Screens are everywhere nowadays and navigating this with our children can be difficult at times. It is important that you and your children have a conversation about screen time and agree on certain rules and boundaries for their use. In this blog post I’ll share 8 steps to effectively navigate the use of devices with your children.

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is a gender-affirming medical procedure that allows transgender individuals to align their physical characteristics with their gender identity. HRT involves taking hormones to suppress the production of certain hormones and/or to increase the production of others.

Adolescence is a time when adolescents are navigating their way through various developmental milestones, including identity formation, autonomy, and the establishment of meaningful relationships. It is crucial to understand that the emotions and reactions teenagers experience during this phase are, for the most part, entirely natural responses to the challenges they face.

Every emotion starts off in our brain. It can be surprising, therefore, how much we feel these emotions, often as strong physical reactions to the circumstances we find ourselves in. Sometimes if we don’t regularly express our emotions they can be stored up in our body over time until they eventually bubble up and rush out of us, almost like a big volcanic explosion.

Parenting isn’t always easy. It can be difficult to know when to lead and when to follow, when to step in and when to step back. It is a journey filled with moments of joy, surprise, confusion, and challenges. The PACE model will help you embrace the roles of being a playful participant, a patient guide, an accepting companion, a curious explorer, a creative problem-solver, and an empathetic listener.

When you foster a safe and accepting environment, neurodivergent individuals can stop feeling the need to mask. When someone who is neurodivergent stops masking, they often start to thrive! They can express their unique experiences, share what might be challenging for them, and finally connect with others authentically. Connection is the opposite of isolation, which is another effect of neurodivergence when it’s undiagnosed and/or unaccepted.

I often encounter parents telling me that their child struggles with transitions. Be it from the car to the house, from watching TV to eating dinner, switching from playing board games to doing homework, or leaving the house in the morning. Transitions ARE complex, and it is important to transition appropriately! Just have a brief think about how you transition from one place, activity, or task to another. If you really think about it or if you observe yourself when you next transition, you will notice that a comfortable transition takes a lot of cognitive, emotional, and behavioural effort.

In order to make your child feel truly heard, seen, and understood there is more to listening than “just” listening. In psychotherapy this is called active listening. Active listening is an essential skill in therapy, and parents can develop their own style of active listening to further deepen the meaningful relationship with their child.

Gender identity is a complex interaction of several factors. At its core gender identity is a person’s deeply held sense of their gender, whether that might be male, female, both (e.g. genderfluid) or neither (e.g. non-binary). Gender identity is separate but closely intertwined with biological sex and sexuality.

As an LGBTQ+ person it is very likely that you share a similar story with others who identify as LGBTQ+ . A journey that most likely began in your youth with questions like, “Who am I?”; “Where do I belong?”; “Who belongs to me and who do I belong to?”.

At this point in time, we long for belonging but often find ourselves lost, confused, misunderstood.

Selfcare Pairs is a resource for mental health professionals and parents alike. It helps teaching children and young people about the variety and importance of self-care in a fun and playful way. Learning about self-care supports mental well-being!

Research suggests that initiating sleep is a much more common and intense difficulty for people who have an ADHD diagnosis. An estimated 25–50% of people with ADHD experience sleep problems, ranging from insomnia or nightmares to secondary sleep conditions.

When a child receives a diagnosis of ADHD a lot changes in the family dynamic. There is an increased focus on supporting the child with the diagnosis. So what happens for the child without the diagnosis? They often receive much less attention and stand on the sidelines of what happens in the family. What may be their thoughts and feeling and how do these affect their behaviour and development?

Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) is a method used that can help people improve their way of communicating and interacting with one another. VIG allows the participants to learn how to become more effective in their interactions, communicating their needs and feelings which in turn enhances overall social and emotional wellbeing.

New beginnings, like a new year or even returning to school or our jobs after an extended break can also spark intense feelings of uncertainty, which for some of us, understandably so, may turn into worry and anxiety. If you or your child is worried about returning to school, here are 7 tips to begin school again with more confidence.

I often hear people say self-care is a face mask or a bubble bath. If a face mask and a bubble bath means self-care for you that’s great and you are definitely encouraged to continue doing it whenever you feel like it. But let me tell you why self-care can be so much more than that!

Praise is incredibly important for building a child’s self-esteem. Praise is positive feedback from a person of significance (e.g. parents, teachers) that tells the child that it has done something well. This translates to the child learning that they can affect change and influence their environment. In turn this enables the child to think positively and confidently about their abilities and themselves.

Toxic Positivity is the concept of suppressing emotions that are experienced as unpleasant such as sadness or anger.

It is an inappropriate overgeneralisation of happiness or a joyful state in response to situations that are distressing or painful when the experience of “negative emotions” is justified.

We all have an innate bias to spot and remember negative events much more easily than the positive ones. In Psychology this is known as the negativity bias. The negativity bias affects our attention, how we learn and retain or recall information, the conclusions we come to when evaluating peoples’ behaviour and our decision-making.