As a pre-school teacher and then a primary school principal, my staff and I found many creative and intelligent ways to help families overcome the heartbreaking challenges of separation anxiety.   The key focus in separation anxiety is in supporting the transference of trust and safety from parent to school. And this will nearly always be done by building the quality of the relationship the child experiences in the school environment.  By increasing a child's sense of belonging and sense of connectedness at school, their willingness to stay at school and explore new challenges increases.  This lesson gives you examples of what to do, and how to empower yourself to do that, in spite of a school that ignores your requests for support. You don't have to wait for the school to sort this out. Take charge and make it happen!

You want your child to be more polite and respectful. But how do you get that? And how do you get her to feel inspired to take on that challenge? Robin shows you the results of a problem solving session where she rated herself at a 4 out of 10 in being respectful at the beginning of the session, and ended off with a big smile and inspired by the possibilty of being 10 out of 10 and a role model for her family!  Read more...

We were driving home from school when Cailin wanted her lunch box. When she was finished eating she asked me from the back seat to take the box as she had no space in the back.  I said to her: “Babes, please keep the box with you or find another space until we get home to put it for now as mommy needs to concentrate whilst driving”.  The next minute this pink lunch box came flying past me as she threw it towards the front of the car.  I pulled off to the side of the road, turned to Cailin and said in a firm voice: “Cailin, this is not on. Mommy is now angry with you for not listening to me when I asked you to keep the box with you for now. When we goe home we can discuss this again when Mommy will be ready to talk…

Our before work and school morning routine was not really working for me in that my focus was constantly around getting Jane ready for school at her pace and then having to rush to get myself dressed and looking respectable in the remaining few minutes that were granted to me so that we left on time. I decided that I would address the issue by first acknowledging Jane’s feelings around not wanting to get dressed as soon as she wakes up and not wanting to eat breakfast until I was dressed and then establishing some sort of a contract with her as a solution to the morning ‘’flow’’ issue. I acknowledged that I understood that she does not like being rushed out of bed on a cold winter’s morning to immediately get dressed and I acknowledged that she does not like to sit and eat breakfast alone while I play…

Niki and her friend Ammie were making a cake, but both wanted to be first at pouring the milk in the bowl. Niki: you're always first Ammie: no you're always first, I want to be first Mom, using the skills of describing the problem. Hey guys, I see two children who both want to pour milk in and there is only one bowl. How can we find a way to make this work? Ammie: I've got a brilliant idea! At my house you can be first and at you're house, I can be first, ok? Niki: Ok. Even though it’s not quite the answer that I would have wanted, it was still creative and seemed to work for them. No fighting.

Johanna (aged 5) and Emily (aged 8) began arguing about a teddy bear that each child was convinced was theirs. My support and belief in their individual stories was exuberantly campaigned.  I listened for a while and thought about how I was going to support the girls in resolving this conflict on their own. Ruth:  ‘’It seems that both of you think that the teddy bear is yours. I have never seen that teddy bear before so I think that it would be best if you two find a solution to this problem.  I know that you can sort things out.’’ I then left their space and continued with what I was doing. After about 10 minutes I heard laughter and went back to the girls. Ruth: ‘’I can see that you have both sorted out your problem. Johanna & Emily (smiling): ‘’Yes and we didn’t need you.’’ Ruth: ‘’Great,…

We were outside enjoying the sunshine over the weekend when I suggested to Jane (age 5) and Betty (age 8) that we put down a blanket so that I could do the henna tattoos on their tummies that they had been asking for. Both girls immediately expressed that they wanted to be painted first. I just listened, hoping they would resolve the conflict on their own – they did not. I started by acknowledging that I understood that they both liked to be first and asked them how they thought we could solve this so that both girls were happy and without me having to find the solution for them. They both thought for a while and then went straight back to ‘’I want to be first’’. I felt that they were not going to be able to find a solution on their own so I offered them ideas on…

Chad was a child who had trouble expressing his anger and the parents informed me that there was a lot of sibling rivalry between him and his younger sister. Chad often hit children and we had already tried all of the skills. There came a day when I took Chad outside, to a quite place. “Chad it looks like you have quite a few friends and you love playing with all of them. I notice that one of your best friends is Ashwin and you guys play with the cars mst of the morning. At times, it also looks like that some of the other children seem to annoy you and that makes you want to make them go away. It seems that as you do this, some children are getting hurt. We now need to think about how else we can support you to make sure everyone is treated…