Weaponised incompetence is a subtle and passive manipulation tactic that is intended to keep you doing the majority of physical and emotional labour in your relationship.

Perhaps at some point in your relationship, you have found yourself exasperated at your partner’s inability or lack of desire to perform a task to standard or at all. Perhaps you were exasperated and finally said, ‘fine, I’ll do it myself.’

When this behaviour from a partner becomes a pattern, it is called ‘weaponised incompetence.’ Weaponised incompetence is a subtle form of gas-lighting where an individual will pretend not to know how to perform a task or will deliberately perform it poorly. As a result, they expect you to become frustrated and do it yourself, avoiding relying on them for assistance in the future.

It is normal for couples to have disagreements and find that their priorities sometimes don’t align. However, suppose you find that this behaviour is so prevalent that you cannot rely on your partner to perform basic tasks daily or weekly. In that case, you may be experiencing weaponised incompetence.

For example, it could be that you are extremely busy at work, but the house is in a state of disarray. Feeling stressed, you think a clean environment will help alleviate your stress. So, seeking support, you ask your partner to clean the bathroom. In response, they either make a big fuss over how they never do it the way you do and don’t know all the special products to use. You might even hear phrases like “you’re better at it than I am; how about I just take out the rubbish instead?” Or they may reluctantly do it after some pushing but do such a poor job that you have to go back and clean it yourself anyway.

While your partner may not always be explicitly trying to manipulate you into taking over, this is ultimately what this behaviour forces you to do.

Another example might be asking your husband to ‘watch the kids’ while you finally get a break, only to come back to mess and chaos that you will ultimately clean up. So, it ends up making your ‘break’ hardly worth it at all, and next time, you don’t bother scheduling one.

Imbalance of emotional labour

If this is a common occurrence in your relationship, it is not miscommunication but gaslighting. Weaponised incompetence is intended to ensure that one person can be relied upon to take on the physical and even emotional labour in the partnership.

As a result, the person taking on all of the work and acting as the glue in the relationship can experience stress and extreme burnout. In addition, this kind of emotional stress can result in resentment and discontent further down the line.

If you are not supported and your needs are not being met on any level, you are not in a partnership and may feel more like you are a caretaker.

Weaponised incompetence is a subtle manipulation that works because it exploits your emotions and desire to help your partner. It plays on nuances in your relationship and generally says, “I’m not capable and I need you to help me.’ And, of course, you comply. You love your partner, value your home, respect the lives you have together, and do not want them to suffer through anything. And therein lies the danger of weaponised incompetence.

Battle of the sexes

While weaponised incompetence can occur in any relationship, it seems to be most prominent in cishet (straight-identifying male-female partnerships) relationships. In most cases, the male partner will use weaponised incompetence on the female partner. This can be easily done, as women are already conditioned to nurture and oversee the wellbeing of those around them.

Entrenched gender norms, patriarchal values and casual sexism are all things that contribute to heterosexual relationships being most susceptible to weaponised incompetence.

Communication is key

The only way to deal with weaponised incompetence is to tackle it head on. Communication is the best way to do this. Explain to your partner what is happening and how it makes you feel. Explain exactly why it is that you need this support in order for your relationship to thrive in the long term.

It could be that while your partner is using this tactic, maybe they don’t entirely mean to. Perhaps they genuinely feel incompetent, have anxiety, depression, or lack self-confidence with certain roles and responsibilities.

Try come up with household schedules and rosters. This can be helpful if your partner genuinely wants to help, but needs some assistance gaging where to start. A schedule stops you from asking them to do specific tasks on a daily basis. It will allow them to take the initiative to check the roster daily.

If you find your partner to be entirely unresponsive even with tools like this, couples therapy may be necessary.

The Long-term effects

Weaponised incompetence can slowly destroy your sanity, damage your relationship, result in burnout and send unhealthy messages to any children you may have. So often, when couples are at the point where they are seeking relationship counselling or considering separation, there isn’t one single issue that has caused this. Instead, it is an accumulation of minor resentments or a general lack of support that can only be identified in small tasks that are being overlooked daily.

If you sometimes find that doing it yourself is more manageable than relying on your partner, you may want to examine how and why this is happening and if it is a case of weaponised incompetence.

It is never fair or sustainable for one person alone to carry the weight of all the domestic responsibility. Moreover, the mental load and emotional labour that comes with doing this can cause exhaustion, emotional dissatisfaction, and the breakdown of a relationship in the long-term. If you have made it this far, it is worth talking to your partner about your needs and worries and, if necessary, seeking counselling.

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DEVELOPMENT

Teach your children to set and respect boundaries with bodily autonomy and consent

By Chloe Cant December 15, 2021

Studies are suggesting that teaching your children bodily autonomy and consent at an early age is crucial for their confidence and ability to set boundaries into adulthood.

Teaching your child how to navigate the complexities of the outside world is one of the most daunting challenges presented to parents and teaching them healthy boundaries is one of the most crucial lessons to pass on.

