The Parent Collaborative

10/07/2025

As we head towards the summer holidays, we wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone in Bath who has continued to offer us support throughout this year. Bath is definitely a city that keeps on giving and we are enormously grateful🙏

We also wanted to thank every single parent who has reached out over the past year. We are very aware of how much courage it takes to admit to wanting to initiate change. We are constantly blown away by parents who look to find the support that is right for their family, so they in turn can offer support to their own children. It is such a privilege to work with parents and it is one we never take for granted.

We wish you all a very happy summer and look forward to re-connecting, in person, in September.

04/07/2025

03/07/2025

Thankful Thursday

Our theme this week has been looking at the end of the school year.

This without doubt brings up a certain amount of emotions and feelings for our children – not for all children by any means, but certainly for some. For some, it may have taken a long time for them to feel settled, for others the safety of what they know and trust is about to be tested as they move on to another setting. What we know as adults, is that all emotions need to be accepted and our children listened to and heard.

What about us, the parent though? Change, in whatever form, can feel unsettling and in some cases even threatening.

So – on , let’s hold on to the fact that the end of term may bring up feelings for us that we hadn’t anticipated. Whatever those feelings are – let’s look at what they are, how they show up and how they make us feel. We need to sit with the emotions in order to try to understand them. As with all feelings, they will pass – but they do first of all have to be acknowledged!

Here's to all parents out there – the end of term has a habit of gathering pace and a certain intensity – and is upon us before we have really had time to register it’s approaching! A bit like the morning routine in fact – who doesn’t believe that time in the morning when we are trying to get to school, goes quicker than during any other part of the day?!!

02/07/2025

With you Wednesday

As we come towards the end of the Summer Term, we come towards the end of working with the parents we have been helping to support this term. As with many goodbyes, there’s a real mixture of emotions. Parent have come along, looking for a whole range of different types of support and once this support is fully in place, they are then in a position to run with the next stage of their parenting journey.

This was one of the many reasons The Parent Collaborative came into being – to stand alongside parents – cheering them on whilst giving them knowledge and empowerment to parent in the way that they instinctively wanted to, but maybe weren’t sure how to do.

From what parents tell us, we know that things need to change – that people are struggling – it’s totally understandable – we get training in pretty much every other area of life! So, we applaud parents for reaching out and asking for support. If we are a small part of making change happen and helping parents see that they can be the parents they want to be, we would feel truly honoured.

On , check out some of the ways in which we can help, by clicking the link in our bio. We are here for you, to work collaboratively with you, to help you parent joyfully – find us at The Garden Apartment, 8 The Paragon, Bath BA1 5LX.

01/07/2025

Top Tips Tuesday

A few top tips on helping our children deal with the end of the school year:

· Have the conversation with our children about the end of the school year. We can often be surprised by answers they give us. Avoiding the conversation means we can miss out on understanding about how our children are feeling. Reading books with them on the topic can be a really helpful way for children to process the event

· Let our children be and feel sad about saying goodbye – it’s okay to be sad when something we value comes to an end, feeling sad for something is a way of showing empathy, it’s a positive thing. However, don’t be surprised if a child doesn’t appear to have any really strong feelings at all!

· Look to mark our children leaving a setting by making something with them. This could be a thank you card for a teacher for example or making a snack for all the children in the class

· Show them how much they have changed and grown – spend time with a photo album or two, showing them times when they started something new or said goodbye to friends in one place and made new ones in another. Talk to them about visible change (such as loss of teeth/new haircuts) as well as invisible change, such as being more confident or having new skills

· If a child is moving schools, it can help to work on something like a scrap book or journal with them over the summer, putting together things that they do in the holidays alongside building up an understanding of what their new setting is going to be.

30/06/2025

Montessori Monday

As we approach the end of another academic year, we thought it would be helpful if we looked at endings – and in particular the end of the school year.

Every school is different, they mark the end of the year in their own way. For some children, it is the end of Nursery, for others it is a move from one school to another. For some children, endings are harder than they are for others. Whatever and however our children are feeling about the end of the school year, it’s important that it is acknowledged in some way.

In many Montessori settings they have a ‘graduation’ for all those children who are moving on – it is a celebration of development, of all the things that the children have accomplished to get them to this point – it’s not about academics.

As teachers, the end of the year was a real mixture of emotions. Sadness at saying goodbye to children, mixed in with huge pride at seeing all the different ways the children in our setting had developed over the year. It’s the same for children – they will be processing what is going on in different ways. That’s why it’s important to talk about the emotions that come up, alongside talking about how endings can be exciting. They are definitely worth celebrating because more often than not, they lead to growth!

27/06/2025

Fun Friday

However much thought and planning goes into family life, there are always going to be moments when the question “REALLY?” just pops out😂 (It’s normally followed by the name of one particular child!!!)

On , we are not in any way advocating not looking to understand what is going on behind behaviour – what we try to encourage everyone to remember, is to hunt out the good stuff – and laughter is definitely part of that package!

So, to all parents as they head into the weekend, here’s to you and hoping that in amongst all that needs to get done, there are plenty of opportunities for time together and as much laughter and fun as possible🤗

26/06/2025

Thankful Thursday

For many parents, managing expectations over the summer break is a huge exercise in juggling and one which can leave parents exhausted before the holidays even start.

