Have you ever felt that no-one was looking out for you? Have you ever felt upset or resentful about that? Or have you just given up asking for your child and others to take you into account? Of course you matter! And because you matter, it is important not to just hope that your children and others will one day take you into account. SOMEONE needs to be determined to look out for YOU, and though it would be nice if this was your child or someone else, you mustn't leave it to chance or wishful thinking. Here is why not: 1. Attachment relationships are important for you and for any child's well-being. It is easier for a child to attach to and take a lead from someone who seems strong and confident and with good well-being themselves. Would you feel safe and reassured around someone who seemed stressed out and anxious?Probably not. 2. As an adult figure - you are a role model. Through your actions, and not just what you say, you are sending out messages to your child and others about your own value in the world. Your child will learn how to treat you and others by watching and copying how you treat you. So if you let yourself be trampled on, then it is much more likely that your child and others will just come to see this is normal and carry on with these same patterns towards you without taking you into account. 3. Your ability to think clearly and sensitively is vital to your long-term well-being and that of your child and others. If you or your child or others has additional complex needs or challenging behaviour, what is needed most is an adult who is willing to watch and wait and wonder about challenging behaviour and why it is happening - with a view to helping that child find a way to come through and overcome their challenges. You will quickly find yourself unable to do this if you do not invest time in caring for and developing yourself and your own skills 4. The time you spend with your child is important - you have a challenging but key role to play. Few other people will spend as much time with your child or have the longer relationship with your child that you will have. This relationship is not going to go away. So it is important to take a long view - investing in working for a good relationship right now will be an investment in your own future well-being as well as your child's. 5. In order for your child's brain to mature and develop healthily, your child needs experiences of learning good relationship skills with you. Brains develop - they are not fixed and it is never too later to make important changes. To develop improved social skills so that they can learn to manage relationships more easily, your child needs to have good experiences in relationships with adult figures who are caring and thoughtful. It would be nice sometimes to pass that responsibility onto someone else but when you invest in good relationships with yourself and with your child and your team this will translate into more healthy relationship experiences for your child. This will help improve behaviour and reduce challenges. And that is what you want! So what can you do? 1. Decide 'I Matter' 2. Put some time aside for caring actions towards yourself that help you refuel 3. Insist that your child and others treat you and others with respect and consideration 4. Ask determinedly for what you want and put effective limits on what you don't want 5. Invest time in your team and in your community - you cannot help a complex child on your own 6. Decide to include something new in your life that is important to you. Or look into one of our courses All Rights Reserved Copyright CBetoin
0 Comments
Parent-Child Coaching is something that many parents do without thinking about it. It involves guiding the child towards undersatnding and skills that you know will be useful and helpful to them in their lives. I Matter Parent-Child Coaching has many similiarites. There are also 5 key differences: i) In comparison to everyday parent-child coaching I Matter Parent-Child Coaches start out with a much clearer map or guide to help you decide what to coach and why. Parenting can be very challenging with so many decisons to make. It really helps to have a map that explains how lots of ideas fit together. ii) Parents who are learning about I Matter Coaching are provided with some easy to understand assessment tools. These easy to understand developmentally informed tools are designed to make it very clear what key skills are important and why. They are also designed to highlight when further assessment is needed. iii) Due to the advanced training involved, I Matter Parent Coaches find that they are much more aware of what is happening and have much greater understanding of what they are seeing during the everyday challenging incidents of life with their child. This helps them to have clarity and focus. iv) I Matter Coaching places a very high emphasis on the role, skills and well-being of the adult coach themselves. The special thing about this approach is that it is very clear from the outset that in order to be effective and appealing you have to do the work that supports your own well-being first! Blaming others doesn't take you where you want to go. v) I Matter Parent-Child Coaching provides parents with a framework for a longer-term approach founded on strengthening the security and effectiveness of the adult-child attachment relationship that can join together other learning that parents access in other places. vi) I Matter Parent Child Coaching is suitable for all children where there is a concern to support social-emotional development. Children may be very typical, or they may present with some complex challenges. They may have a formal diagnosis of ASD or ADHD or ODD or something else, or they may have no clear diagnosis. This is a framework that focusses on primarily on the adults undesstanding and skiills. If you would like to learn more take a look at our courses |
Dr Cathy BetoinClinical Psychologist, Teacher and Parent Archives
September 2016
I Matter Parent Blog
There is nothing more powerful than a parent who takes the trouble to care Categories
All
|