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Help Me To Parent in The Media - Help Me To Parent Supporting Parents Every Step Of The WayTypesettingAUndertow  Click Here   What Parents Have Said   Site Search  Sign Up For FREE newsletterClick Here   Home About us Programmes/Courses Age 1 to 5 Age 6 to 11 Teenagers Pass Literacy On - Dyslexia Programme Stress & Mental Health Toolkit Exam Preparation Food Matters - A Guide to Wellness Coping With Life's Pressures Online Safety - For Parents Personal Development for Teenagers | Learn to be confident, Assertive & Feel Good Parenting After SeparationWaresPodcasts Contact Us   IN THE MEDIA - Click the link to read the wares that feature HELP ME TO PARENT... The Irish Times - May 25th 11 - Easing The Children's Heartache The Irish Times - May 25th 10 - OnUndertowforLargestParenting The Irish Times - May 25th 10 - Who's Training The Teenagers? IrishSelf-sustaining- May 18th 10 - Mick Jagger - Help with Tearaway Teen.... Extract from Irish Times Health Supplement - May 25th 2011 Easing The Children's Heartache WHEN PARENTS split up, it is not the separation itself but the way it is handled that really matters for any child unprotected in the middle. But harmonious co-parenting without separation can be extremely difficult, particularly in the firsthand produce when emotions are raw and grievances are stuff counted. It is vital a couple yank up a parenting plan – ideally surpassing they sit lanugo together to tell the children they are separating – so that they have the answers to questions such as how and when they are going to see both parents, who is going to take them to their sports and what will happen for holidays. Research shows that the biggest fears children have at the time of a family break-up is that they are going to lose contact with one parent, and the other is, “What is going to happen to me?” “When parents separate, the principal thing they should be thinking well-nigh is not dividing the house and who gets the Waterford Crystal, it should be well-nigh the kids,” says Martina Newe, director of Help Me to Parent and a family mediator. “If parents took note to behave in particular ways and stave other behaviour, it would really help children through it.” A parenting plan must focus on the children’s needs. “The less grey areas, the less room there is for conflict,” says Newe, who runs a one-day undertow on parenting without separation. “If you have thought well-nigh it and well-set it, then you are not going to have mismatch well-nigh it.” It is moreover good for a child to see separated parents working together in his or her weightier interests. “I am horrified by some of the stories I hear well-nigh people not letting the other half see the child, parental stoicalness syndrome and where a parent uses a child as a way to punish the other parent – that is so rabble-rousing for the child,” says Newe, a separated parent herself. The undertow focuses on how weightier to support children through separation and enable them to lead peaceful lives, enjoying their right to loving relationships with both parents. One Family, a national organisation for one-parent families, offers a number of services that can help separated people with their parenting. Although things can be washed-up differently in separate homes, estranged couples need to have a sense of shared values virtually their children, says Karen Kiernan, director of One Family. It has introduced a shared parenting course, which is run over six weeks, and moreover offers one-to-one parent mentoring, during which people can focus on the small issues. “Unless separation is amicable, they are not really going to want to spend time together,” acknowledges Kiernan. It is weightier if both people are willing to do some work but they don’t necessarily have to do it with each other. “It can be difficult if one parent is availing of services and the other parent isn’t engaging – we are looking at ways of getting the other parent involved.” One Family is developing a new undertow on co-operative parenting, as part of its work in piloting two child contact centres in Dublin, in conjunction with Barnardos, starting this autumn. There is usually a upper level of mismatch among parents who use contact centres, which facilitate a child’s time with the non-resident parent. The centres will offer family support. “The idea is that [clients] would then be worldly-wise to move on to normal, external contact without the need for a centre,” says Kiernan. “If they don’t avail of services, it is highly unlikely they will be worldly-wise to make those changes and move on.” It has wilt increasingly the norm in Ireland without separation for both parents to want to remain urgently involved with their children. In the past year there has been an scrutinizingly 50 per cent increase in child custody applications to the family law magistrate in Dolphin House, Dublin, equal to figures published last week by the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray, as well as an increase in magistrate applications referring to children. All sides, including many in the legal profession, recognise that resorting to magistrate whoopee to thrash out parenting issues is not salubrious for families. So, untied from a few tailored courses, where else can separating couples go for help? MEDIATION  The Family Support Agency offers a free, family mediation