Here’s a quote I love: “When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” – CS Lewis
I’m a supporter of all things colouring and make ‘n do – you may have deduced this from a quick glance at the pics I use on this site…You may also have noticed the new colouring craze for adults, and you can’t have not noticed the explosion in online gaming and so on.. Are we going back to play as our world gets more and more serious?
This is Suicide Prevention Month 2015, indeed as I type this it’s World Suicide Prevention Day. Twitter is alive with useful information and resources, talks and seminars are taking place all over the world – and it’s great. And for me, every day should be suicide prevention day.
I listened to Dr Harry Barry speak today about how to reach our young people before they consider suicide. It was great to hear someone echo my thoughts, and those of my fellow professionals. Prevention is key.
Bottom line: we need to “get to” children before they start down the road of hopelessness.
Not a week goes by that a therapist doesn’t hear about a client or a client’s friend self-harming. This is particularly true of therapists who work with teenagers – lately it feels like something of an epidemic.
After first hearing about self-harming behaviour – which usually takes the form of cutting, scraping, hitting or otherwise causing injury to the self – parents and friends usually react in one of two ways:
Every day, women (and men) are bombarded by messages on the TV, radio, print media including the internet telling us (and selling us) on how to change how we look. Unless you actually live under an actual rock you are bombarded by change-your-body messages maybe twenty, thirty times a day (?!!). All designed to sell you something. All disguised as “help”.
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I’m pretty certain that you, like me, have been left feeling a little chilled at some point after receiving a long-awaited apology. Instead of feeling relief, you’re left with a churning stomach, your heart is thumping, you’re feeling de-centred, uncertain, maybe even irritated.
Your gut is telling you that this relationship is still not right even though you got the “sorry”.
These negative emotions and physical feelings are a sure sign that you’ve been “fake-apologied”. (I know that isn’t a real word … ;))
Did you know that friendships have an average shelf life of 7 years?
The ones that last longer are the deeper friendships that are truly nourishing and good. They are worth your investment, because the joy, fun, trust, encouragement and support outweigh the irritations, the upset, the clashes (which are normal). Even if you rarely actually see each other!
We all think of Christmas as a time for giving to others. And that’s nice, it really is, but when did you last give to yourself? Not necessarily a material gift, but time to yourself or with a rarely seen loved one, fun, nurturing things?
We often forget about ourselves and fret instead about the people we love. Are we not allowed to love ourselves?
(Yes we are!).
So here’s part two of guide to staying sane for the holidays (part one here)
The social part of Christmas is fun.
Ideally.
It’s when we get to connect with old friends, family, maybe make new friends. It can be an incredibly nurturing time and full of genuine care and love. There’s nearly always an accompanying pressure though isn’t there? Like, how can I get to meet everyone? How do I choose who to meet? where to meet them? How do I tolerate the people I find difficult? How do I cope when I have to spend time with a person (or people) I usually avoid?
Firstly let’s define sexting:
Sexting is the sending of a sexually revealing image of oneself or an explicit text using a phone, or other device that is connected to the internet. You will have heard about the celebrity photo leaks, most notably the recent Jennifer Lawrence leaks .
And last week we heard about SnapChat pictures being leaked.
Bullying is a hot topic at the moment. I’m not sure that it’s happening more than it used to, but I am sure that the ways in which we bully each other are more varied. All bullying can feel overwhelming, difficult to witness, difficult to control. And we can feel helpless, victimised along with the child.
As we know, the consequences can be devastating.
In this piece I’m offering some thoughts around the nature of bullying and how best to manage it. I give 5 steps that I’ve shared with many clients, with good results. So they’ve been tried and tested!
The full text is here, on Voiceboks parenting website (great for other parenting tips too!).
Meanwhile here’s a summary meme to give you an idea of the 5 steps. The full explanation of exactly how to carry out the steps is in the full piece. I hope you find it useful!
