Courses and workshops

The full list of webinars we offer

We run a variety of webinars

• What to do when your kids push your buttons and how to stay calm

  Have you ever reacted to your children's behaviour in ways that you regret later? Maybe you've shouted or threatened or shamed them. Most of us have. Would you like to be able to stay calm and be positive with your children but just don’t know how that can be possible in some situations? It can be difficult to keep your cool when children are being rude, demanding or uncooperative. It helps if we understand why they are doing what they're doing.

  In this workshop we look at why our buttons get pushed and how we can keep our cool in 'teachable moments'. This workshop helps you to establish practices which help you to remain calm more often and to be positive and effective in teaching your children to behave well.

  
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• Navigating Anxiety

  Anxieties are very much on the rise in children and young people. 2.2% (about 96,000) children aged 5-10 and 4.4% of 11-16 year olds in the UK have an anxiety disorder. The prevalence is higher in girls. Recent research from Anxiety UK suggests that as many as 1 in 6 young people will experience an anxiety condition at some point in their lives.

  Children can be fearful of many things, some of them imaginary and many of them irrational. It can be hard for an adult to understand their fears.

  Anxiety can be beneficial as it protects us from danger, pushes us to take action and to perform at a higher level. Our nerves keep us alert and ready to respond, but we also need to recognise when we are not at risk.

  Many worries are a routine part of growing up but some are frequent and persistent and get in the way of normal life. Parents need to know when a worry is too big and how to help their child. 

  This talk covers:  

  what makes children anxious

  what are the signs of anxiety 

  what parents can do to help children deal with their worries

    -How to prevent anxiety

    -How to respond to anxiety        

  Goals

  Participants will learn to:

  • Understand what anxiety is
  • Understand what anxieties are normal at different ages
  • Distinguish normal worries from problematic anxiousness
  • Identify signs of anxiety
  • Understand where anxiety comes from
  • Use 8 tools to combat anxiety
  
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• Promoting Sibling Harmony

  Do your children bicker, argue or fight? Do they come to you complaining about each other or telling tales? Parents can find it very upsetting to witness their child being cruel to his/her sibling and get tired of the endless quibbling and niggling and the noise. This workshop will give you practical skills to help your children be more tolerant and considerate of each other and resolve arguments successfully.

  We will show you how much can be done to make it easier for your children to like each other. We will look at the causes of the rivalry and teach you many practical, well-tried solutions to help reduce the fighting and create a more harmonious environment. We will also look at effective ways to intervene without appointing yourself judge and to help the children resolve their own disputes. This seminar covers conflict resolution skills that will equip them for life.

  • Why siblings fight
    How to foster harmony between siblings
    How to respond when they do fight
    How to intervene minimally and effectively to help children resolve disputes fairly
  
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• Screen Time Sanity

  With so many children now using screens for home schooling and socialising, and parents recognising there is little alternative in the current changing landscape, the biggest question parents ask now is how do we get a sense of balance? We all recognise the importance of screens for communicating, connecting and learning, but how do we manage screen usage whilst ensuring our children don’t miss out on other essential activities.

  We all recognise the importance of screens for communicating, connecting and learning, particularly after the period of Lockdown during which our children were on-line for lessons and also for socialising with their friends. Even as circumstances change this may continue for some while and habits acquired during isolation may be hard to break. The biggest question to ask is how do we  manage our children’s screen usage so that they don’t miss out on other essential activities.

  Communication and connection are essential if we are to keep our children safe and healthy. Coercion and control will only go so far and are detrimental to relationships. Successful parenting in the digital age depends on building up a relationship of trust.

  We need to be there to support and guide them through the Digital Jungle, not panic and bury our heads in the sand or ban everything. This workshop looks at how we keep our children healthy and safe while making the most of the technologies available.

  Please note this workshop does not go into detail about electronic controls nor provide an in-depth discussion of the hazards of different online platforms. It focuses instead on how to teach children to be safe in the same way we teach them to be safe around water or cars.

  • The need for parents to inform and educate themselves and realise that technology offer many benefits – manage not panic!
  • Ways of developing trust between parent and child- communication and connection are key, not coercion and control
  • How to develop effective rules around the use of technologies and having a healthy blend of activities
  • Steps for managing and reducing screen time, including specific skills for encouraging (descriptive praise), skills for empathising (emotion coaching) and skills for setting boundaries
  • Ways of communicating empathetically when they wish to have more!
  • Helping children enjoy alternatives to screen time

   

  
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• Girls and the Power of words.

  This workshop is about words, the power of words to create and to heal relationships. Words are especially important to girls. They tend to be adept with them and they use them to build relationships more than boys who focus more on activities. Her words are attempts to engage and to be heard, to connect. But sometimes her words can hurt. And then we parents struggle with words too.

  Girls are likewise especially vulnerable to the effect of words so parents need to be careful to listen to the real message behind her words and to respond with compassion and understanding.

  In this workshop we will look at what girls are trying to communicate and constructive ways to respond which avoid verbal shut downs and conversational dead ends. We will decipher the codes so that we can understand what our daughters are longing for us to know.

  We will examine specific situations to see what happened and why, and then what words would be a better alternative.