Teaching children boundaries for themselves and others is a social and emotional skill that will keep them safe with strangers and their friends. Empowering your children with the tools to assert their autonomy over their bodies and emotions will keep them safe from anyone who might want to exploit their vulnerability.

Often, adults can take advantage of a child’s inexperience and inability to advocate for themselves. In worst-case scenarios, this can lead to belittling, lower self-confidence, and physical and sexual abuse.

All parents understand the basics of boundaries setting. For example, no hitting, no interrupting, no grabbing things from other children without asking and the importance of please and thank you.

Child Mind Psychology says that these things are the basic principles of boundary setting that can be applied to everything. This is because they exist for two reasons; to understand and respect the needs of others and to understand and respect their own needs as individuals.

While the benefits of boundary setting are beneficial for countless reasons, new movements in parenting are beginning to use these principles to teach bodily autonomy.

Why boundaries matter

Christmas, Easter or a family reunion rolls around, and suddenly your child is faced with a crowd of well-meaning relatives they may not see very often who are dying to smother their niece or great-nephew with hugs or kisses. While the temptation to make people happy is present, you might cave and say, ‘Give uncle so-and-so a hug!’ there are several reasons this may be detrimental.

In situations like these, children may feel like their bodies don’t belong to them but rather to the adults in the room and that adults can make decisions about what they should do with their bodies regardless of how they feel.

It is also instilled in children to ignore their intuition and feelings to please others. And while it might feel like we are just trying to teach them social skills and empathy, these things will develop over time, especially once they have a strong sense of self.

Children need to be empowered to foster a sense of trust in their instincts, not taught to ignore them. Educating them to listen to how they feel during these situations will keep them safe in childhood and adulthood.

While it is highly unsettling to consider, 90% of child abuse victims are abused by someone they know, like a family member or a friend. This is why teaching bodily autonomy to children with people they know and are close to is crucial.

Openness and Honesty

Emotional honesty and communication are crucial elements of consent and autonomy. As well as fostering honesty around touch, it is essential to have clarity about ‘secrets.’

In addition to teaching about ok touch and not ok touch, talk about ok secrets and not ok secrets. Ok secrets are birthday surprises, Christmas presents or planning a surprise dinner for Mother’s Day.

Not ok secrets are family members or friends who might use language like ‘this is our special game that’s just our secret,’ or ‘don’t tell anyone about our game or you will get in trouble.’

Make it explicitly clear what ok and not ok secrets are and assure them that there is absolutely no secret they would ever get in trouble for disclosing. Let them know that it is always ok to tell a trusted adult if someone asks them to keep a secret like this. Also, let them know that you will believe them if they share this with you.

Let them know that it is ok to tell another adult even if it is someone they love and trust.

Trusted Adults

Help your child establish a list of trusted adults that they can speak to, including people who are not family members. This might be a schoolteacher, kindergarten teacher, friend’s parent, or school counsellor. Often, children do not disclose abuse to parents and may feel more comfortable with one of these trusted adults, to begin with.

Teaching children about boundaries, consent, and bodily autonomy not only keeps them safe and secure within themselves but is a crucial aspect of emotional intelligence they will carry into adulthood. And lastly, it is never too late to start implementing these lessons.

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BABIES

First time mum shares what it was like giving birth during lockdown

By Kelly Rawnsley September 9, 2020

Precautions taken by medical staff left new mum, Jess Bowen, feeling traumatised, “diseased” and excluded during her first birthing experience.

“I felt like I was diseased. The doctor would whisper to the nurse that I should have my mask on like I had the Corona Virus. It felt awful.”

Melbourne mum and hairdresser, Jess Bowen, gave birth to her first baby on the 28^th of March this year, when the pandemic was beginning.

“My pregnancy was wonderful. I didn’t have any complications and I was excited to give birth,” shares Jess.

At Jess’s final appointment with her midwife, protein was found in the urine indicating pre-eclampsia, whereupon she was admitted into the hospital and immediately induced.

Jess laughs about not having enough time to gather her things, pack a bag or worst of all, “put on fake tan”.

Being a new mum is stressful without the added pressures of a global crisis. Jess describes her experience at the hospital as “traumatic”. She says the nurses were cold and “on edge with Covid happening. This made them short and abrupt.”

Once admitted, Jess was induced using a Foley Bulb induction, commonly known as the “Balloon Method”, where a Foley catheter is inserted into the cervix and is inflated, with sterilised water or air, over a period of time to help the cervix dilate for birth.

The nurses monitored her during the process by checking her dilation using their fingers. “It felt awful,” Jess recalls. “There’d be no warning. Just enter the room, stick their fingers in and would be disappointed because I wasn’t dilating fast enough. They weren’t reassuring me so it would just make me feel anxious.”

Eventually, the doctor arrived to examine her.

