Posts

Showing posts from June, 2023

Coping with distress?

Image
I wonder what this picture evokes for you? A lot of you will know this face well… whether it be your own child, your niece/nephew, grandchild or child your work with. Does it produce some discomfort? Do you want to soothe them, do you want to look away? I use this picture as an example of the incredible challenge of learning how to tolerate another’s distress for the purposes of enabling them to develop their own sense of self and life enhancing skill set. As a sleep deprived parent who has recently spent time teaching a 7 month old how to settle themselves to sleep I feel the emotion of this picture acutely. Sleep training is a great example of an instance where a parent is required to put their own distress of seeing their baby upset to one side for the sake of teaching the child a very important & necessary life skill, sleep When we rush in to “fix” every time our child (or anyone) is upset we are not giving them the very valuable opportunity of learning how to regulate themselv...