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We (almost) all go to school, and there we learn many things. We learn that school is a good thing, and that we have to go to school in order to learn. We learn that without school, we’d get nowhere in life.
These beliefs run deep. The things we learn about ourselves and education at school often stay with us for our whole lives.
Then if you have a child who struggles at school, it can be hard to know what to do. Your child is so unhappy, but everyone tells you they seem fine. You’re told they have to be made to go, but at the same time the distress at home is unmanageable. You think that school is essential, but the cost to your child seems out of proportion.
In these courses and webinars about school, Naomi talks about why school can be hard, and why some children are traumatised or burnt out by their time at school. She’ll talk about how parents can help their children to learn and thrive, whether or not they are at school.
Your teenager has stopped going to school, but they aren't learning anything new. How can they start to see a future again?
Are you a parent navigating the complexities of the Special Educational Needs (SEN) Tribunal process? Parents say it ranks as one of their most stressful life events. This course is designed specifically to guide parents through the challenging journey. Whether you're new to the process or seeking to deepen your understanding, this mini-course by Dr Abigail Fisher (Educational Psychologist) will equip you with the knowledge and confidence you need to advocate effectively for your child's educational needs.
Dr Abigail Fisher, Educational Psychologist, will help you navigate your child’s EHCP Annual Review with confidence. You’ve got the EHCP in place, but it’s only the start of the process. She describes what should happen and when, what the legal process is and what your rights are. She will share ideas about how to make the process as useful as possible, to help ensure your child is well supported and their needs are met.
Things have gone wrong at school for your teenager, and now it’s like they have nothing left. They have lost their sense of what made life worth living. You don’t know how to help, and sometimes it seems like whatever you do makes things worse. Naomi will explain how burnout happens and what the process of recovery looks like.
In this mini course Naomi will talk about school trauma, how it occurs, what makes it worse and how parents can help. You'll leave with a new understanding of what has gone on for your child, why they are still affected by the past, and some ideas of what to do. This course will combine psychological theory with practical strategies and ideas.
Is your autistic child having problems at school? Naomi offers ways to think about the issues, and tools and strategies which will help you make changes for your child.
Your child isn’t happy at school. They are protesting in the mornings, or having meltdowns in the afternoons. They tell you that they don’t want to go, and you feel torn between them and the school. School are telling you that the answer is to keep pushing, as you don’t want to reinforce avoidance or behaviour. It’s starting to dominate everything about your family life, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
Are you worried about whether your child is getting the right support in school? Do you want to know more about EHCPs and how to get one? This course will explain the Education, Health and Care plan process from a parent's perspective and show you examples of what a good plan looks like. Dr Abigail Fisher, educational psychologist will discuss how to approach common issues and challenges. She will offer some tips on how to get a useful plan, and how to look at a draft plan, drawing on her experience working with schools and parents.
In this mini-course, Dr Abigail Fisher, educational psychologist, delves into effective strategies for working hand-in-hand with school to support your child's unique needs. This course will give you insight into what's possible and help foster a positive and collaborative relationship with your child's school.
Eliza and Naomi talk about the process which parents go through when school stops. How can parents move forward in a positive way and plan an alternative future for themselves and their children?
Dr Abigail Fisher, Educational Psychologist, talks from her experience both as an early years psychologist and as a Reception teacher. She shares ideas for how you can help and explains how school can support them.
In this webinar recording, Dr Abigail Fisher (Ed. Psych. and qualitifed teacher) and Eliza Fricker (illustrator, author and parent who has been there) discuss the EHCP process from the parents’ perspective. It’s illustrated throughout with Eliza’s brilliant cartoons.
This bundle gives you all 10 webinar recordings from Activate Your Parenting through to What About Me? They are updated when new low demand parenting webinars are hosted. Recordings are available to watch for 12 months after purchase.
This bundle gives you the second 5 webinar recordings in the Low Demand Parenting series. It contains: 6. Other People 7. Screens 8. School 9. The Future 10. What About Me? They are updated when new low demand parenting webinars are hosted. Recordings are available to watch for 12 months after purchase.
How can you be low demand parents, whilst your child goes to school? What can you do to take the pressure off and give them the space to thrive? That's what we'll be discussing in this new webinar.
If you are a parent worrying whether self-directed education will work for your child, because you have been told that they have special needs which can only be met in the school system - think again. Neurodivergent children experience and interact with the world differently to many of their peers. Standard educational systems often fail to adapt to their unique strengths and ways of learning. School, and even the act of learning, can become a source of great anxiety and trauma. Self-directed education offers an alternative to traditional schools that can help neurodivergent children develop at their own pace and thrive.
Children are born full of curiosity, eager to participate in the world. They learn as they live, with enthusiasm and joy. Then we send them to school. We stop them from playing and actively exploring their interests, telling them it's more important to sit still and listen. The result is that for many children, their motivation to learn drops dramatically. The joy of the early years is replaced with apathy and anxiety.
Whenever I write a post about valuing what children value, or allowing them to say no, someone always says ‘but I DO know better than them. I DO know that they might regret it later, and that it’s better to do your spellings than watch YouTube whilst hanging upside down from the sofa. I can’t let them choose, because they’d just choose to play’.
I met a little boy recently who told me that he wasn’t any good at drawing. He was young in his year, and his drawings were, it’s true, fairly basic. He looked at the pictures that other children were drawing and he could see the difference. It didn’t matter what adults told him, because he could see for himself. He was learning to compare himself with others, and finding himself wanting.