service, which is run in 16 offices virtually the Republic – as well as a newly-opened pilot project in Dolphin House. There is a waiting list for what is a part-time service and some of the offices are unshut only two days a week (see fsa.ie). For separating couples, parenting is usually a big part of what has to be negotiated, withal with finances and property, says the service’s eastern zone manager, Sheila Healy. People who have difficulty reaching an try-on when circumstances transpiration can moreover use the service. “The kind of situation you put in place when children are four or five is not going to be the same when they are 14 or 15,” says Healy. “It is something that needs to be brought for review, or that they can be flexible on between themselves.” In recent times, mediation staff have dealt with cases where one partner, usually the male, has had to go to the UK, the US or plane Australia for a job and the separated couple have to stipulate on a new way of parenting. There are moreover private mediation services and the weightier place to find a mediator is on the website of the Mediators’ Institute of Ireland (themii.ie), which is the only accrediting soul for what is a non-regulated service. “We bring the voice of the child into the room as a mediator,” says Claire Kearney, who represents the family sector on the MII council. “A separating couple may think that they are thinking well-nigh their children when in fact they may not be.” Mediators, she says, ask the difficult questions – ones the couple may be wrung to ask each other. COUNSELLING  The Marriage and Relationships Counselling Service (MRCS) is seeing increasingly people looking for help with parenting without separation. This is often many months without the break-up, when things are not working out, says counselling services manager Yvonne Jacobson. In some US states, counselling on future parenting is mandatory for separating couples who go to magistrate to settle their differences and she would like to see a similar measure here. “Kids have a tough time. I think the State should be ensuring that the weightier is washed-up for children,” she says. As well as counselling services, the MRCS moreover has a support group for separated persons, which meets monthly in the presence of a counsellor and where parenting issues commonly come up. (For increasingly information, see mcrs.ie or tel: 1890-380380.) In the recession it is harder for couples to separate physically when volitional walk-up is financially out of the question. This is increasingly of a reason to get the parenting right without a relationship breaks down, she adds, considering the tropical proximity ways there is increasingly likely to be tension and conflict. Teenagers are particularly vulnerable when parents split up and MCRS runs a specialised service, Teen Between, for them (teenbetween.ie). MENTORING  One Family’s parent mentoring service with trained professionals is “hugely popular”, equal to director Karen Kiernan (see onefamily.ie or tel: 1890-662212). Mentors take a very practical tideway and can help parents understand what is happening with their children and squint at ways of managing that behaviour. “That’s really well-nigh the parent waffly and then helping the child change,” she explains. Parentsplace.ie, set up by parent mentor Paula McKenzie, has a list of independent, trained mentors in various parts of the country, under “referrals”. 'I WAS TRYING TO DO THIS [COURSE] FOR MY KIDS, BUT IT PROBABLY ENDED UP DOING MORE FOR ME' When Louise heard well-nigh a new one-day undertow on parenting without separation, she was keen to go withal to find out if she was taking the right tideway to issues concerning her three-year-old daughter. She told her former husband well-nigh it and they attended together, as is encouraged by the organisers, Help Me To Parent, although parents go independently too. “I needed to know if I was on the right track,” says Louise. “I wanted him to go considering I felt if he heard it from somebody else, he might believe it increasingly and understand that I am just doing what’s weightier for our daughter.” They split up two years ago and when she brought him to magistrate over maintenance, they got a magistrate order for wangle as well. Under the order he has their daughter from 4.30pm until 7pm one evening a week and then has her for 24 hours every weekend – although Louise has varied that so they can take turns to have a full weekend with her. Overall, their parenting goes reasonably smoothly, she says. Things they do disagree well-nigh include the handling of their daughter when she starts displaying uneasiness well-nigh going with her father. Louise does not want to gravity her to go when she is hysterical but he thinks she should. “The times she does not want to go would be if maybe she is not feeling well and wants to stay with her mammy,” Louise explains, considering often she likes going with him. By peekaboo the undertow together, Louise hoped they would be “on the same page” and would be worldly-wise to move forward with the translating they received. “I am not telling him what to do, he is not telling me what to do – it is coming from somewhere else.” She was surprised to see that the majority of the 10 people on the undertow that particular day were men. “At least they were worldly-wise to tell my ex-husband well-nigh the positions they