I spent the day on Thursday last week comforting my 16 year old daughter after she opened her GCSES results. I know it’s not an uncommon occurrence to feel disappointed …
How do we learn what’s appropriate?
Who says what is actually appropriate and how do we learn it? I’ve been mulling over this question for the last few weeks in my own life. As my teenagers …
Not another way to punish?
This week my secondary school where my boys still attend (our daughter left last week) have decided to bring in yet another behaviour modification system. Something they truly seem to …
When people can’t show remorse
A controversial thought I was driving to work a few mornings ago and the news was on. They were talking about decisions to look at whether we have more stringent …
What’s your hierarchy of needs?
Abraham Maslow’s theory know as the Hierarchy of needs has been around since 1943, and published in his paper ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’. If you work with children and …
Mental Health First Aid Review
Last week I attended our first Mental Health First Aid course. As it’s not a course I’ve participated in myself I decided to attend along with the other education staff …
How long is long enough?
How long is long enough to provide the support that vulnerable children need in order to develop? It’s a constant question we ask about our own children, but also from …
The hunger drive
I’ve been thinking about food and being hungry for some weeks now, not just because I’ve been on a detox…but because it’s come up in lots of different places I’ve …
What’s your story?
I was listening to a friend talking last week about vulnerable young people in our community. She was talking about how many there are presently, why they might be classed …
Younger does not necessarily mean easier
I’ve just come off the radio with BBC WM talking about the fact that nearly half of the children waiting to be adopted in Birmingham are considered ‘difficult to place’ …
The mixed emotions of adoption
This week is National Adoption Week and as ever it has brought with it very many mixed emotions. I’ve been reading other people’s stories and comments online and my own …
Wishing our lives away
Nearly five weeks into the academic year and I’m exhausted! Kids are exhausted too and I’ve heard many teachers and parents counting down the weeks if not days to half …
First week blues
The first week of school is over for most of us. Whether relief or dread it’s gone now and we can reflect on how it might have been. For educators …
Back to school – fear or relief?
There’s been a lot of photos and quotes on social media these past few weeks talking about the feelings associated with going back to school. For children it may be …
Too young to learn yet too old to not know
There’s a phenomenon with young people with insecure attachment that has baffled me for years now. It all centres around the ability to learn new things. Mine are all teenagers …
The thing no-one wants to talk about
It’s been 8 years since we adopted and 18 years since we got married. To say that we have always been a volatile couple is an understatement. I thought after …
The impact of shame – Part 3 Run and Hide
Children who’ve experienced a difficult start in life have so many different ways of hiding from their pain. They may be the clown of the class, the angry child, the …
The impact of shame – Part 2 Lying
Probably one of the hardest behaviours to face in vulnerable children is lying. Of course that depends on your own values and feelings around this subject, but I’ve not met …
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