What is Happy Kids Happy You?

Happy Kids Happy You gives you a “toolkit” of methods for communicating effectively with your children, nurturing mutual respect, confidence and happiness in your relationships. It gives you ways to:

• choose words that work to get great results, quickly and easily

• use actions that help you understand your child better

• change your thoughts in challenging situations, to find new solutions

• be in a better mood more of the time, for everyone’s benefit

• enjoy learning alongside your children on your parenting journey

As the name implies, Happy Kids Happy You focuses on your needs – Happy You – as well as the needs of your children – Happy Kids. You are a key part of the relationship and have a major effect on the results you get.

Happy Kids Happy You is often referred to as a “toolkit” of methods, because each method is like a tool that can be used to good effect in many different situations. Also, like tools, there is no single method that will work all the time in all situations. The method that worked well last week may not work this week; situations change as your children grow, learn and adapt.

You are the expert on your family and your children. Happy Kids Happy You helps you find what’s going to work for you, for the situation you’re in. And, with increasing choice and flexibility, if the first method you try doesn’t fit, you’ll simply move on to another. So build your Happy Kids Happy You toolkit. You too can achieve more of what you want in your family life on a day to day basis.

A couple of examples

Little things can make a big difference. Here are just a couple of examples of how using Happy Kids Happy You kept a situation on an even keel and achieved a useful result, when it could so easily have gone the other way:

At a friend’s birthday party, my three year old was sat enjoying the party food, which included little tubs of ketchup. The boy next to her flicked ketchup onto her cheek and she immediately complained "Mummy, he flicked me!"

My immediate thought was to tell the other child, "Don’t flick the ketchup," but I now knew that these words would actually encourage him to flick more ketchup. So I pointed to my daughter’s cheek and exclaimed, "Look! A ketchup kiss! He’s given you a ketchup kiss!" This got their attention so I then asked my daughter, "Would you like to give him a kiss?" They looked at each other and laughed and, in this moment, I redirected them both back to dipping their food into the ketchup and eating it properly. This maintained a happy atmosphere, with friends eating nicely together. Result!

After my second child was born, my first child would do various things to gain my attention, including sitting on the stairs in front of me, when we were going up to the bathroom to get washed and ready for bed. I would be carrying the baby so this annoyed me because I couldn’t see what I was stepping on. This gave her the attention she wanted, even though it was my annoyance, and tended to set the tone for a difficult time in the bathroom.

One day, she did this and I was just about to say the usual, "We don’t play on the stairs… Walk up the stairs properly!" when I realised this wasn’t getting the result I wanted – a co-operative and happy time getting ready for bed. So I just sat down beside her on the stair. I didn’t say anything and waited. After a few moments, she looked at me and smiled. I smiled back… then she just got up and walked up the stairs! Result!