were in. It made me squint good!” One of Louise’s issues with her ex was his dropping their daughter when up to an hour late, without making contact. So she was glad he was there to hear Martina Newe, who presents the course, scuttlebutt on how worrying and disrespectful that scenario is to the other parent.Translatingon how to wordplay children’s questions was moreover helpful, as their daughter is just whence to ask well-nigh things. Louise explains that mammy and daddy are largest off living untied but that they are friends. “As long as she can love both of us the same and can have the weightier of both worlds, I think we will be doing okay.” The weightier thing was that she and her former husband did the undertow together, Louise adds. They could yack well-nigh it succeeding and wield what they had heard to their own situation.Moreoveron the undertow that day was Brian, who has been separated for 10 years and has a 13-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son. “I was having difficulties with my ex over a lot of issues, over behaviour – what they should do, what they shouldn’t do. There were completely variegated sets of rules in each house.” What he learnt from the undertow was “you just have to go with that, it is part of stuff separated”, he says and that children adapt. “They seem to cope with it largest than me. I was trying to do this [course] for my kids but it probably ended up doing increasingly for me.” The children stay with him three weekends a month, which is well-nigh all he can manage, he says, with his work commitments yonder from home. His relationship with their mother has been up and lanugo since they separated, cordial at times, but he reckons he has not spoken to her for a year. Now his children both have mobile phones, he can ring them when he is picking them up. “When they are smaller, you have to talk well-nigh everything.” He was in a new relationship for six years with a woman who moreover had a child, but he found it was a life of unvarying compromises – a “tug of war” over what was weightier to do for the children. “I didn’t put myself and her first, I unchangingly put my kids first.” As a result, he has decided it would be largest to stay on his own until his children have reached higher age. Did peekaboo this undertow transpiration the way he parents? “I have all the ideas and you try to put them into practice.” He thinks it might have been a good idea to write lanugo all the main points and stick them on the door to the kitchen, “lest you might forget . . .” Things have reverted anyway over the past year for him, “mainly considering of my lack of contact with my ex and the fact that I am not in a relationship at the moment. I have nothing to tire me; I am a lot increasingly laid back. I can talk to the kids better.” Looking back, he believes he and his ex would have benefited from mediation for sorting out parenting issues without their break-up, rather than going in and out of court. “Ninety per cent of the time we were in magistrate for stupid, simple things that could have been solved if we had a bilateral friend, which we didn’t. It was a well-constructed waste of her time, my time and our solicitors’.” He saw how the solicitors could come to an try-on over something in five minutes – “‘You want this, we want this, we’ll go half on it’ . . . Something we could have washed-up ourselves so simply.” Article By: Sheila WaymanWhento top of page Extract from Irish Times Health Supplement - May 25th 2010  OnUndertowforLargestParenting PARENTING: Parenting courses are increasingly popular than overly as parents learn the tried and tested ways to do the most important job of their lives BEING BRITISH prime minister was only the second most important job in his life, undisputed Gordon Brown as he departed No 10 Downing Street. He looked forward to spending increasingly time on the most important one – stuff father to two little boys. It was an unexpected, high-profile endorsement of parental priorities. But while parenting may be a job that ranks whilom all others in terms of its influence and prevalence, it is not one for which people are trained. Most parents just get on with it, for largest or for worse. Certainly, it used to be considered an ticket of failure if somebody went on a parenting course. Not any more. There have never been increasingly courses misogynist and providers are reporting an upsurge of interest. On the positive side, this suggests a growing realisation that there is a need to learn increasingly well-nigh the most important job we will overly do. On the negative side, it may moreover be a symptom of how isolated and unsure of themselves many parents feel, living yonder from extended family in a fragmented society. If “follow your intuition” is one of the soundest pieces of parenting advice, it is questionable how much can be taught. But parenting courses empower parents by permitting them to share their concerns and to explore tried and tested ways to do what they think best. “The vast majority of things well-nigh parenting we all know,” says the manager of Parentline, Rita O’Reilly. The value of a parenting undertow “is reinforcing and reminding and reassuring you that other people have the same problems”. As a confidential listening service, Parentline was receiving so many queries well-nigh parenting courses that, instead of referring callers elsewhere, it