need in a place that is convenient for you.

Practising being more present and mindful helps you manage stressful situations and tricky emotions when life gets complicated. And if it helps you feel better, it will also help your kids, no matter how old they are.

What does being present mean? It means that you aren’t thinking about what might happen in the future, or worrying about what has happened in the past. Instead, your focus is on now, where you are and who you are with. 

The key to being mindful is practising one baby step at a time – you need to practice to get used to it. Apparently, to be an expert in something you need to practise it for 10,000 hours! You don’t need to be a Mindfulness Master but any small step you take will add up and is so worth it.

Why do you want to be present?

You might be sitting next to your teen or tween but you’re not really with them. You may be with them physically but emotionally you might as well be a thousand miles away.

You might be:

• scrolling through your phone
• thinking about what to make for dinner
• or about a difficult conversation you had a work
• or your endless to-do list

Put it down! Just for a minute.

Do what they want to do – even if this means sitting and watching a YouTube video about Minecraft with them. I promise it will be worth it in the long run.

Being present shows your teen or tween that you care

• You are showing an interest in them and what they’re doing.
• It lets them know that you are aware of how they’re feeling.
• It shows them how to manage their own emotions and to stay regulated.
• When you are feeling safe, secure and grounded, they feel more safe and secure.
• It shows them that you are their safe base, not just physically but emotionally.

Think about the quality of time with them, rather than the quantity. It might be a cliché, but it rings true here.

Small gestures add up

It is ok to build this slowly, especially if it is new. You don’t want to force them to spend time with you. Think about this being more about changing how they see you as a parent. It’s not about changing them.

Some helpful pointers for being mindful are to:

1. Acknowledge feeling moments when you are being mindful – when you feel truly present. These may well be just moments, and they all count.
2. Notice when you are struggling to keep your attention and name it – apologise and acknowledge that you weren’t paying attention very well then.
3. Put your phone away. Don’t just have it on the table and think that you won’t touch it, actually have it in another room – they are made to take our attention. Work out when to engage airplane mode.

Other ways to help you prepare for being mindful:

• Research shows that the more mindful a parent is, the less stressed the kid is.
• Stop, take a breath (or three) and respond when you are ready.
• Verbalise what you are doing, for example, ‘I’m feeling a bit stressed, I’m going to take a couple of deep breaths, have a think and then I’ll get back to you’.
• Let them know that you will put your phone away to have a chat about this.

If it feels too hard to do, use the time when they’re in the car with you (often a good place for conversations) or when they are getting a drink or something to eat. Ask them about what they are doing or watching.

It means that when you need to have a more serious conversation with your tween or teen, they will know they have your full attention and time.

Some useful ways you can bring yourself back into the present are:

• pause and take three deep belly breaths
• clench and unclench your hands and fingers
• wiggle your toes
• tap your feet and feel the ground
• pick four items you can see in front of you and name them three or four times
• be quiet for one minute and notice all the sounds you hear

This time in your child’s life will be gone before you know it – even if it doesn’t feel like it just now.

Whatever you do, don’t beat yourself up when this doesn’t work out. Being a parent is hard, remember? There is always another chance to take some time to be truly present with them.

Speaking to a counsellor about family issues and 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. I’m based in Peacehaven, East Sussex but work online so we can talk wherever you are.

Being a parent is hard – there is so much pressure on mums and dads to be perfect parents. Parenting is not an exact science. Your job as a parent is to raise kids that are happy, kind and resilient. Just as you don’t expect your kids to be perfect, don’t put unrealistic, unattainable pressure on yourself. Stop beating yourself up! Your kids will turn out to be great even if you yelled at them this morning.

Social media does not help. It makes us feel like we need to do more and to do it better; we compare ourselves against each other and end up feeling like we’re not living up to our expectations.

Raising children has always had its challenging moments. It can be messy, noisy and unpredictable but also full of joy, heart-warming and fun.

How to be a good parent

If you are reading this, you have already shown that you are a good enough parent. We all worry that we might not be getting it right and that we’re messing our kids up. We all think that we need to be better at parenting, but all your kids need is for you to be good enough. Give yourself a break and permit yourself to trust your instincts.

If you break a promise you made to them, or you’re late picking them up, you apologise, learn from it so it doesn’t keep happening and then you move on. Children and young people are remarkably resilient. They will have an opportunity to experience disappointment and to resolve their problems.

It takes a lot of energy and effort to be any more than good enough, leaving you exhausted, frustrated and feeling like a failure. If it isn’t making you happy, it’s not making your kids happy.

The reality is that children and young people do so much better when we back off and let them do things for themselves. If you are reading this as an adult, you survived your childhood and adolescence. Let your kids do the things kids do, that we did when we were kids, mistakes and all.

What triggers your parental guilt?

Parental guilt might feel like; you’re not doing enough as a parent, you’re not doing things right, or that you’re making decisions that may ‘mess up’ your child in the long term. Is it when you realise you’ve been sat on your phone rather than connecting with your child? Or when you snap at them when they ask for something?

We feel that we’re being judged on our parenting but that is not the case. Equally, don’t assume that everyone else has it together because *spoiler alert* they don’t!

So what can you do?

• Lower your standards – there is nothing wrong with being a bog-standard, mediocre parent!
• Boundaries! – Do less and say no sometimes – don’t worry about trying to impress other parents; they’re too busy trying to parent their own kids to care
• Trust your instinct – you know your kids, there’s no need to look for the approval of other people
• Stop beating yourself up and give yourself a break 

The research says that good enough parents raise pretty great kids (honestly, just Google ‘good enough parent’).

Let them do more of the things you think they are capable of – let them make their own lunch, get themselves ready for school – so they have their own sense of responsibility.

You and they are going to make mistakes – that’s called being human. The important thing is to acknowledge, apologise, learn from it and then move on. Don’t let the guilt creep in; it just gets in the way. Accept the good, the bad and the difficult as part of the journey.

Counselling can help you with issues you are facing around your family. Speaking to a counsellor about parenting can help to improve communication and make relationships stronger both in and out of the family.

Online counselling can help you get the support you’re looking for. It gives you the choice of working with the right counsellor for you, regardless of where you are.

Get in touch here to schedule your free ‘getting to know you’ call to help you discover whether you feel able and comfortable for us to work together. Working with me can give you the space to work through the things you’re worrying about, so you know that you aren’t ruining their chance at a happy fulfilled life and that you are doing a great job. I can help you to let go a bit, give yourself some headspace and allow you to see the wood for the trees.

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.

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.

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.