“He was really quite abrupt and rude. He basically told me that I had a disease (referencing her pre-eclampsia). I’m a new mum and it’s not really something that I want to hear. He just said I have a disease and we have to get this baby out.”

Jess says at one point she coughed to clear her throat, and the doctor immediately pulled the nurse aside and whispered, “she should have a mask on”.

“It was horrible to hear that. I felt so excluded and was already feeling disgusting from when the doctor called me diseased earlier.”

Jess can’t help but think how her experience may have differed if she wasn’t giving birth during these unprecedented times.

Jess rarely saw the doctor after this. Any interactions from the medical staff were limited until she was ready to deliver. After a day of the Balloon, she had only dilated one centimetre and needed to try another method.

Jess speaks highly of her head midwife, Jenny, throughout this process saying, “She was out of this world amazing, overall an experience from having that doctor, she made it so much better.”

She was then induced through the use of Oxytocin, which is a synthetic hormone that is administered through a drip in the arm to start the contractions.

Jess describes these contractions to be the most painful thing she’s ever experienced before.

“Immediately I felt anxious. I felt really depressed. They basically said to me that I needed to try, because at this point, I was feeling deflated and wanted to have a C-section.”

A few hours after starting the Oxytocin, Jess felt a sharp pain to the right of her stomach and had the urge to go to the toilet. The head midwife checked her and told her that she was three centimetres dilated. Jess immediately asked for an epidural, which was a 15-minute wait. During that time, Jess says she dilated 10 centimetres and was ready to deliver.

Jess went into shock and was crying through “the worst pain of her life”.

“Throughout the pushing process, I didn’t opt for any gas or pain relief because I was in such shock. It was a traumatic experience for me with everything that was going on and the treatment of the staff with Covid-19. It was frightening.”

Jess finally gave birth to her beautiful girl, Isla. Fortunately, she had her partner with her through this process.

“No one else was allowed to visit me in the hospital and my partner was only allowed during a small time-frame in the day, so during the inducing process and after giving birth, I didn’t have support from my family to get me through this. I just wanted my mum there.”

Hours after Jess gave birth, the nurses continued to monitor her bleeding through a weighing process to ensure there weren’t any further complications. Jess explains being “on a high with adrenaline” throughout this and wasn’t paying attention to the rising concern from the nurses as she surpassed a litre of blood.

After 20 minutes from her last check-up, Jess had sat up and explained the sensation of her “water breaking”. Jess lost 1.8 litres of blood and the head midwife called the surgeon. She recalled nurses accidentally dropping blood on the ground and described her room to be a “murder scene”.

During emergency surgery, Jess says they put a plastic box over her head. “It made me feel really small. The surgeon felt bad about it and was trying to reassure me that it was just protocol with Covid-19.”

After this, Jess was relatively okay. She had spent the last remaining hours after surgery with her partner and her new baby girl, but at 5 AM, her partner was told to leave.

“My partner was annoyed but I was still running on adrenaline, so I was less upset. I was happy and messaging my family about the good news and it was just one of those situations where ‘it is what it is’.”

When Jess was finally able to go home, Victoria’s first round of lockdown’s was in full effect and she spent her first weeks as a mother trapped in her home alone with her partner. Jess was suffering from the baby blues and wasn’t able to lean on her family for help.

“It felt like everything I was doing was wrong. I was barely sleeping, could barely walk because of the blood loss. I just didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t a single day during the six-week lockdown where I didn’t cry.”

Jess speaks about the importance of seeking help. The moment lockdown ended, she went to her psychiatrist and was put on anti-depressant medication.

“No one ever warns you about the way you feel after you give birth. I felt like it was unusual to be experiencing this level of sadness and anxiety when I have the most perfectly healthy baby girl who was gaining weight. Everyone else seemed so happy after their birth that it was hard not to compare myself to them.”

Isla is now five months old and Jess is feeling tremendously better. The lockdown had lifted so that gave her time to introduce her new baby to her family and friends.

“The medication is really helping. I’m starting to feel like myself again and my partner is seeing the improvements too.”

Even though Melbourne has gone back into lockdown again, she’s sad that her family don’t get to see Isla during some significant milestones, she feels much more prepared and stable to tackle what comes next.

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HEALTH

Eating disorders and heightened use of social media in a pandemic – a Perfect Storm?

By April Shepherd May 7, 2020

As Australia’s cosmetic surgery rates surpass America’s, our obsession with social media and the current COVID-19 pandemic creates a minefield for those who struggle with disordered eating and body image issues.

So far, 2020 has been a lot to process. In what will most likely be a once-in-a-lifetime historical event, the world has been totally affected by COVID-19 – a virus which has so far killed more than 264,000 people.

As Australia combats this, most of us have found ourselves on leave, unemployed or working from home. As the lockdowns have progressed many businesses have shut down and the nation’s gyms have not been immune.