  This workshop draws on research into what girls themselves say about communication between themselves and their parents.

  This workshop is best suited to parents of girls from age 8 but anyone with younger girls can undoubtedly benefit too.  

  
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• Helping your children be Resilient

  Strong self-esteem is vital for children to help them cope with the inevitable knocks of life. This workshop shows you how to really improve your children’s confidence and belief in themselves, build capacity in them and how to encourage them to deal with things constructively when they face challenges. It will also address effective strategies for dealing with and avoiding any bullying children might face.
  
  This workshop covers:   

  • How to foster strong self-belief
  • How to encourage children to share their problems
  • How to encourage resilience, perseverance and coping mechanisms to deal with life’s knocks
  • How to get involved when your child is bullied and teaching children strategies for coping with bullying

   

  
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• Understanding Your Child

  Parents know their children best. They know what they do, what they like and dislike and how they’re likely to react in given situations. But they don’t always know what their children are thinking and feeling and they don’t always understand why they behave the way they do. Understanding children as unique individuals is essential if parents are to apply their parenting skills in effective, targeted and strategic ways. These insights will affect everything parents do with their children.

  In this seminar we look at what makes our children tick and what drives their behaviour. We look at the science of child development and neuroscience to see what behaviours are appropriate for the age and how they fit in the chain of development. We examine temperament in order to understand children more fully as individuals and how our own temperament may interact with theirs. We look at feelings to understand the emotional drivers of behaviour.

  When parents really understand their children and their needs they can accommodate these to bring out the best in them. This doesn’t mean just letting unacceptable behaviour go. We look for reasons to explain behaviour and to modify it appropriately, not to excuse it. 

  This talk covers:    

  • Understanding children’s stages of development and forming reasonable expectations based on this understanding
  • Looking at individual temperamental traits to understand a child’s default manner of interacting with the world. Understanding that although this is an innate part of the child’s personality how they react can be modified by strategic parental input. Helping the child to see the positive aspects of these traits and managing behaviours
  • Overview of special needs
  • Understanding how emotions underpin all behaviours, positive and negative. How understanding a child’s emotions makes strong connections with a parent, prevents battles and builds strong self-esteem.
  • How to get to know your child better
  
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• Never Have to Ask your Child Twice

  Online workshop (via zoom). Duration 75 mins (60 min + 15 mins Q&A)

  Does it drive you mad when your children don’t listen to, ignore or defy you? Do you find yourself repeating things over and over again only to wind up shouting at and threatening your children?  Do you sometimes feel as if you are talking to a brick wall?  Do you wonder what happened to respect (and when did you turn into your mother/father)?

  Children learn to tune us out when we nag, remind, lecture and criticise. This seminar will cover why children don’t listen and what parents can do to encourage children to listen and to follow instructions. Don’t miss the three stage approach for maximising cooperation.

  
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• Girls & Friendships

  Relationships are very important to girls. At different stages in their lives they will have different needs from their various relationships and will manage them differently but to be successful in this key area of their lives girls need some crucial social skills.

  This workshop examines five different stages in a girl’s life and what she needs from relationships with parents and friends in each stage.

  It also examines practical strategies for parents in cultivating good friendship skills in their daughters, helping their daughters choose good friends and be good friends themselves. It looks at what to do when you don’t like your daughter’s friends and what to do when she falls out with her friends or she’s subject to bullying.

  
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• Raising Boys- Understanding boy world and helping boys thrive in it

  This workshop addresses what it's like to be a man today and what kind of men we want our sons to grow up to be. 

  We look at how to encourage those qualities in our boys while they're growing up. We explore practical ways of talking to our sons to pass on our values and to encourage good behaviour, attitudes and mindsets. We also look at the role of modelling.  

  Emotional intelligence is a greater predictor of success in life than any academic achievement. In this workshop we look at skills to grow boys' emotional maturity. In particular we look at boys' style of communication. We give parents tools for communicating in ways that suit boys and teach techniques for encouraging boys to talk, both to solve problems and to connect effectively.  

  We look at several scenarios where boys often have difficulties and examine ways parents can coach their sons for successful outcomes.

  
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• Raising Boys: Channelling physicality, encouraging cooperation and boy discipline

  This workshop looks at the many positive qualities of boys and how these qualities can also present challenges to the boys themselves, and also to their parents, and how we can channel them effectively. We look at practical ways to help boys do and be the best they can, whether that's at school or at home, and in life generally. 

  We also look at how we can handle particular issues such as how parents can help boys channel their high energy constructively, and deal with excessive competitiveness, even aggression. We present key skills that help boys develop good habits of co-operation including using structure and routines to help boys. We give parents effective techniques for handling misbehaviour and helping boys understand and work within boundaries. 

  
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• Difficult or Different?

  Every child is different - and some parents find that those differences make it harder for their children to fit in, be it with their behaviour  towards other children, schooling or with family life generally. 

  This is tough on the parent and tough on the child. 

  Elaine Halligan has a child who is 'different'. In this talk she looks at the challenges she and her son faced and the solutions she found (working with Melissa Hood) to navigate a path through these challenges. Her son Sam is now in his 20s.  

  In this workshop you too can discover how powerful the right parenting skills are to help you and help your child.

  
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