How to keep brothers and sisters happy with Yvonne Newbold

Friday 04 October 2019
10:00 to 12:30

Do you have a child with an additional need who needs a lot of extra care, and if so, do you worry about the impact this may have on your other children, both now and any long-term effects it may have?

Many parents share these concerns and trying to juggle everyone’s needs can be exhausting too. Sometimes the needs of the child with an additional need has to take overall priority, perhaps because they need regular medical or therapeutic intervention, or because they need physical help or support in understanding day to day life or to enable them to communicate effectively.

In some families, a child may have challenging behaviour too such as having violent outbursts where they lash out or they can become destructive or controlling. When this happens, it can have a significant and detrimental impact on their brothers and sisters. However, there are lots of things we can do as parents to minimise both the immediate and the long-term effects on our children

All most parents want if for their children to be happy, but sometimes the needs of the children in the same family can be so different that it feels almost impossible to meet these needs.

If any of this sounds familiar, please come along to this Workshop if you possibly can. You’ll meet lots of other parents coping with very similar issues, and it will give you a chance to step back and reflect on your family situation while learning some very helpful strategies that you can put in place straight away to make things easier for your whole family

What will the Workshop cover?

We will look at some of the most common issues that your other children may be dealing with on a day to day basis and explore ways to make things easier for them.

The issues could be things like

• A child being in constant fear of being hurt

• Developing negative feelings about their brother or sister

• Developing negative feelings about themselves

• Poor self-esteem

• Social isolation from peer group

• Potential bullying

• How to achieve a fairer allocation of one-to-one time with each child

• Potential for copying negative behaviours

• Long term mental-health damage, including self-esteem & confidence

• Plus many many more issues and concerns

So we'll be looking at -

Family dynamics and how to make them work better, including the dynamics of step-family relationships too.

• Sibling rivalry, resentments and jealousies, common issues that occur in every family, but which take on a different level of concern when one child has an additional need or challenging behaviour.

• How to ensure there is plenty of time to talk together and to step back and reflect on our own family situation, as well as sharing our own stories and hearing from others about strategies that may have worked will with their children.

• Ways to create as happy a childhood as possible for all our children, despite the ever-present difficulties that the extra responsibility of parenting a child with additional needs can bring

• How we explain our child’s difficulties to their brothers and sisters, and why it’s important to encourage on-going conversations about the family situation.

• How we discuss our family situation with others outside the family, including family, friends and professionals, to ensure that our children are appropriately supported by others.

• How to design a safety plan, and how to manage crises

By the end of the session you should leave with some ideas and strategies to implement at home, and with a greater understanding of your own family dynamic and how it functions, and how you can strengthen it to better support all your children.

Contact Jane
suttonparentsforum@outlook.com
020 3701 2175
Location
Church of the Good Shepherd
Queen Mary's Avenue
Carshalton Beeches
Surrey
SM5 4NP
(view map)
Cost Free but places must be booked