In recent weeks, there has been a lot of content online focused on exercising from home, especially on Instagram, which has become flooded with posts about ‘body goals’, losing weight and becoming ‘healthier’ in quarantine.

The COVID-19 pandemic offers numerous triggers for those who are struggling with an eating disorder or those with distorted body image and low self-esteem.

“We understand that the prevalent discussions around stock-piling food, increased hygiene measures, food shortages and lock-ins can be incredibly distressing and triggering for people experiencing disordered eating or an eating disorder,” states The Butterfly Foundation in relation to COVID-19.

When you combine these triggers with an increase in spare time to spend scrolling social media, such as Instagram, this can create the Perfect Storm.

Instagram and its tribe of entrepreneurs and models is no stranger to criticism from body positivity advocates, largely because the app is focused on images, a majority of which are highly edited. The concept of Instagram is the ideal social media app- share images and see images of your family and friends – plus your favourite celebrities, bridging the gap between fan and friend.

Instagram launched in 2010 and had 1 million users within two months, it has since been purchased by Facebook and become one of the largest social media platforms in the world.

The New Yorker journalist Jia Tolentino has talked extensively concerning the phenomenon of Instagram models, and their strikingly similar looks in ‘The Age of the Instagram Face’.

She writes, “The gradual emergence, among professionally beautiful women, of a single, cyborgian face. It’s a young face, of course, with pore-less skin and plump, high cheekbones. It has catlike eyes and long, cartoonish lashes; it has a small, neat nose and full, lush lips.”

The commodification of women was once selling the products to make us beautiful, but as ‘Instagram Face’ rises and social media continues to excel, cosmetic surgery becomes more commonplace than it ever has been before.

Presently Australia’s cosmetic surgery numbers have surpassed America’s; in 2017 Australian’s spent more than 1 billion dollars on plastic surgery, surpassing America’s procedures per capita numbers, a feat considering America is often considered the ground zero for enhanced beauty.

Since when did this new prototype of a woman, a mish-mashed version, a high light reel built to bend over; a tiny waist, big lips, no blemishes- become the new standard of beauty, and how achievable is this?

Claire Finkelstein has been a clinical psychologist for fifteen years and is co-founder and co-director at Nourish.Nurture.Thrive, a multidisciplinary practise based in Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula that specialises in helping young people who struggle with eating disorders and body image.

Claire and fellow clinical psychologist, Ainsley Hudgson, started Nourish.Nurture.Thrive after years working in the public health system and seeing how overwhelmed it had become with a “growing population with eating disorder concerns,” says Claire.

Isolation, quarantine and an increase in social media can be very triggering for not only those who struggle with eating disorders but anyone who finds themselves feeling out of control in this stressful time.

“Everybody is showing their exercise routines at the moment, everybody is making those jokes about putting on weight during lockdown and I think it’s just incredibly triggering even for people with a fairly robust sense of self-confidence and body image but particularly for people who are in the eating disorder space,” says Claire.

The showing of exercise routines is found on Instagram amongst other social media, promoting diet culture.

Diet culture is defined as a system of beliefs that worship thinness and oppress people who don’t meet this beauty standard and idea of health. The one underlying fact for nearly all diets and wellbeing programs is that thin is best, demonizing certain food groups and body types, all while promoting the most important idea of them all; if you weren’t so lazy you’d have the body of your dreams.

“It feels like you can control your weight, so in a time when you feel out of control you try and control your weight and what we know is that your weight is biologically determined within a set point and that’s one of the difficulties – all these messages around ‘this is something we can do’ and if you’re not doing it successfully you’re inadequate and that is such a damaging, damaging story that is part of diet culture,” says Claire.

The infamous ‘beauty is pain’ mantra handed down to young girls from their mothers has a whole new meaning, the pain having grown from a waxing strip full of pubic hair to a surgery scar or a vigorous training regime.

Earlier this year glamour magazine Girls Girls Girls collaborated with Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon to create a video titled ‘Be a Lady they said’. The piece included various clips from movies, news, and glamour shots to tell the story of the myriad of requests and expectations women are meant to be adhering to, ironically the women featured in the video are beautiful, thin and passive.

One of the most impactful lines reads,

‘Be a size zero, be a double zero, be nothing, be less than nothing.’

Cynthia Nixon spits these words at the screen as it turns dark and the sound of someone’s heart flatlining takes up the darkness. It is powerful commentary on the notions behind our desires for female perfection and the gruesome control it creates.

As Naomi Wolf states in her classic, The Beauty Myth, published in 1990, obsession with beauty and thinness is a form of control and oppression.

“A culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience. Dieting is the most potent political sedative in women’s history; a quietly mad population is a tractable one,” says Wolf.

The US health and weight loss industry is worth an estimated $72 billion and Australians are estimated to spend $452.5 million on weight-loss counselling services (and the low-calorie foods and dietary supplements that go with it) in 2019-2020.

