Hi everyone, welcome back to Everymum the podcast, I'm Aisling Keenan. If you’ve ever looked at your child and thought, I just want to make life a little easier for you, then this episode is for you – but it might not be the episode you think. My guest today is Dr David Coleman, one of Ireland’s best-known clinical psychologists. David has been working with children, teenagers and families for more than three decades, and many of you will know him from his television work, his weekly Irish Independent column, his regular appearances on radio, or from his books. His area of expertise is something I think every parent will be interested in: how we help our children deal with the inevitable difficulties of life. Because however much we might want to protect them from disappointment, worry, friendship problems, failure and all the other things that come with growing up, we obviously can’t do that forever. David is actually about to take this conversation on the road with his nationwide 'Ready for Anything: Building Emotional Resilience in Children and Teenagers' tour, which gets underway this October. The focus is very much on practical ways we can help children develop the skills to cope with life’s ups and downs, rather than trying to remove every difficult experience from their path. So today we’re talking about what resilience actually means, whether some children are naturally more resilient than others, and that very tricky parenting question: when should we step in and help, and when should we let our children struggle a little? We’ll also talk about disappointment, anxiety, the phrase “don’t worry”, our own mistakes as parents, the importance of boredom, and how we teach children to cope when things don’t go their way. And, crucially, we’ll finish with one very simple question: what is the one thing every parent could start doing tomorrow to help their child become more emotionally resilient? This episode contains so many nuggets of wisdom, clever language changes and suggestions to reassess how your parenting might be impacting your child, and I know so many of you will find it very valuable indeed. Enjoy this episode with Dr Coleman, and I'll be back next week with more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
