ROSE Therapy Centre

14/03/2023

13/03/2023

Struggling with handwriting? Try these tips & tricks.

08/03/2023

Early intervention 🤍

21/02/2023

16/02/2023

My favourite home based exercises to boost those little hands and develop those fine motor skills.

16/02/2023

My favourite home based exercises to boost those little hands and develop those fine motor skills.

07/02/2023

Some finemotor activites to boost those little hands

19/09/2021

Go play!!!

14/09/2021

Reading a paragraph without losing their place, copying a list of homework from the chalkboard, misalignment of vertical and horizontal numbers in math problems, confusion in interpreting written direction, mixing up left/right, persistent letter reversals…Does any of this sound familiar? It’s all visual tracking!
👁 👁

Red flags, tips & tricks for visual tracking challenges:
https://www.theottoolbox.com/visual-tracking-tips-and-tools-for/

13/07/2021

“MOM, WHAT IF THE FIRES COME CLOSER… WHAT IF THEY DON’T STOP?…”

“Will the bad people go to jail?”
“How long will they go to jail for?”
“Who will take them to jail and how do they do that?”
“Why are these people burning things, mom?”

Last night at dinner time I asked my kids if they had any questions… I asked them how they were feeling with all that they had sensed during the day…

They did have questions… lots of them… but the answers didn’t really matter… What mattered… what always matters to all of our children, is that they know that WE GET IT… REALLY get it… That we understand…

That alone is often enough to significantly quiet their anxieties…

You may not have the answers to all of your children’s questions… And that’s absolutely okay…

I used these steps last night… The same ones I always do in difficult times…

1. Get down to your child’s eye level or below their eye level. Your aim is to connect- not to be a voice of authority.

2. Check that you’ve understood their concern… “You’re wondering what will happen if the fires come closer to our home?”

3. Reflect the emotion behind the question or comment… “You’re feeling really scared/ worried/ anxious” (Use your parenting gut and attunement with your child here… If you’ve misunderstood or got the emotion wrong, believe me, they will tell you!)

4. Mirror their emotion with your entire body language, facial expressions and tone of voice as you say the words above… No one feels really understood when emotions are verbally reflected from behind a neutral face!

5. Allow a few moments for pause at this point…

6. Normalize the emotion. “It’s so normal to be feeling sad/scared/worried/ confused at a time like this. We are all feeling a little like that.” (All of these emotions came up around our dinner table tonight)

7. Answer truthfully, factually and age appropriately, and if you don’t know the answer, it’s okay to tell them that too. Use a neutral, calm and supportive voice. Remind them of the people trying to help and who are in place to keep them safe. “I don’t know exactly when the fires will stop, my love, but I do know that we have lots of people who are doing everything they can to keep them from coming near to us. We have policemen and women, the army, and community members who are all helping us.”

8. Remember you can’t fix- that’s not a parent’s job. Our children don’t need fixing or fixers. Most importantly they need to feel understood. Connection is the product of understanding. Safety is the product of connection. And a sense of safety is what we all need right now.

So many questions… I honestly thought my two would lie awake for ages pondering through them… We chatted through a few more questions and reflections once they were in bed, and within minutes they were both asleep…

Don’t be scared of the questions… You don’t need to have the answers… Just be the parent who gets the emotion behind the questions… The one who really understands…

Naomi ♥️

Naomi Holdt
Psychologist and Speaker

30/04/2021