These figures show what has been in the shadows all along – this business is big money built off the back of diet culture. A truth hid underneath the bright lights of Instagram, the ‘life updates’ and the relatable posts – the influencers who make you feel like a family, like you could look like them if you had the grit – when you’re just a customer.

Resources and coping mechanisms

For those who are spending a lot of time online and feel triggered by the change in routine, there are ways to seek help, guidance and support.

The Butterfly Foundation suggests that stretching, light exercise, talking to a loved one, drawing, being creative and mindfulness techniques can help you support your health and wellbeing during this crisis and stop negative body thoughts.

Their Helpline is also open on webchat, email or phone from 8am-midnight, 7 days a week.

Claire Finkelstein from Nourish.Nurture.Thrive admits boycotting social media is unrealistic, especially as it is one of our main sources for communicating with the outside world, however, she does recommend an ‘audit’ of who you follow.

“Use social media to connect rather than compare, use it to engage with people who are important to you, who you feel supported by, who give you a laugh who make you smile, who make you more connected and less alone and try to engage less with social media that leaves you feeling terrible afterwards,” says Claire.

Unfollowing accounts that make you feel inadequate or leave you feeling unhappy and starting to follow body positive accounts instead can stop that downward spiral of self-loathing many of us find triggered by social media.

“Research shows if you have a diverse imagery, diverse bodies, diverse beauty, or other images like architecture, animals or whatever makes you feel good – that that can really dilute the impact, the negative impact of imagery that doesn’t make you feel good,” says Claire.

Below are resources for those who need help.

The Butterfly Foundation:

T: 1800 33 4673

W: https://thebutterflyfoundation.org.au/

Beyond Blue:

T: 1300 22 4636

W: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/national-help-lines-and-websites

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LIFESTYLE

The fight for body positivity: Why our worth is more than our weight

By Matilda Jesiolowski April 13, 2020

Outspoken body-positivity activist Jameela Jamil calls for change by addressing the harmful behaviours of reality stars and the media on our body image and self-esteem.

The tide is changing when it comes to body positivity. Where low self-esteem once dominated and allowed for the media to spread messages of weight loss, there are now many people challenging these ideas and calling for the removal of body shaming.

British actor and star of The Good Place Jameela Jamil is an increasingly loud and insistent voice when it comes to challenging the standards of physical beauty perpetuated by the media and entertainment industry.

Jamil is outspoken on social media when it comes to body positivity and calling out celebrities who encourage unhealthy body image ideals.

She recently shared an image to Instagram showing off the stretch marks on her breasts, announcing that she would now call them ‘Babe Marks’.

Jamil is outspoken on social media when it comes to body positivity and calling out celebrities who encourage unhealthy body image ideals.

“Boob stretch marks are a normal, beautiful thing,” she captioned her post. “I have stretch marks all over my body and I hereby rename them all Babe Marks. They are a sign my body dared to take up extra space in a society that demands our eternal thinness.”

These comments are a welcome dose of honesty and frankness in a world where women are conditioned to be ashamed of such things.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bvt4ccCBbdr/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

“[Stretch marks] are a sign my body dared to take up extra space in a society that demands our eternal thinness.”

Her tweets about Photoshop and airbrushing advertising campaigns in the media, calling for them to become illegal also went viral. She banned the use of Photoshop on herself, explaining that the practice is not only harmful for the audience, but also for her own self-image.

She banned the use of Photoshop on herself, explaining that the practice is not only harmful for the audience, but also for her own self-image.

Recently, Jamil called out Khloe Kardashian on social media after the reality star promoted weight loss products to her millions of followers on Instagram.

“It’s incredibly awful that this industry bullied you until you became this fixated on your appearance,” wrote Jamil. “But now please don’t put that back into the world and hurt other girls the way you have been hurt. You’re a smart woman. Be smarter than this.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BvRMi0RF9iD/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Jamil is adamant in the fight against body shaming, which comes from her own personal experiences of body dysmorphia, eating disorders and incessant bullying she received as a teenager.

Jamil recently launched her “I Weigh” campaign, a social media movement where she encourages women to describe their qualities and accomplishments rather than their appearances.

Jamil is adamant in the fight against body shaming.

Beginning as a single powerful message shared on Instagram, it has since turned into a movement after thousands of other women also began sharing their own powerful messages after becoming sick and tired of their worth being measured by their weight.

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UNCATEGORIZED

Self-regulation is key

By N/A April 13, 2020

Self-regulation is the latest buzz word; it is frequently mentioned in newspapers and across a range of media but what does it really mean? And how do parents foster self-regulation in their children? Kim Johnson and Rosemary Redden, of the Ngala Education team, explain.

Contrary to common belief, self-regulation is more than just self-control. It is self-directional and encompasses the ways we interact appropriately with others, how we use initiative and how we develop the self-motivation to learn.

It encompasses the regulation of emotions, thoughts and behaviours.

CHILD DEVELOPMENT

Babies develop self-regulation through close relations with parents and receiving sensory-stimulating opportunities.