That’s why remembering to hold on to one really important fact can be a godsend. Our children don’t need perfection – whether that’s the (non-existent) perfect parent, a perfectly tidy house, a perfect holiday or doing perfect activities. They want us – their parent – we are the parent they need. So, whilst managing expectations can, without doubt, leave us questioning and sometimes a bit unsure, that’s ok. Invest in the relationship we have with our children by giving them our time – as much of it as we can.

25/06/2025

With you Wednesday

Managing expectations over the summer holidays is our theme of the week. The long summer break is nearly here again – it has yet again raced around! It is understandable that this is a topic that we speak to a lot of parents about.

When we first set up The Parent Collaborative, we tried to encapsulate what our aim was. Anyone who knows me well, knows that a pithy “one liner” is always something I struggle with😂 What we came up with, was the idea of “Supporting parents to support their children”. People on occasion do still look fairly blankly at me when I use this phrase! However, It is when we go on to talk about the different reasons that parents access support that people get a better understanding of what we do.

Whether parents are stuck in a pattern of behaviour with their children, whether they are looking for support to put in a framework that will allow them to parent in the way they want to, whether they want to stop shouting at their children, whether they are looking for understanding of child development or whether they just want to rediscover the joy in parenting – our aim is to listen, to understand and to use our distilled knowledge of children, parenting and child development to work together to find a way through that works for each, individual family.

We’re in Bath Monday to Wednesday – we work on a 1:1 in person basis with parents, we offer phone support and we work with groups of parents either during our Collaborative Parent courses or at the Collaborations we put on with other individuals or companies. So on – as always, hold on to the fact that you are not on your own – we’re here – in Bath – so get in touch – we feel privileged that we are able to be a very small part of the parenting journey for those who reach out🥰

24/06/2025

Top Tips Tuesday

Some top tips for Managing Expectations for the Summer Holidays:

• Working out what is important, for us, as adults, is a great place to start. Let’s take the time to sit down and ask ourselves what we would like the summer break to look like – for us - initially. We can then extend the conversation to include our children. However, when we are clear of something in our own minds, we can then look to how to put this into practice with our children – it allows us to parent INTENTIONALLY.
• Let’s remember to ask ourselves if what we are expecting of our children is reasonable – developmentally and age appropriate – and if so, whether we have communicated our expectations clearly and concisely and whether we are being consistent with them. Getting buy-in from our children is always going to make navigating situations easier.
• Whilst not having the structure of the school routine gives us more freedom, it can bring with it its own set of issues. This is why knowing what we do and don’t want to end up doing/being is helpful – boundaries and limits are still important. They provide security and predictability for children. A structure – albeit a looser one than we may ordinarily have in place, can be helpful – alongside holding onto the idea of this structure allowing in flexibility.
• Remembering the power of our family working as a team. It’s not all down to one person to do everything – we have to work together to get things done.
• Always schedule in time outside in Nature – a great motto is
“When in doubt, add “outside” ☀️🌧️☔️💧🌈

expectations

23/06/2025

Montessori Monday

As we start the steady build up to the long summer break, we thought we would look at the idea of managing expectations – something a parent has to do a lot along the way – both for themselves as well as for their children.

Looking at the theme from a Montessori perspective, we can see that In a Montessori setting, a huge part of managing expectations is pre-done for the teacher (guide), by the setting itself. A Montessori teacher and classroom are able to rely on the years and years that Maria Montessori spent observing children, and the information that this revealed about child development. There is a purpose behind the Montessori materials she devised, as well as a purpose behind the “prepared environment” and the “prepared adult”. Add to this the idea of meeting each and every child where they are at and it means that the idea of comparison and competition are, to all intents and purposes, removed from the equation. The expectation is that a child wants to learn and will learn, at the pace and in the way, that is best suited to them.

When we consider the summer break in the same sort of way, let’s hold on to the fact that there is not one single way to “holiday”. Parents know their children better than anyone else - when we remember this, and allow ourselves to “do” summer our way, it not only removes us from feeling that we are somehow not doing it as well as others, but also allows us to celebrate our family for who we all are. This is a huge gift that we can give to ourselves, and in so doing, we lay down foundations of Managing Expectations whilst modelling this to our children alongside🙌

20/06/2025

Fun Friday

Our theme this week has been the importance of order and structure in our lives.

Getting our children on board with this early on, when it chimes with their innate need for these two concepts, will be life skills that they take with them into adulthood.

An untidy bedroom can often be par for the course (for many children), in teenage years - it doesn’t need to lead to labels of them being thoughtless or selfish (or whatever other words that may spring to mind!) – it is often just not that important to them at that time! They’ll come back to it when they’re ready – much more so, if it is something that is encouraged and instilled in them from an early age. Remembering the power of coaching, rather than telling our children what to do, being prepared to work with them, rather than against them, and throwing in a dose of laughter helps to get us through most situations! A friend’s husband was so appalled by one of our teenage children’s bedrooms that he kept it as his screen saver😂 That child is now the tidiest of all my 4!!

Happy Friday everyone🤗

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