Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Has your child recently moved from a cot to a bed, and now keeps getting up to come and find you? This can be a very common situation that parents find themselves in and often a child can go from sleeping well in their cot to being awake several times per night and refusing to stay in their bed!

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Resilience is the skill of ‘bouncing back’ when you come up against tricky times, challenges, or stress. It is not something that you do or don’t have, it is something which is learnt, practiced, and strengthened over time. Our children have to learn resilience starting from a very young age and this is often developed (and experienced) through their play.

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Has your child suddenly started to say, “I’m scared!”, “I don’t like the dark”, or “I’m scared of the dark”? If so, please be reassured that this is a very normal phase of development and can be experienced by lots of children, their parents and carers. Most often the biggest impact of this can be around bedtimes where little ones are typically on their own and it is dark. This sense of fear can have an impact on sleep, bedtimes or even cause waking in the night.

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Trying to get your little one into a car seat can often require a great deal of patience and negotiation at times! This can leave us feeling hugely frustrated, especially when we are in a hurry!

In this blog I look at why this might be happening and what things you can do to help the situation.

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. This is something that most parents have to deal with at some time or another with their child/ren and family members. Hugs and kisses are a way in which we show our affection to each other and often, as adults, we will greet people or say goodbye with a hug or a kiss, but we often know when not to as this isn’t something everyone feels comfortable with.

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant.Bedtime and the lead up to it can feel like quite a juggling act especially when you have more than one child to do your bedtime routine with.

This time of the day is often when we want things to be calm and to be able to give our children opportunities for one-to-one time, but it doesn’t always happen that way! At the end of the day everyone (including you!) is tired, and bedtime might not always go as you would hope…but that’s ok! Don’t put too much pressure on yourself - it can take time to find what works and it will evolve over time as your little ones get older.

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. Crying is typically seen as something which is negative; something that we do when we are sad, upset, angry, frustrated etc. However, there are times when we cry for other reasons and often a ‘good cry’ can actually make us feel better..!

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. It is likely that if you are reading this blog, you have a toddler or pre-school aged child who has started to say “I’m scared” about one particular thing, or is saying it regularly throughout the day in relation to lots of different things.

The feeling of being scared (or fear being the emotion) is very normal and natural and part of our flight, fight or freeze response. Feeling scared (or experiencing fear) is something which is essential to human survival. This response helps to let us know when we are in danger and can then trigger us to take steps to protect ourselves and get out of the dangerous situation.

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. At some stage we will all experience a child telling a lie (big or small) - it is a natural and normal part of development. However, this doesn’t mean that it is right, or something that we ignore, but it is something that we need to appreciate is quite a complicated concept for our children to understand. I will go into this a bit more below, but if you think about lying and what goes around this you will see what I mean when I say it is complicated!

Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant. This is a very common question that lots of parents ask. These battles are in relation to everyday things such as getting them to clean their teeth, put their shoes on etc. as well as things like not wanting to go to certain places or just refusing to be cooperative in general!

The first thing we need to do in these situations is to look at what’s happening from their perspective; they are on their agenda and we are on ours, but neither party is considering the other. If your little one thinks that they are doing one thing and you think they need to be doing another, this can trigger a big outburst but also frustration from both sides. This is completely natural – think about how often, when we are told not to do something / how to do something or continually instructed to do things, we might get annoyed, frustrated and ultimately resistant to doing what we are being asked to do.