decided older this year to start running them at its centre in Carmichael House, near Smithfield in Dublin. “We hear what parents are saying,” says O’Reilly. “We know what the issues are and finger we can respond. When they are finished the course, but then have flipside question, we are there on the line all the time.” We all bring into our parenting the way we were parented, says Sue Jameson of Cuidiú, the Irish Childbirth Trust. “Sometimes the only way you can step when and take a squint at that is by joining a group and listening to other people’s experiences.” Cuidiú, which is increasingly associated with breastfeeding support and ante-natal classes, began organising parenting courses in response to demand from local branches. These are aimed at helping people enjoy the variegated stages of their children’s lives and “finding fulfilment in what can be a very wearying and thankless task”. It is an “act of maturity” to shepherd a number of parenting courses during children’s lives, equal to clinical psychologist Dr Tony Humphreys. His parenting programme, which is taught by various people virtually the country, operates on the premise that “all parenting begins with the parent”. Sheila O’Malley, who trained with Humphreys and uses his material for evening courses and one-day sessions in south Dublin, says its focus on the parent makes it variegated from other parenting courses. It can be unromantic to children of all month and, indeed, to all relationships. By people looking at themselves and how they interact with others, “it effects real transpiration rather than temporary change”. O’Malley reports that couples who come on courses together all say that is the weightier way to do it. “It is probably the only time in your lives that you have an opportunity to come together on your parenting and have a endangerment to yack it through,” she comments. The children’s charity, Barnardos, has seen a steady increase in people seeking parenting courses over the last couple of years. While the ones it runs in its own centres are for the parents of children it works with, it moreover provides courses for any group in the community, be they a school parents’ association, a whirligig of friends or employees in a workplace. This is something other providers will do too, so, if there is no suitable undertow nearby, it is worth considering getting a group together and bringing in a trainer. The website, barnardos.ie, has a very helpful database of parenting courses which can be searched by county. (Your local HSE office should moreover have information on courses.) For those who have neither the time nor the money to do a undertow but would like some advice, the Barnardos “Parenting Positively” booklets can be downloaded for free, or ordered for just the forfeit of post and packing. When Maeve Carroll, a mother of a three-year-old girl and 19-month-old boy in Knocklyon, Dublin, went looking for a parenting undertow last autumn, she signed up with one run by Help Me To Parent. At the time she was losing patience with her children, particularly her daughter who was very jealous of the victual and inclined to hit him. “I wanted to wifely lanugo the situation,” she explains. She found the one-day undertow for parents of children weather-beaten one to six “extremely helpful and I came yonder equipped with a bit of weaponry to squatter them”. She was moreover reassured that her daughter’s hostile reaction to her victual brother was completely normal and would stop. “When it is your first, you haven’t a clue!” she says, subtracting that she will definitely go for flipside undertow as the children get older. Not surprisingly, the biggest demand is for courses on parenting teenagers – often triggered by some crisis. Frequently, when parents find how helpful the process is, their one regret is that they did not do a parenting undertow years ago.Whento top of page WHO'S TRAINING THE TEENAGERS?  It is one thing “training” the parents of teenagers but what well-nigh the teenagers themselves? Some parents who attended one-day courses run by Help Me To Parent suggested it might be a good idea if their offspring could moreover have the endangerment to squint at issues. A new self-esteem workshop for the 13-18 age group, starting this Saturday (May 29th), is the result. There is vestige that young people are looking for courses in self-esteem and dealing with issues such as exam stress, says psychologist Niamh Hannan, who has designed and is facilitating the course. The idea is to uplift their sense of self; to help them to winnow themselves and be happy in themselves. She will focus on understanding your mind. “A lot of people finger the victim of their own thoughts or their own feelings – particularly during the teenage years, considering they are moreover victims of hormones,” she says. “I will be teaching the teenagers how their mind works and how to take tenancy and manage their own thoughts and feelings.” Teenagers, she agrees, need to want to do the workshop, as it would not be much fun working with ones who were dragged there by parents. “They don’t have to talk well-nigh things they don’t want to talk about,” she stresses. “It is not therapy.” And Hannan will not be reporting when to parents, so the teenagers can be unpreventable of confidentiality. Article written by Sheila Wayman  Whento top of page Extract from IrishSelf-sustaining- May 18th 2010 