Toddlers view parents as a source of help, using strategies to get adults to respond and assist them to orientate themselves in new or challenging situations. Toddlers begin to put words to their emotions, to learn the concept of emotions and to interact with others. Parents can help their child interpret the actions and emotions of others by putting words to actions and feelings. Children form their own thinking from their experience with others. For example, rough and tumble play can help them learn when to stop when someone has had enough.

Children learn by absorbing information in their surroundings before age three and by their third or fourth year they begin to ask why. They begin to learn cause and effect in social situations and in patterns of behaviour. A child’s impulse control and wilful emotions will become more practiced resulting in thinking before acting. Learning impulse control is critical to brain development at this time; learning this later delays mastery of self-regulation.

By the age of six, children are capable of expressing their feelings, acting deliberately, planning, and controlling aggression both physically and relationally.

PARENTING IMPACTS

The experiences children have through interacting with their parents plays a central role in developing brain systems toward self-regulatory behaviours.

Parenting styles that are warm and responsive allow children to focus their attention and tune in to parents showing control of their own behaviour (first inkling of patience!).

The four main parenting styles are:

Indulgent or permissive – less demanding and more responsive, lenient and not requiring mature behaviour. Creating a family dynamic to help children explore their own self-regulation and to avoid conflict.
Authoritarian – less responsive and more demanding, expecting compliance without question, providing structured environments and establishing clear rules.
Authoritative – demanding and responsive, assertive but not restrictive or intrusive. Providing a supportive environment for learning alongside with clear expectations and allocations of responsibility.
Neglectful or uninvolved parents are low in both demands and responsiveness, in extreme cases rejecting and neglecting the essential needs of children.

Parenting styles have three primary dimensions:

1) Behavioural control – developing strategies that openly monitor behavioural expectations, establishing rules and limits that provide boundaries for managing behaviour.

2) Warmth – creating a supportive environment for self-expression, encouraging a child to participate in individual, group and community activities, and to form close attachment relationships.

3) Psychological control – being intrusive and overprotective, creating a sense of dependency in a child by implementing constraints, interrupting or ignoring the child, and manipulating a child both emotionally and psychologically.

The main difference between the authoritarian and authoritative parenting styles is the dimension of psychological control, with authoritarian parents expecting children to accept judgments or values without question, and authoritative parents being more open to give and take.

According to researchers, the authoritative parenting style is one of the most consistent predictors of self-regulatory competence from early childhood through adolescence into adulthood. This form of parenting effectively helps a child acquire the self-confidence and esteem necessary to face life’s challenges.

The five important elements across parenting styles that are conducive to developing resilience and self-regulation are:

Availability – the foundation for children to learn to form trust in relationships starts with parents responding to their baby’s needs, as well as providing the security for their child to outgrow the dependency of infancy and confidently explore the wider world and its many challenges.
Sensitivity – being aware as a parent of their child’s individual and unique perspective and encouraging their child to form his or her own feelings and opinions, even if they are different to their own.
Acceptance – being child-centred and valuing the experiences and knowledge unique to their child.
Co-operation – creating opportunities for children to contribute and be effective as children learn to make an impact on their environment. It is possible for parents to be on the child’s ‘team’ to work together solving problems and promoting the various competencies the child has. Success brings confidence to take on challenges and measure risks.
Family membership – promote feelings of belonging and being significant to others.

INTERACTIONS – FAMILY ENVIRONMENT OF DISCIPLINE

The environment of the community and family within which a child is raised affects the self-regulation processes the child develops. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity; family and community environments that are resilient have more self-regulatory systems in place from which individuals can learn. Family conflict is inevitable and some dynamics are higher in emotion due to the temperaments of the individuals in the family. Studies have found that it is not the heat of the family conflict, but how it is resolved, that impacts a child’s ability to regulate in conflict.

Discipline of children affects the self-regulatory development of children. While 90 per cent of parents have used smacking at least once, studies find that any kind of physical discipline negatively effects self-regulation.

A parent’s ability to redirect a child’s attention away from the source of distress and re-engage the child in an on which to activity is the most basic, and an important, self-regulatory skill.

Timeout is often given as an alternative disciplinary tool, however time in with the child or staying in the vicinity of an upset child calms them faster than isolation.

CONCLUSION

Being able to self-regulate lays the foundation for many complex tasks and ways of thinking. Individuals are unique in a multitude of ways: physically, brain maturity, temperament and personality. Experience of the world from infancy onwards shapes our self-regulatory abilities.

Researchers now suggest that intentional movements assist a child’s brain to work more efficiently. Sport, music, stretching and slow, measured movement assists all bodies to self-regulate better, often by influencing breathing first and foremost, enabling the brain to calm, and thus to better process complex thoughts.

Parents who are skilled at interpreting their child’s signs, building learning upon current strengths and abilities, taking cues from the child’s perspective in play and respecting their rhythm of problem solving enhances their child’s capacity to learn self-regulatory behaviours.

