ITVBE's First Time Mum Ferne McCann: Conscious Parenting
This week on ITVBE’s First Time Mum with Ferne Mccann I can be seen discussing conscious parenting with Ferne and helping her with daughter Sunday.
As with most things in Television only a short segment of our 3 hour time together was shown and viewers may be left wondering “But what is conscious parenting and how can I implement it?”
You can read more about conscious parenting here: and in this article here I will detail a bit more about the time spent filming with Ferne and daughter Sunday.
Conscious Parenting With Ferne Mccann
I was called in to help Ferne with her daughter Sunday (age 3). Ferne was struggling with Sunday’s tantrums and knowing how to peacefully help Sunday through her feelings. All of us have been there where your child has a meltdown out of the blue and you are struggling knowing how to deal with them (just for the most of us we don’t have camera’s following us around filming these tantrums.)
We spent 3 hours together talking about conscious parenting, discussing how most of the way we parent is closely linked to the way we ourselves were raised and we also spent a considerable amount of time playing in Sunday’s play room and talking about how we can engage and interact with our children when playing.
Many parents are really desperate for children to independently play so they can get a break or get on with adult tasks and jobs however there are so many great benefits to dropping down and playing with our children even just for 5 – 10 minutes!
When children ask us to play they are asking us to connect with them. Children don’t say I have had a hard day can you be with me they say “Mummy/Daddy will you play with me?” It’s their way of inviting us to be in their presence.
During the time playing in Sunday’s play room we watched Sunday make some fantastic creations (a frozen tower which she spent lots of focused time constructing and carefully piecing together – she’s a very creative child). Ferne was encouraged to point out the things she liked about the tower moving away from blanket statements such as “good job” or “that’s amazing” – instead really letting Sunday know she was paying an interest by pointing out the colours, the design, what part of the tower she really liked. This encouraged a dialogue between Sunday and Ferne and allowed Sunday to really feel ‘seen’ and her efforts acknowledged and appreciated.
It was evident that Sunday really enjoyed this connective time and it also allowed time for Ferne to really step into Sunday’s world and see things from her perspective. After about an hour it was then clear Sunday was tired and needed ‘down regulating time.’
As we looked at ways to help Sunday have some down regulating relax time (and a snack) myself and Ferne were able to sit and have a lengthy discussion about conscious parenting. You can watch a short snippet of our time together here.
“This process is worth it. I thought of it as an investment in myself and my family’s future, and my goal was simply to be a better parent, and I just didn’t have the skills, and this process provides that. The time investment is worth it, because you really get to work on the process, you get to explore your inner workings, you learn new skills. I would say if you feel called to do this process, there is a reason for that and I do not think you will regret it.” – Izzy. Washington.
