by Nick Paustian
Self-control – what every parent/carer needs to know about this essential skill, including why it matters, how it impacts a child’s behaviour and how we can best support our children now and into their future.
One of my favourite hikes ever. Maria Island - you are stunning!
Nov 13
Consequences are about repair and restoration, and putting things right. ‘You are such a great kid. I know you would never be mean on purpose but here we are. What happened? Can you help me understand? What might you do differently next time you feel like this? How can we put this right? Do you need my help with that?’
Punishment and consequences that don’t make sense teach kids to steer around us, not how to steer themselves. We can’t guide them if they are too scared of the fallout to turn towards us when things get messy.♥️
Oct 22
Anxiety is driven by a lack of certainty about safety. It doesn’t mean they aren’t safe, and it certainly doesn’t mean they aren’t capable. It means they don’t feel safe enough - yet.
The question isn’t, ‘How do we fix them?’ They aren’t broken.
It’s, ‘How do we fix what’s happening around them to help them feel so they can feel safe enough to be brave enough?’
How can we make the environment feel safer? Sensory accommodations? Relational safety?
Or if the environment is as safe as we can make it, how can we show them that we believe so much in their safety and their capability, that they can rest in that certainty?
They can feel anxious, and do brave.
We want them to listen to their anxiety, check things out, but don’t always let their anxiety take the lead.
Sometimes it’s spot on. And sometimes it isn’t. Whole living is about being able to tell the difference.
As long as they are safe, let them know you believe them, and that you believe IN them. ‘I know this feels big and I know you can handle this. We’ll do this together.’♥️
Oct 16
Research has shown us, without a doubt, that a sense of belonging is one of the most important contributors to wellbeing and success at school.
Yet for too many children, that sense of belonging is dependent on success and wellbeing. The belonging has to come first, then the rest will follow.
Rather than, ‘What’s wrong with them?’, how might things be different for so many kids if we shift to, ‘What needs to happen to let them know we want them here?’❤️
Oct 13
There is a quiet strength in making space for the duality of being human. It`s how we honour the vastness of who we are, and expand who we can be.
So much of our stuckness, and our children`s stuckness, comes from needing to silence the parts of us that don`t fit with who we `should` be. Or from believing that the thought or feeling showing up the loudest is the only truth.
We believe their anxiety, because their brave is softer - there, but softer.
We believe our `not enoughness`, because our `everything to everyone all the time` has been stretched to threadbare for a while.
We feel scared so we lose faith in our strength.
One of our loving roles as parents is to show our children how to make space for their own contradictions, not to fight them, or believe the thought or feeling that is showing up the biggest. Honour that thought or feeling, and make space for the `and`.
Because we can be strong and fragile all at once.
Certain and undone.
Anxious and brave.
Tender and fierce.
Joyful and lonely.
We can love who we are and miss who we were.
When we make space for `Yes, and ...` we gently hold our contradictions in one hand, and let go of the need to fight them. This is how we make loving space for wholeness, in us and in our children.
We validate what is real while making space for what is possible.
Oct 12
