At times all parents feel lost or without a clue about what our child might need from us. Imagine what it might feel like if you were able to make sense of what your child was really asking from you. The Circle of Security® Parenting™ program is based on decades of research about how secure parent-child relationships can be supported and strengthened.

Using the COS model developed by the Circle of Security originators, Michelle, a qualified COS Facilitator, assists parents and caregivers to:

• Understand their child’s emotional world by learning to ‘read’ their needs

• Support their child’s ability to successfully manage emotions

• Enhance the development of their child's self esteem

• Honour the innate wisdom and desire for their child to be secure

NB. Michelle is also qualified to train professionals and educators in Circle of Security

Please contact Michelle for more information.

1-2-3 Magic and Emotion Coaching™ assists parents through simple methods to help children to self-manage their behaviour. Through information sessions, practical exercises, group discussions and brainstorming the course explores:

• ideas and principles about parenting

• patterns that develop in families and how to change unhelpful patterns

• a variety of tools for changing behaviour

Designed to assist parents to manage their child’s difficult behaviour such as tantrums, yelling, fighting and arguing, parents also learn practical skills to develop their child’s positive behaviour and help make parenting an enjoyable experience.

In response to an increase in parents’ concern about their child’s anxiety, No Scaredy Cats™ supports parents to reduce anxiety and build resilience in children aged 2 -12 years, while promoting anti-fragile thinking skills.

The No Scaredy Cats™ program is based on three underlying perspectives:

• by having an understanding of how anxiety develops parents can counter its progress

• parents can take a preventative role in the development of anxiety problems

• there are practical steps parents can learn to use to build resilience in their child.

For parents and carers with teenagers and children over 10 years.

Engaging Adolescents™ provides parents and carers with easy-to-use techniques to:

• enlist adolescents to manage their own behaviour problems and emotional reactions

• strengthen their relationship with their teenager

• deal with unacceptable behaviour while maintaining reasonable expectations of their adolescent

Parents will walk away with a new understanding of adolescents and a renewed sense of confidence about the role they can play in their teenagers’ lives, without conversations morphing into arguments.

What is this Circle of Security everyone’s talking about?

Could ‘time-in’ actually be better than ‘time-out’? How can I meet my child’s needs, stay calm and have a better relationship with my child?

Circle of Security Parenting™ is an 8-week parenting program based on 60 years of attachment research, focussing on meeting children’s needs, gaining a better relationship with, and understanding of each child.

If you would like to know more about the Circle of Security before you commit to the 8 weeks, then this introductory session is for you. This seminar is suitable for families, educators, social workers and anyone wishing to strengthen their relationship with children in their lives.

All parents have concerns about their child’s behaviour at some time or another. This seminar is designed to reassure and support families, in very practical ways, to develop strategies to guide their child’s behaviour, while strengthening their relationship with them, and will include:

• What is okay and what is not?

• Preventing the undesirable and encouraging the positive

• Strengthening our relationship with our child through emotional regulation

• Suitable strategies to manage daily challenges

Participants are given lots of opportunities to ask questions and discuss their specific concerns.

Please contact Michelle for more information.

Successful parenting is more than effectively guiding behaviour, it also requires supporting children to identify and regulate their emotions. In this seminar, we will consider ways to:

• Connect with our children when they are experiencing heightened emotions

• Strengthen our child’s emotional awareness

• Support our child to respond to emotions in socially appropriate ways

• Increase our child’s internal ability to cope with challenges and difficulties

Anxiety in children, is becoming a leading concern for parents, and for anyone involved in children’s lives. This workshop provides practical ideas for understanding and supporting children who struggle with fears and anxiety, to build their capacity for facing life’s difficulties, and to cope with anxious thoughts and reactions. It will include:

• An overview – what is anxiety and how is it different to fear?

• What is happening in the neural pathways?

• Strategies to help children to cope by reducing their arousal, and

• Ways adults can respond, rather than react, to support the child

Resilience is a foundation of skills which supports people to cope with life’s difficulties in a positive way; it is the ability to ‘bounce back’ or recover from life’s setbacks.

This seminar will examine:

• The factors and processes which contribute to the development of resilience

• How families can encourage resilience in their children

• Balancing building resilience with supporting children’s emotions

“Is my child ready?” seems to be the words on every parents’ lips as their child moves toward school age.

Should our focus be on ‘Transition’ rather than ‘Readiness’?

This seminar examines what research is telling us about what makes child ‘ready’, and what parents can do to promote a smooth transition to school and encourage their child’s readiness for lifelong learning.

As a parent and child protection educator, Michelle understands how parents may worry from time to time about keeping their child safe whilst allowing them the freedom to develop independence within their social setting. This workshop will help parents to consider some of the issues of child protection such as:

• Ways to communicate with your child about self-protection

• What about “Stranger Danger”?

• Avoiding unsafe people / situations

• How to identify if your child may be at risk

• How and when your child can say “No”

The messages children receive in the early years have a lasting impact on the way they feel about themselves. As parents, we need to ensure that the messages we give children will be positive and useful to them in developing images of themselves. This seminar helps us to examine what we can do to ensure our children grow up with every opportunity to develop a positive self-esteem.

Communicating with children involves more than just “talking” and “telling”.

This practical workshop assists parents to develop the skills they need to maximise their interactions with their young child, including communicating in ways that children will listen and follow instructions, as well as understanding the meaning of the child’s communications by effective, age appropriate listening.

This workshop is very popular with playgroups and family day care.

Young children learn by “doing”, by exploring with their senses. Adults can support this learning by providing creative art activities that ensure children have a wide variety of experiences with the emphasis on ‘doing’ rather than the end product.

Michelle is the author of the creative arts textbook Do And Learn.

This workshop discusses the social and emotional development of the 3 to 6 year old child and supports parents with issues which may seem to concern their children, such as friendships and disputes e.g. “You’re not my friend any more”; “I hate you”; “Why won’t they play with me?” and what to do if your child seems to prefer an isolated social environment.

Any significant changes at home or to the structure of the family unit can have an effect on young children. These changes may include moving to a new home, death of a loved one, separation, divorce or the arrival of a new baby or a new adult partner.

This seminar will help parents to prepare their child to better cope with the change, whether it is pleasant, sad or just difficult.

The aim of this course is to help parents better understand normal and expected stages in child’s development in the first five years and covers:

• Child development: 0-5 years

• What is ‘normal’ and what is not

• How can we encourage a child’s development?

• The role of play in development

• The stages of play

Play is the “work of young children”: it is the means by which they learn.

This workshop encourages the parent of the young child to take a fresh look at the activities they are providing for their child and how they can beneficially interact in the play to enhance their child’s development, including:

• The value of play

• The role of play in development

• The stages of play: 0 - 5 years

• Choosing age appropriate activities

• Utilising resources in the home for play

• Adults joining in the activities