Christmas - the season of joy, festivities, and, let's be honest, a touch of chaos. As parents, we've all been there, juggling the demands of the season while trying to keep our cool. Why is it that the most wonderful time of the year often comes with a side of emotional turbulence, especially for our little ones?

Supporting the development of social communication in children

As things start to edge back to normality, parents are understandably anxious about how the pandemic has affected their young children’s development in many areas. One of the most concerning for parents is the impact on the development of their social communication skills.

Getting the most from Orchard Games

We are big fans of Orchard Games in our house. We have quite a few and both oF my girls have really enjoyed playing the games.

If you haven’t tried them out yourself, the Orchard Games range has a variety of simple, structured games for playing with young children. Everything from lotto to shopping!

Tips for building attention skills

Attention and listening skills are the bedrock of language development and allow us to learn other skills. Learning to focus is a really important part of early development that helps us to listen to others and engage in shared activities. But how can we help our children to develop their attention skills?

How many clubs?

I have read several articles about how modern children are ‘over scheduled’ with a plethora of structured activities and clubs and that modern children need more time for unstructured and outdoor play. Kids can become overtired when they are engaging in too many sports and clubs and need the less structured playtime to develop their imagination, communication and negotiating skills.

This all sounds reasonable but how do you know how many activities to choose, when is it too much?

Tips for reducing separation anxiety

Separation anxiety is a natural part of childhood development. Often, separation anxeity first kicks in when a baby is about six months old and can be a relatively regular occurrence throughout their toddler years. However, at times of significant change such as starting school, moving home, a new baby in the family or having a new nanny can bring the anxiety back to the surface.

Five Favourite Fingerplays for Fine Motor Development

Fingerplays (action songs) are a tool widely used at home and in early years settings. These songs are a wonderful way to support early development in a number of areas.

Attention Bucket

Attention and listening skills are the foundation skills on which communication and learning can be build. So, it’s a bit of a no-brainer that supporting the development of these skills needs to be top priority. If we focus on these first, then the support we give to other areas is likely to be more successful. There are lots of skills and approaches that can be used in helping young children to learn how to attend and listen to others. Attention buckets are one of my favourites. They are fun and super engaging, plus, they work! What more could we want, right?

Guest blog: Why we need to look passed the behaviour

Guest blog from Vicky Evans, parenting coach from Parenting ADHD, shares her insights into understanding our children’s behaviour.

Embodied Learning in children: Why the mind needs the body to increase attention span & alertness.

Guest blog from Minisha Yasin, occupational therapist and founder of My Therapy Services, encourages us to look at things with a fresh pair of eyes. Quite often they may just need a little tweaking!