Available for release end of Feb 2021

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Anger, fear and anxiety overwhelming your child?

Get your family back on track with our six week online parent and child interactive programme

Big emotions such as anxiety, fear and anger can overwhelm children and derail family life. Mealtimes, bedtimes, social events and school can feel like minefields.

On this Lion Taming journey children and parents will complete 6 weekly online interactive sessions.

Parents and children will regain a sense of control, reconnect and grow in confidence.

Here is to raising confident, happy and resilient children able to manage what life throws at them!

Taming Your Lion: Managing big emotions

At Pocket Family Psychologist we are all about bringing the latest psychological ideas and treatments to families in a way that is engaging, accessible and affordable. Our programme is:

  • Based on research from developmental child psychology, neuropsychology and latest evidenced-based therapeutic interventions

  • Time efficient - only 40 minutes a week for six weeks

  • Can include the child, the parent and the teacher - we like to cover all angles

  • Gives you the knowledge and understanding you need to manage big emotions

  • Facilitates conversation and connection between you and your child

  • Gives you and your child the tools and strategies to manage big emotions

  • Fun and engaging for children

Watch Intro Video

What to expect

on your 6 week lion taming journey

Taming Your Lion: What is covered

  • Deepen your understanding of the psychology of big emotions and recognise when there is a problem

  • Befriend and understand your lion: develop the confidence and skill to feel and manage emotions

  • Personalise the tools and resources - develop your unique map and most effective strategies and share with a teacher or other supporting professional/family member

  • Learn how to support your child with confidence

  • Manage common snags and pitfalls

  • Follow 4 children throughout the programme and learn about their difficulties and journey to taming their lion

Bonus material

  • Live Q&A session

    Benefit from the experience of other parents and the expertise of your child and family psychologist. Sessions are structured to ensure a tailored strategey for change and an opportunity to ask questions. It is up to you how much personal information. Feel free to remain anonymous if you prefer.

  • Manual

    Download our Lion Tamer's Manual and additional PDF resources to keep. We provide separate manuals for children and parents. This ensures you have what you need to manage big emotions for years to come.

  • Teacher resources

    We provide resources for you to adapt and share with your child's teacher or other professional. This ensures that everyone important in your child's life is best able to support and understand.

Less than the price of two therapy sessions!

We want to make psychological therapies easily accessible and affordable for all families

We know psychological therapy can be expensive, difficult and sometimes unnecessary for busy families to access. Taming Your Lion gives you 6 online sessions plus a group coaching session with a psychologist all for the price of two therapy sessions! The cost of 6 therapy sessions with a clinical psychologist is normally somewhere between £500-£720.
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Instructor(s)

Clinical Psychologist

Andrea Shortland

Dr Andrea Shortland is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist chartered with the British Psychological Society and registered with the Health & Care Professions Council. Andrea has worked with children and families for over 20 years. She also supervises and trains other psychologists and therapists. She never stops training and brings the very latest thinking and expertise to her work. She is known for her innovative thinking and compassionate, friendly and fun approach to therapy. Andrea specialises in the assessment and treatment of trauma, anxiety and attachment difficulties in children, adults and families. She combines latest approaches such as ACT and Compassion Focused Therapy with EMDR, CBT, attachment therapies and systemic approaches.

What people are saying about us

Feedback on training with team working with children with trauma and attachment difficulties

Therapeutic Carer

It has been helpful to understand my own triggers, have group discussions and active learning, recapping on known knowledge and learning how different parts of the brain work.

Feedback from a Pocket Family Psychologist family consultation with Dr Ananda Van Den Heuvel

Parents of tweens

We only had one hour, but we achieved a lot. Ananda led the discussion well, giving us both equal time to express ourselves and focusing us when needed. By the end of the session, we felt we had some tools to help us move forward. Ananda was very insightful and seemed to quickly understand some of the dynamics of our relationship. She gave us lots of encouragement and made some very positive comments which we both appreciated.

Feedback on training with team working with children with trauma and attachment difficulties

Therapeutic Carer

Every session has been pitched well and I have remembered so much more than previous trainings. Many of the exercises will be useful. Thank you for allowing our stories too!

Feedback from Pocket Family Psychologist family work with Dr Andrea Shortland

Parent of toddlers

We were able to gain the skills and confidence we wanted and needed to strengthen our family. Of course, your practical advice and ability to decipher the children’s behaviours and providing us with strategies for managing all our trigger points meant that every session was valuable and practical too. Now, our children are thriving at this stage of their little lives because we have taken the time we needed to understand, accept and develop to be the best parents we can.

Feedback from Pocket Family Psychologist sessions with Dr Jocelyne Kenny

Teenage girl

I wanted to say thank you so much for everything, you’ve really helped me a lot. I’m doing a lot better at the moment, and things are going well in terms of school/my relationship/friendships, so thank you for helping me get back on the right path!

Feedback on training with team working with children with trauma and attachment difficulties

Therapeutic Carer

Course has been wonderful so far, really informative and really useful for the Childhood Studies degree I am doing. Thank you.

FAQ

  • Is it only for 8-12 year old children?

    The content is designed to suit a typical 8-12 year old whilst still being interesting for parents. If your child is younger you may benefit from the programme as a parent and may find several aspects suitable to share with your child.

  • Do I complete the programme with my child?

    It is up you. We suggest that you complete most of the programme with your child although will sometimes ask you to complete exercises individually. However, it is completely fine if you would like to complete the programme separately to your child. Do what works best for your family. There are some parent specific resources and we will let you know when they are.

  • Is Taming Your Lion therapy?

    Taming Your Lion includes topics, explanations/education, strategies and exercises typically included in our psychology therapy sessions. However, it does provide the individual attention, assessment and support of a personal therapist and therefore cannot be considered therapy.

  • Are there circumstances in which you would not recommend completing this programme?

    Yes, if your concerns are severe or your child is at risk of harm we recommend you seek the advice of your GP and/or personalised assessment and intervention from a qualified child psychotherapist or psychologist.

  • Could my child and I do this course at the same time as having therapy?

    Absolutely. We first thought about creating this programme as something families could do whilst waiting to start or at the beginning of psychological therapy. You can even customise your map of your specific difficulties to share with your therapist.