Breathing Space Honley

08/01/2026

21/12/2025

The brighter days are on their way.

14/12/2025

🎁 Looking for a meaningful gift for a child or teen?
Here are a few of my absolute favourites — books that truly support emotional wellbeing, confidence, and understanding 💛✨
📘 For children & teens:
The Big Life Journal (Alexandra Eidens) or You are Awesome (Matthew Syed)are both brilliant options. They encourage a growth mindset and the first one comes in several age-appropriate versions. They are fun, practical, and help young people build resilience in a really empowering way. 🌱💪
👨‍👩‍👧 For parents & carers:
Two books I recommend again and again:
💛 There’s Still No Such Thing as Naughty — Kate Silverton
💛 The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read — Philippa Perry
Both are compassionate, insightful, and genuinely transformative.
👧👦 For parents of tweens & teens:
13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Do by Amy Morin offers great guidance for supporting young people through tricky stages with calm, clarity and confidence. 🌟
🌈 For families with children who have additional needs:
We Are Not Seeing It by Luisa Grey is quickly becoming essential reading. It’s validating, practical and incredibly helpful — whether your child has a diagnosis or you simply suspect they might need extra support.
I hope this gives you some inspiration for Christmas stockings, birthdays, or “just because” gifts. 🎄📚💫
If you’d like to chat about any of these or need personalised recommendations, please feel free to get in touch — I’m always happy to help 💬💖

11/12/2025

Happy Christmas Jumper day 2025, we are joining in and making a donation to Save the Children which does such amazing work all around the world.

10/12/2025

One of the tools we love using at Space is the Feelings Wheel 🎡💛
Helping children build a rich emotional vocabulary isn’t just a “nice to have” — research shows that young people who can name their feelings are better able to understand, express, and manage them. 🌈🧠
When kids have the words, they’re no longer overwhelmed by the “big blur” of emotions. Instead, they can say:
“I’m frustrated,” “I’m nervous,” “I’m excited,” or “I’m hurt”… and that’s where real emotional growth begins. 🌱✨
If you know a child or teen who might benefit from strengthening these skills, feel free to use the resource below — or reach out. We’re always here to support your young person’s emotional wellbeing. 💬💛

10/12/2025

Don't forget to look after yourself!

Important 👇💙

Teachers and education staff are caring and conscientious, so it can be easy to end up saying yes to every request.

Read our resource for tips on setting boundaries in schools: https://ow.ly/sGgw50XFBAV

📸 IG: BlessingManifesting

05/12/2025

Here at Breathing Space, we often use CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) with children and young people 🌱✨
CBT helps them understand how their thoughts, feelings, and behaviours all connect — and how those patterns can influence the way they think, feel, and act in everyday life. 🧠💬
It’s just one of several therapeutic approaches we use to support emotional wellbeing, build coping skills, and help young people feel more confident and in control. 💛
If you’d like to know more about CBT, or about the other ways we support children and adolescents, we’re always happy to chat.

02/12/2025

What a lovely surprise! Look who called in for a chat and a cuppa this afternoon!

26/11/2025

This looks amazing. Some great advice.

12/11/2025

Here at Breathing Space Honley we often get asked for book suggestions especially around this time of year so below are a few of my favourites. The first two ‘You are awesome’ and ‘big life journal’ are great gifts for kids and help them to develop a growth mindset and self-esteem. The others are for parents, and I’ve found them to be accessible and practical. Comment below if you’ve read any of them and whether you agree.

04/11/2025

We were proud to be part of this national campaign to raise awareness for SEND children & families. Here at Breathing Space Honley we work with lots of children for whom school has been at least difficult and often traumatic. It was a real privilege to come alongside these lovely people and hear their incredible stories.

Families gathered in Huddersfield angry over SEND system

23/10/2025

No one ever behaves better by being made to feel worse!

A study by the university of Manchester has found that one in twelve secondary pupils report being put in isolation at least once a week at school. Here’s the problem with that.

Isolation is a punishment. It removes children from their peer group and from lessons, confines them to a room by themselves. The idea is that this will work as a deterrent, so their behaviour will be better when they return to the classroom. Schools say they need it because otherwise these children disrupts the class for everyone else. It’s a short term solution. Remove the child from the class.

There is no evidence that it works in the long term. Isolation is not an evidence based intervention. Indeed there are many reasons to think it might not work - isolation rooms are often full of repeat offenders, with some children spending significant periods of time there. If a child doesn’t comply with the rules for isolation, the punishment is usually another day of isolation. Some end up there for weeks on end. Their behaviour does not improve as a result.

Imagine what this would feel like as an adult. You do something wrong at work, and they stop you from interacting with your colleagues and walking freely round the building. They confine you to a single room where no one talks to you and give you mundane tasks to do to keep you occupied. How would it make you feel about work? Would it make you more motivated to do well?

Isolation damages the child’s relationship with school, and ignores the reasons why they have not met behavioural expectations. It assumes that children can simply choose to behave differently, and that isolation will provide the motivation. It is often part of the pathway towards stopping attending school or exclusion. It can make things worse and there’s no evidence that it makes things better. And that’s the problem with isolation.