Relax Kids with Grainne - Fintona

Phrases to Teach Your Child to Stand Up for Themselves

CREDIT GoZen: Anxiety Relief for Children

🪣💕 Building a child's sense of self-worth starts at home…then continues at school and any other place that a child goes to learn and grow.

Creating safe, warm, and connected places where a child can express themselves, take risks, learn from mistakes and explore their passions and interests is a fundamental part of creating mentally healthy and happy kiddos!

♡

❤️❤️❤️

Go to the crying child. Especially the child under 7. The wrong coloured pencil, the sand in their shoe, the book that they didn’t want to read - it is all a big deal to them.

Think about the life experiences they have had. They haven’t experienced what we have and therefore have no frame of reference for how big their problem objectively is.

Their brain is also still in the egocentric stage of development, where everything is all about them.

Plus, their prefrontal cortex isn’t anywhere near as developed as an adult’s, meaning they do not have the ability to regulate themselves, or are only just beginning to learn this.

Dismissing their feelings (e.g. “you get what you get and you don’t get upset”…) or leaving them to deal with their emotions on their own stays with them. They may not be able to explicitly recall being left to cry on their own, but it will be stored in their brain and body along with other similar experiences (in their implicit memory), and contribute to their core beliefs (schemas), perceptions, and assumptions about the world as they grow up.

Meeting a child’s feelings with shame, ridicule or punishment also puts their nervous system under stress and their brain in a more reactive state, meaning they will remain in a heightened state and be more likely to become upset or triggered again.

There is just too much research and evidence behind this for it to be ignored.⠀
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If a child is upset, go to them.

And as always - parents, teachers, anyone caring for children - you won’t get it right 100% of the time. We are all still learning and doing the best we can with the resources we have.

This week we are supporting Mental Health Awareness Week, focussing on loneliness 💜

Loneliness can be due to many factors and feelings of loneliness are different for everyone. No two people's experience of loneliness will be the same. 💜

Combine compassion with over-responsibility-taking and it’s highly likely you tend to blame *yourself* every time things don’t work out.

Including blaming yourself for things that involved other people (who didn’t hold up to *their* end of the bargain).

But somehow the only person you see at fault is you.

Ugh.

Without boundaries, things can get really twisted really fast.

When you believe you’re supposed to be perfect (and get everything perfect), the suffering is real.

Blame and shame and anxiety swirl around to create an inner tornado of critical thoughts and expectations that seem impossible to escape from.

What’s the solution?

Boundaries.

Both inside and out.

Because you don’t have to keep taking responsibility for stuff that belongs to other people.

As you discover where the lines are, you’ll finally know with clarity what is your responsibility and what isn’t.

And you don’t have to be tormented by the belief that it’s all on you when everything doesn’t go perfectly.

After all, you’re just a cute little human.

But you gotta learn how to give yourself permission to be one.

❤️

Molly

PS. It’s possible to have happy healthy boundaries with others (and inwardly too, with thoughts and emotions!). If you’d like to do a deep dive into boundaries, you might love my 8-week online intensive for women.

To learn more, check out the free introductory class: http://boundaried.com

PPS. If this might be something you’d love but you’re not a woman, I have good news. A non-gendered intensive is coming soon! Message me to get your name on the list for updates on times/dates/details.

Happy Easter, hope you have a wonderful day! 🥚🍫🐇🐣🌼

Relax Kids are giving away some wonderful freebies for Easter -Please share with all your friends.

Our Free Easter Pack is now available to download! 🐣🐇💜🍫🥚

Download your copy here:
https://relaxkids.com/store/free-downloads/easter/

Our kids are listening.

They hear you talk about what you really think about their school teacher.

They know what you say about their aunt when you leave the family gathering.

They know what you think about someone who looks or acts differently because they heard the way you giggled or sneered about that person in the grocery store.

You can read all the books on kindness to them. You can talk their ear off on the value of kindness. But when they hear you judge and shame, gossip or ridicule, you’re normalizing it for them. You are teaching them that it is OK.

Kids don’t learn how to tease or bully in a vacuum. Gossip, disrespect or cruelty don’t come naturally. They are learned behaviors. And many of them learn it in their very own home.

Because our kids are listening.

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💜

Supporting World Autism Awareness Day 💜

Wishing all the Mothers and surrogate mothers, who are celebrating Mother's Day today, a wonderful day full of love and light 💜

💜🌈GOOD NEWS ALERT🌈💜

Relax Kids has been recognised for its outstanding programmes. We are officially accredited!

💜🧦 Raising awareness and supporting World Down Syndrome Day 2022 🧦💜

Today marks . This year's theme is 'Happiness For All Forever' - Let's spread joy and happiness to everyone we know and everyone who we meet along the way.

Help us raise as much awareness for this special day!

Happy St Patrick's Day! 💜

Always end the day with a positive thought.

I think about this all the time. Trust me, you are not putting ideas in their heads. This has been the same since Little House on the Prarie Days, but the Internet has made it 8 bajillion times worse. You can be their source, or the world can. You get to choose every single day. Make it count.

Love this❤️

Probably the most important thing I've learned...

Our mission is to give children and young people the tools they need to help them manage stress and anxiety and to be more “resourceful when facing the challenges of daily life.
We support parents, teachers and those working with children and young people through our quality resources and training. We want children, young people and their families to feel happier, more positive and empowered with skills for life!

Great fun with the fab P3s in St Lawrence’s today as we learnt all about our elephant🐘, owl🦉and meerkat brain🧠!

Here’s to strong women-may we know them, may we be them, may we raise them💜

Today is International Women's Day, raising awareness of bias and equality 💜

Have you noticed when you’re feeling down or anxious that it becomes so easy to only notice things that make you feel worse?
It’s so easy to go down that thought spiral and your focus shifts to all the things you don’t want or like.

Where we put our focus is a powerful tool to harness. Remember that not all thoughts are true, and not all thoughts deserve our attention.

If you’d like to dive deeper into your own thinking styles, inner critic, unhelpful habits and more; you can join my upcoming 6 week Personal Development program.

Just a few spots left. We begin at the end of this month. Link to join in my bio or in my website.