For All Mum Kind with Fiona Forman • Weaving Wellbeing

With most kids returning to school this week, we as parents are often worried about how they will cope in their new environments. Will they make new friends easily? Do they have the mental toughness to take any criticism? Are they spending too much time looking at screens and how is that affecting them? Fiona Forman is a leading expert in childhood wellbeing. She has over 30 years experience as a primary school teacher, a masters in Positive Psychology and is the co-creator of the Weaving Wellbeing Programme and in this podcast we discuss some of the key components as to how this programme works to build positive mental attachments in the children she works with. Wellbeing has become a buzzword over the past few years. And while we are often concerned about our own mental health, are we paying enough attention to our children’s mental coping skills? With so many new pressures on our children from social media, technology and simply genetics it is so important to be acutely aware of the role that we play as the main adult in their lives. Fiona believes that even in today’s busy lifestyles that every “micro-moment” we spend with our kids can be spent being a positive role model. Anxiety and mental health issues are on the rise in Irish children and Fiona tells me how to identify and label these emotions to normalise them and in turn build up coping mechanism that your child can take on in later life. We also talk about the ‘Self Esteem Movement” and how sometimes despite our own intuition, constant praise and can actually be detrimental to their development as they fail to build up the necessary resilience to cope with what the world will throw their way later in life . I found Fiona to be a fascinating guest and her advice and knowledge will definitely influence my own parenting style as Alice gets older. To read more on the Weaving Wellbeing Programme please check out the website here: http://weavingwellbeing.com If you want to keep the discussion going please follow me on Instagram and thanks as always for listening. Pamela x Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ie/podcast/for-all-mum-kind/id1456045096?mt=2 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5q5ErY3McbYLuzC2qGfxVz