Seeking self, dropping anchor

It's a new year and a lot of families are managing an array of big changes including kids starting daycare/preschool/school/high school or kids moving into a new year with new teachers, classrooms and peers.  Change is just one of those things that naturally tends to produce some degree of discomfort for most people (the unknown is not a popular place to be) and this becomes even more complex when a parent is a bystander of their child facing change - cue anxiety!  A lot of parents (myself included) already begin preparing their child for the change well before it's even taken place. In the circumstance of school changes, the lead up is often filled with social stories, orientation visits, play dates, books, meetings with teachers, new backpacks, lunch box prep and so on. These are not bad things, in fact they can be really helpful, but can you see how much energy is already being directed towards managing the change for the child? Before the school year has even begun our min...

I’ve been working with quite a few couples at the moment around the challenges of co-parenting. It’s caused me to reflect on the concept of triangles & how this pattern can be so complex in scenarios where parental separation has occurred. A triangle is when a third party is pulled into a strained dyad in an attempt to manage & calm the stress within the dyad. So in co-parenting situations this is often a strained parent relationship, pulling a third (a child) in. Two examples I often see are: a child witnessing parent conflict/tension & responding with symptoms of illness or big behaviours which can unite the parents temporarily as they focus on supporting the child. a parent criticising the other parent to the child or pulling them into choosing a side, again temporarily relieving the parents stress as they feel validation or a sense of an ‘inside position’ with the child, putting the other parent on the ‘outer’. What can happen for the child over time is a hyper sensitiv...