Blog

07 June, 2018

Impact of Screen Time on Young Children’s Development

By Joanna Fortune Premature and prolonged access to screen based devices can have a negative impact on developing children across all areas of their development including sleep, weight, behaviour, mental health and even motor skills development.  The research tells us that the best advice for parents of young children is no screen time under 18 months old and a limited amount thereafter with a maximum of an hour a day beyond 2 years old.  This is largely because the critical period ...

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01 June, 2018

Sensory Play and Emotional Regulation

Sensory play is very important for all children.  Up until the age of 3 ½ or even 4 years old children are still working out where they end and the world and people outside of them begins.  Sensory play allows them to grasp that they have a skin that contains them.  This type of play is all about exploration through the senses: touch, taste, hearing, smell and sight.  This is a stage of messy play where you often can identify what they have been playing with simply by ...

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15 December, 2017

For parents: Helping young children to regulate their emotions

                                                         Our guest blogger, and parenting expert, psychotherapist Joanna Fortune shares her practical ideas on how you can calm down when your young child pushes your buttons – so you can help them to regulate their own ...

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24 May, 2017

For childcare workers: Communicating with Parents

Do you find it difficult to communicate with parents on sensitive subjects? Are you afraid to bring up such subjects with parents for this reason? You are not alone, anecdotally lots of childcare service providers feel this way. Here are some tips on how to handle these issues: Always respect the parents position – this is their child you are talking about, it is natural for them to feel defensive and difficult for them to see the matter objectively. Try not to se...

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