Regardless of gifted ability or disability, circumstance and cultural differences, the best predictor of positive child behaviour is parental confidence in their own knowledge, acceptance of their child and having a warm relationship with them.

Ngala’s motto of ‘parenting with confidence’ aims to assist you parent your children positively and confidently.

Ngala Helpline 9368 9369.

To book into Ngala Understanding Guiding Children’s Behaviour workshop go to www.ngala.com.au

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EDUCATION

Reading For Sure

By N/A October 18, 2019

“Those that teach Reading for Sure are rewarded everyday with smiles from students as these students learn that reading and writing well is possible for them.”

Literacy is a fundamental skill that everyone needs in order to access education, work and the community. With modern digital devices being able to read and write is now even more vital, not less as was once thought when computers first arrived.

Literacy is not an intuitive action, unlike walking and talking; it is a human construct that requires the building of new connections in the brain.

There are a variety of reasons why someone does not develop good literacy skills. The most commonly recognised cause of delayed or poor literacy skills is Dyslexia. Other learning difficulties also impact, and these include dysgraphia, dyspraxia, hearing issues, ADHD, Autism, Global Learning delay, short, and long term, memory problems etc.

A lack of good early play and language experiences impact on a child’s ability to cope with literacy, concentrate, sit at a desk and to write.

How a person is taught to read is slowly being recognised as significantly impacting on a person’s literacy development or lack thereof. Like all learning one size does not fit all.

Scientific studies tell us that the best literacy programs will develop a student’s ability to sound out and sound blend a word, ensure the student understands the meaning of all the individual words and derive meaning and information from the sentences formed from these words.

Learning to spell, read and understand words allows us all to communicate with others and to enjoy the wonderful stories and information available in books and other forms of text.

Learning to read and write English does not come easily for everybody as it involves many complex interactions in the brain. When foundation skills are missed it can cause significant difficulties later.

Students struggling with reading become anxious and can turn away from literacy and education as a result. A student who struggles with literacy often begins to feel that they are dumb because they can’t read. Nothing is further from the truth. Many people with exceptional IQs have struggled with literacy. Unfortunately, without correct instruction to help their brain develop the pathways needed to work with the written word these individuals may not develop their true potential.

With an understanding of how the brain develops and learns to decipher the written word the Reading For Sure program was developed to quickly help the learner build the foundation skills and brain pathways needed for literacy. The Reading for Sure program uses unique teaching tools to continue to develop these skills so that the learner can achieve in all areas of English Literacy.

Our recent study of 180 students, with a broad range of difficulties impacting their literacy acquisition, showed excellent improvement for every hour of tuition. The 180 students included students that were not learning via standard teaching methods, dyslexia, English as a second language etc. and started tuition at ages ranging from 5 to 20 years old. The students were taught by one of four Reading For Sure teachers.

The data showed that not only did every child improve their literacy, but that on average for every hour spent with one of our teachers, the students improved 1.6 months in their reading age. The data for the spelling was not complete for all the 180 students but, using the data available, the average gain in spelling was 0.4 of a month improvement for each hour of tuition.

Within just a few lessons parents and students see the difference. The student’s confidence blossoms, and they begin to enjoy the reading and learning process once more. This reading gain also quickly equates to better outcomes in their education environment. Literacy is the core skill needed for all subjects and students enjoy school so much more when they are not struggling with their literacy.

“Finding the Reading for sure method was a relief. To discover a method that works and makes sense to my dyslexic daughter, has not only greatly improved her reading, it has given her confidence and a sense achievement” says Mrs. Clements.

With the correct program and teaching methods no person young or old needs to struggle with literacy.

Those that teach Reading for Sure are rewarded everyday with smiles from students as these students learn that reading and writing well is possible for them.

Visit the Reading for Sure website and see our new blog series about how parents can help their young children develop the pre literacy skills they need to be able to learn all the literacy skills when they go to school. This free blog series will give parents hints and ideas about the activities that help the brain and body develop ready for literacy and learning and what to look out for if things may not be developing as they should.

Reading For Sure is an Australian program with its office in Perth. www.readingforsure.com.au

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DEVELOPMENT

Secure Children

By N/A September 27, 2019

Parents start to become anxious if their children do not conform to social norms because parents instinctively know that a child’s social survival is very important.

We might be ‘buying’ security for a child by getting the latest and trendiest object available, from designer labels to smartphones, in order to keep them within their social grouping. Then we start to abide by trends — we’re taught, and have it impressed upon us, that our children must have enough exercise, they must not watch too much TV, we must spend time with them, we must not let them eat the wrong thing, we must not let them watch the wrong thing, we must watch for health alerts and so on. Some of these demands are real in certain measure, but are they the real goals of parenting a child or are they just small stops on the way to something much bigger?