PlaneDaddy Cool needs help with his tearaway teen... Dear Mick Suddenly, all those lip-pursing, hip-swaggering, groupie-loving years may be coming when to haunt you. Sure, you may be fabulously rich and famous, but turns out you've got exactly the same headache as z-list dads planetwide -- a tearaway teen daughter. Fusing your ex Jerry Hall's gorgeous genes with your rebellious streak was unseat to end in tears.Withoutall, Papa was a Rolling Stone -- and now your 18-year-old daughter Georgia seems hellbent on repeating your party unprepossessing past. When the media got a sniff of pictures that appeared to show your little sweetie-pie doing some sniffing of her own at her 18th birthday whack in January, you came lanugo nonflexible -- grounding student Georgia in the run up to her A-level exams this summer. Forking out scrutinizingly €12,000 a year for her fancy Surrey school, the least you can expect is for her to knuckle lanugo for the finals -- right? At first, laying lanugo the law appeared to work. Why, just last month, socialite Georgia made you proud by cancelling a planned visitation at a party in Chelsea to stay at home studying. But while she may have appeared on the imbricate of Vogue and fronted campaigns for Rimmel and Versace, Georgia sure ain't a model student. Last week, the rule-breaking urchin once then defied you by sneaking off to St Tropez to model barely-there outfits for Chanel. But you're not alone, Mick. Right well-nigh now, thousands of your fans throughout Ireland are tearing their hair out trying to get their own troublesome teens to hit the books for the Leaving Certificate exams next month.Stuffa parent in the public eye, your challenges are bigger. Every misstep you've taken has been documented by the press. But don't think that your wild child history gives you any less validity when it comes to parenting. Just considering you went off the rails in your heyday, doesn't midpoint that you should tolerate Georgia doing the same. So remember who's the Daddy, although Georgia may snivel you of stuff a hypocrite so you might have to be a bit sneaky. Try saying: 'I wish I had been as mature as you are and realised I was doing the wrong thing'. Let her know you have the conviction in her to make the right nomination -- that way, she'll know you're not just nagging. Children of celebrities may be harder to tenancy considering of the level of luxury at their fingertips. Ordinarily, pocket money is a very powerful tool in disciplining teenagers (incidentally, those less well-heeled than yourself can try deducting a set value from their child's pocket money every time they flout a house rule). Having earned virtually €700,000 from a megabucks deal with jeans manufacturer Hudson though, self-sufficient Georgia isn't relying on her minted old man for pocket money. And with a lucrative career already, she's probably not too bothered well-nigh acing her A-levels. But all's not lost, Daddy Cool. There's still a way to motivate plane the most self-sustaining teenager to study. Sit lanugo with your daughter and talk well-nigh how she sees her future panning out. The stick tideway unmistakably hasn't worked with Georgia, so try using the carrot instead.Requiteher some incentive to study -- stipulate that for every point she gains in her exams she gets a reward, such as a designer handbag. On a increasingly affordable level, the same translating goes to regular parents whose teens aren't inclined to study. Consider what they're likely to unzip and what you can afford, then stipulate to requite them a set value for every point they get. As a single dad, Mick, it's moreover important to sing from the same hymn sheet as your ex when it comes to discipline. It's important for separated parents to jointly stipulate on the parameters for the child and stick to them. Now you may not want to hear this, Mick, but it's no good instilling all these lessons into an 18-year-old. Children need to be taught from an early age that you expect respect from them. Think of it like this, Mick: parenting is like piloting an airplane. In the beginning, your child is in the passenger seat and as they get older they uncork to co-pilot with you. Your aim is to get them to a stage where they have unbearable skill to fly the plane themselves. The teenage years can be very difficult as your child tries to navigate their way from diaper to adulthood. Throw in hormones and physical changes and it can be an explosive time. There's no point in going in with a nuclear weapon and screaming 'You're grounded for a year!' -- both you and they know it won't happen. If you're unsure what to do, Mick, my translating is to printing 'pause' until you wifely down. At 18, Georgia is an adult. But as her dad, the good news is that it's never too late to put your foot down. It doesn't matter whether they're 18 or 80, you're still their parent. Disrespect is not winning at any time. Good luck! Signed Martina Newe Co-founder of HelpmetoParent.ie PS: If you still need a little help, Mick, why not pop withal to our 'Parenting Teenagers' seminar on this Saturday, at the Clarion Hotel, Liffey Valley. Call 087 6890582 and we'll typesetting your place! - Interview by Deirdre Reynolds IrishSelf-sustainingBack to top of page      Copyright© 2007-2017  CA Coaching T/A Help Me To Parent 15 Beaubec, Drogheda, Co. Louth, Registered in Ireland - Number 401149 Terms Site Map Links