Laura Earnshaw - My Happy Mind: Help your child build life-long confidence, self-esteem and resilience

For Oscar and Bella, whove brought me unimaginable joy, love and laughter and who inspire me every single day.

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First published in the United Kingdom by Vermilion in 2020

Copyright Laura Earnshaw 2020

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Cover design by Two Associates

ISBN: 978-1-473-58130-2

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The information in this book has been compiled by way of general guidance in relation to the specific subjects addressed. It is not a substitute and not to be relied on for medical, healthcare, pharmaceutical or other professional advice on specific circumstances and in specific locations. Please consult your GP before changing, stopping or starting any medical treatment. So far as the author is aware the information given is correct and up to date as at August 2020. All names in cases studies have been changed. Practice, laws and regulations all change, and the reader should obtain up to date professional advice on any such issues. The author and publishers disclaim, as far as the law allows, any liability arising directly or indirectly from the use, or misuse, of the information contained in this book.

He just needs to develop a stiff upper lip. If he could just man up a little bit, hed be fine.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines a stiff upper lip as: Someone who has a stiff upper lip does not show their feelings when they are upset. And to man up a little bit means that the person should deal with something more bravely.

This was the response from my childs school when I asked the question, What can we do to better support my four-year-old, who is clearly struggling emotionally?

Id gone in to see the school because I knew my son needed some additional support. Every morning at drop-off hed cry and hang on to my leg for dear life, begging me not to send him in. I was that mum who, when it was time for pick up, the teacher would pull me to one side to tell me hed had another unsettled day. Hed have those heartbreaking red bags under his eyes because hed been crying for more of the day than hed been smiling. Bedtimes were hard, mornings were hard it was all really, really hard.

And honestly, I felt like a failure as a mum why were the other kids bounding in with smiles on their faces? Where had I gone wrong?

Id get in my car after drop-off ready for my commute to work and would crumble in tears. This became so frequent that I started to wait until after drop-off to put my mascara on because I knew it would soon be smudged by my tears. I felt lost and unsupported, and I just didnt know what to do.

Thats why my jaw hit the floor the moment the school uttered those words. Have you ever been in one of those situations where someone says something and you just cant respond because youre in so much shock? And then about an hour later you come up with a million incredible responses, but its too late?! Well, this was one of those situations.

Just to set the scene here, Im no wallflower my friends would describe me as strong, confident and more than capable of standing my ground but, as Im sure you can relate, dealing with things around your kids can bring even the strongest of people to their knees!

At the time, I was working as a senior Global HR Director in a FTSE 100 company. I was responsible for working with CEOs of large organisations with 60,000 or more people to support their teams in building leadership and resilience. I was lucky to travel the world and work with universities like Harvard Business School to bring the latest science and research around emotional health, managing stress, change and building resilience into organisations. It was a pretty cool job and Id worked very hard to get where I had, so I was not unfamiliar with dealing with difficult situations.

I tell you this because I want you to know that wherever you are on your journey right now, if youve ever felt weak at the knees or hugely vulnerable in dealing with a challenge with your child youre definitely not alone! These are some of the toughest times as a parent and the fact that you may have experienced them makes you just as human as the next parent. Im here to tell you that youre doing an amazing job, it will all be OK. I believe in you!

OK, I digress, back to the story.

I shuffled out of the school, got myself home, poured a glass of wine and started to make a plan. A plan to support my child who was struggling with the transition into school it was clear from the schools response, or lack thereof, that I was going to be doing this on my own.

I really felt that it was nothing major, just some settling in wobbles, a little separation anxiety and a feeling of not necessarily fitting in with the other children. But I knew that there was at risk of it escalating into more if I didnt intervene, which is why Id sought help from the school.

As I sat down and lost myself in my thoughts, and that glass of wine(!), I started to map out all of the areas that I needed to support my child with:

• Managing his emotional responses when I wasnt there.
• Managing friendships with those who were different from him.
• Helping him to feel good about who he is so he has high self-esteem.

As I continued to jot down ideas, I had a realisation. Everything that I wanted to teach him was grounded in the exact research and science that Id been teaching CEOs and their teams for the last 15 years! The only difference was that my child was four and I was used to teaching leaders who were forty plus!

I knew the science and I knew what my child needed, so I got to work.

For the next six months or so I dedicated myself (alongside a busy corporate job) to doing lots of work around developing my childs emotional regulation, resilience and self-esteem. I read over a hundred books, studied countless models and worked with lots of experts in the field. It was an intense but transformational time for me to be able to take all of that corporate knowledge and science and then apply it in the context of my child.

I learnt that there were so many competing theories and opinions but also that there is some very robust science and research about how to build resilience, self-esteem and mental well-being in children and, for that matter, in adults. I decided to only put into practice techniques that were validated in robust data and that I felt were a good fit for my family and circumstances.

The change in my son over these six months or so was so wonderful to watch. Dont get me wrong, he was, and remains, relatively quiet, but what changed was his ability to manage tough situations. He had some tools that he could use when I wasnt there, he seemed to be walking away from situations that were upsetting him and he was making friends.