Episode 9 - Surviving Christmas
Surviving Christmas
This week’s episode is with Elaine and I, your hosts of this podcast and business partners. I first met Elaine when she was struggling to understand her son’s needs and to support him. I was the parenting coach to the Halligan family and am delighted to have witnessed Sam metamorphose from the troubled state he was in at 7 years old to a happy, confident and successful young adult. Elaine and I have enjoyed many years of working together and 10 years as co-directors of The Parent Practice. So we thought it would be nice to wrap up this first season of podcasts by doing something together, despite being on opposite ends of the earth!
By the wonders of modern technology we bring you our Christmas special! (Even if you don’t celebrate any festival at this time of year I think you will find some useful ideas and tips in here.)
Listen to this episode with Elaine and I if you want to learn:
How to resist pester power in our very consumerist society
About getting clear on what your values are
How the 4 gift rule can put a cap on parental spending at Christmas
How to encourage gratitude in children and a culture of appreciation in the family
How perfectionism can make festive periods stressful and unreasonable expectations can lead to us shouting at our children
How to deal with critical relatives
How to set things up through chat throughs and role plays so that children behave in ways a bit closer to our expectations
How important it is for parents to prepare (get in training) physically and emotionally before times when there are a lot of demands on us
How to get your partner on board and share the load fully
In our celebration of vulnerability and perfect imperfection I share one of my own Low Parenting Moments and what I learnt about parenting in public as a result.
And Elaine also shares her top tip for raising children to be confident, happy and successful.
Links
To get in touch with us:
the parent practice on facebook and on instagram