Parenting

Why Parents Should Feel Good About Saying ‘NO’ to Their Children

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Saying ‘no’ frequently to your young children may be the opposite of your parental instincts.

But according to Georgia Manning ‑ counsellor, psychotherapist and the director of Wellbeing For Kids ‑ saying ‘no’ to your kids is one of the best things you can do for them.

Manning puts this down to the fact that many parents have shied away from saying ‘no’ to their children because of the ‘self-esteem movement’, where anything that could potentially damage a child’s self-esteem was frowned upon.

But as a result, ‘the pendulum has swung too far’.

‘We’ve gone from not being emotionally attuned with our children to thinking that protecting them from any discomfort or things that they don’t want to do is a way of showing love.’

6 Things to Do if You Don’t Like Your Children’s Friends

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

We just posted on the blog some Dos and Don’ts of getting involved in your children’s friendships…

But what do you do if you just really don’t like one of their friends?

As a parent, there is a strong likelihood that your feelings are coming from a gut instinct that the friend in question is not a good influence on your child, in one way or another.

But as we discussed in the last post, the best thing you can do for your child is to help them navigate their friendships, rather than taking control over them.

The latter would not only be detrimental to your child’s social life and skills, but also to your relationship with them.

So then how do we deal with our own feelings towards our child’s friends?

Should Parents Get Involved in Their Kid’s Friendships?

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

All parents want to protect their children from the challenges that life throws at them.

And navigating the complicated and highly emotional world of friendship-forming is no different.

But like most ongoing processes of life and growing up, there’s only so much you can do to support their journey, and getting too involved can often do more harm than good.

‘Parents need to view these situations as opportunities to teach their child valuable life lessons‘, says friendship expert Dana Kerford.

Social Media: Are You Monitoring Your Own Public Profile?

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Social media is a largely unavoidable aspect of modern life.

And the ways parents monitor their children’s social media presence varies greatly…

Some insist on being ‘online friends’, some sneak through their child’s profiles without their knowing (a post for another day), or some ban social media completely.

But with all the focus we put on trying to protect our children from the many implications of a social media presence…

How much time are we taking to look at the impact of our own?

Why Gratitude can be the Key to Happiness

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

It’s a given that most parents want to raise their children to be grateful.

We intuitively believe that being grateful will lead to a number of good habits and qualities: politeness, humility, and respect, to name a few.

But what can be easily overlooked is that an inherent sense of gratitude is not only beneficial for our experience and interaction with others…

It can also be one of the greatest gifts we can give to ourselves and our children.

How?

The Importance of Routine in Childhood

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Our staff psychologist Dani Kaufman was recently quoted in an article on news.com.au, titled ‘Raising well-adjusted kids’.

The article suggests that there is one ritual that every parent should do with their child before the age of seven.

The ritual in question?

Routine.

Helping Childhood Anxiety with a ‘Worry Box’

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

The prevalence of childhood anxiety has more than doubled in the last twenty years.

And while we all experience anxious feelings at times, certain children will suffer more greatly, with their anxieties interrupting the functioning of their daily lives.

This could mean that it affects their sleeping, their socialising, or their ability to concentrate at school.

We’ve discussed a number of techniques for dealing with childhood anxiety on the blog…

But a useful tool for very young kids dealing with anxiety can be introducing a ‘worry box’ into their daily routine.

Practical Tips for Helping Your Child Through Exams

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

We’ve discussed a lot of issues surrounding the final years of high school on the blog over the years…

How to help your child survive the VCE, part 1, part 2 and part 3;

How to deal with the pressures of year 12 (by reducing them);

Motivation and success during VCE; and

How to help your child pick their final year electives.

But for many of you, you will now be in the grips of the climactic point of your child’s high school education: their final exams.

So Australia’s leading online mental health organisation for young people — ReachOut — has published some practical tips for parents, to help you help your child through this stressful period.

Dealing with the Immense Pressures of VCE

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

We’ve talked about motivation and success when it comes to study and examinations.

But an increasingly important issue surrounding these ideas is the pressure that is put on our students…

By the education system, by parents, and by the students themselves.

Studies show that in Australia, we are bordering on an adolescent mental health epidemic.

Instances of anxiety and depression in young people are becoming increasingly and alarmingly common.

And a huge source of these conditions is stress from schooling.

The pressure is even taking a toll on parents, with a mental health organisation setting up extra counselling services for parents of high school students.

So how do we help our kids, and ourselves, to deal with the pressure?

VCE Motivation: Bribery, Threats and Restrictions, but at what cost?

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Our staff psychologist Christina Rigoli was quoted on page 3 of The Age today, discussing the tactics parents use to motivate their kids to study.

Among them — bribing with $18,000 holidays, threats of boarding school, and house-wide technology freezes!

The parents confessing to these ‘motivation tactics’ said their efforts paid off, but this is more a matter of chance than formula.

The key distinction in this equation is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to motivation…

What may work in encouraging one child could backfire and have the opposite affect on another.

So how do you know what the right method of motivation is for your child?

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