My conclusion is that they are secondary goals and that we are not paying enough attention to the primary goals of childhood. The outcome is that parents are very anxious about getting their child the ‘right thing’ rather than attending to the ‘right state of mind’. Are you the kind of parent who gets everything for your child and yet feels dismayed when they still do not appear to be happy? What truly makes children feel secure from the inside out? Once you have that information you can decide for yourself where you think your parenting might need to develop or where you might need to get help if necessary. You will, of course, continue to help your child conform to social norms and trends, but you will do this from a more secure position knowing that you have attended to the real priorities. You will have more choice about the other things and so will your children.

Psychological security

The thing that children want to feel most in life is that their parents feel secure and safe when they are with them and that this feeling then transfers to them. This is called a ‘felt sense’ and is also known as psychological security. With a felt sense of security, a child will have a pervasive feeling that their world is going to be held together and managed, in a fashion that keeps them safe and well, and that they can get on with the task of exploring life and relationships. This is what your children really want from you. So many of the children I have met in mental health services are mildly to moderately troubled because they feel they have had no psychological anchor onto which they can hold during their episode of difficulty.

The psychological capabilities of children who live with a felt sense of security might include the following:

They will feel that the world is a good enough place to be

Children show us that they feel safe when they can explore their environment and get on with learning. This overriding sense that it’s good to be alive is the richest of human resources, and it is a great achievement if we can raise children who wake each morning with the felt sense that today will be a great day because there are people on whom they can rely.

Children show us that they feel safe when they can explore their environment and get on with learning.

They will be able to distinguish positive from negative

Children who have a felt sense of security will feel safe enough to comment on their world and evaluate it in a realistic way. They will be able to evaluate their parents’ state of mind as well as comment on their own, and will be able to say things like ‘My dad’s not very good at mending the car so he couldn’t fix it and we were late for school’, and express frustration and disappointment about this. At the same time, the same child would be able to look at what their father gets right — ‘He helps me with my homework.’ They will be able to comment, ‘Mum is a bit upset today; that makes me feel sad too, but she says she will feel better soon.’

This kind of emotional literacy relating to good and bad gives a child a way to describe their experience and help others understand them. The child feels that their conversation is worthy of attention and they will bother to make a narrative about life because life is full of good and bad things that are interesting.

Children being emotional is to be expected and respected.

They will label and express emotions

Essentially, our emotions help us to understand where we are inside ourselves and there are plenty of reasons why we should not ignore these communications. Children being emotional is to be expected and respected, and is worthy of our attention. A child being emotional is as natural as a puppy biting your hand, because that is instinctive — the puppy is not being naughty, it is just behaving instinctively.

They will feel accepted

A sense of acceptance is big currency in life. A sense of acceptance and belonging in our primary family of care (or adopted or substitute family or care group) is the deepest gift on offer in this lifetime and nothing can replace the sense of wellbeing or contentment that this will give to children.

They will have a coherent self

Coherence is an important word when we are thinking about the care of children. You don’t have to be perfect as a parent, but you do have to try to be as coherent and as organised, functional and meaningful in your behaviours as you can be. The more children have the sense that their small emerging mind and self has the support and attention they need, the more they will enjoy being alive with an inherent sense that all chaos can be restored.

They will be alert to information about relationships

Secure children feel a sense of conviction that it matters to notice others and what they might be thinking, and, like anything to which we give our attention, the more we give our focus to it the more we are likely to become an expert at it. The more adept we are at reading social cues through reading people’s faces and body language, the more we are likely to get social cues correct and respond in the right way.

They will be angry and frustrated at times but will be able to manage this and rely on you

If you are available to deal with your child’s issues as they arise, it is highly likely that by the time they are adults they will have absorbed the tendency to deal with issues more effectively, having received all of your help.

They will be angry and frustrated at times.

In conclusion

Children are primed and programmed to demand more and more from us and you might need help to identify the organic needs of the child that must be met if they are to feel secure from the inside. It is safe to say no to a child if they ask for the latest thing that they feel they need, but it is not safe to take your eye off their need for you to protect them and prioritise their care. As we have seen, secure kids express emotions, talk about negative as well as positive experiences and feel they have the right to comment on their lives. They will have problems and they will bring you those problems if they are secure. There is no way out of having problems in life when you are a child. Your real hope lies in a thoughtful parent who is sensitive to what is worrying you, who takes your issues seriously and realises that what you really need is them and their mind working for you.

Finally

» What your child really needs is you and your attention. There is nothing on this planet you can buy that will replace that.

» Emotions are beautiful aspects of our humanity that keep us informed about the state of our children and ourselves.

» If you put effort into anything, put it into helping your child feel loved, safe and accepted.

» Help your child resolve negative emotions. It is a fantastic way to care for their mental health and make them feel secure. It could be said to be the first building block of good mental health.

» Take note of how important the quality of the relationship is with your child. This is demonstrated by being there for them to deal with the small issues they face on a daily basis.

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