children Archives - Jo Emerson

Lessons from Love Island June 12, 2019 – Posted in: Advice, Confidence, Personal Development, Relationships

If, like me, you’re new to delights of Love Island you may, on first viewing, have been shocked on several levels: the amount of flesh on show (I realise this comment identifies me as seriously middle-aged but I grew up with Bananarama and Duran Duran and those guys wore their clothes on TV), the forced/heavily controlled environment (like Big Brother on speed) and the painful desperation of the contestants, all makes for very uncomfortable viewing.…

Confidence is a muscle that you need to exercise October 23, 2017 – Posted in: Advice, Confidence, Personal Development

So many people think that confidence is something we are either born with or not but this is a lie! Confidence is a muscle – we all have a confidence muscle but some of us haven’t learnt to exercise it yet. If you want tight, strong tummy muscles you go to the gym to do your sit ups, crunches, planks, and leg raises 3-4 times a week, you also watch your diet and, lo and…

Kindness and Quilting June 19, 2017 – Posted in: Advice, Relationships

My daughters were recently given a beautiful patchwork quilt made by my beloved grandmother. In fact, it was the last thing she made before she died over 20-years ago so they are delighted and deeply touched to have it. They are young, modern kids who love YouTube and gymnastics and shopping sprees. But they also have huge respect for anything authentic and homemade, especially things they can tell have been made with love and kindness.…

You can never out-give life… May 29, 2017 – Posted in: Advice, Confidence, Personal Development

Clients often work with me because they want to find out what their purpose is in life. Or even, what the purpose is of life itself. Here’s what I’ve discovered… Life is about giving – not taking. Our culture teaches us to grab, and compete, and grasp for stuff/people/experiences/status etc but I believe if you give freely of yourself to life it will always just give back to you. In spades! Giving is something I…

Loving others means accepting them for who they are April 8, 2016 – Posted in: Advice, Relationships

I was recently approached by a father who wanted me to work with his daughter so that she could become the focussed, academic, A* student he knew she could be. He wanted the best for her and could see that she wasn’t reaching her potential. He was very keen for her to have coaching. She, on the other hand, was determined (at age 19) to find her own path. She didn’t want to go to…

When children start showing signs of independence December 6, 2015 – Posted in: Relationships

One of the best pieces of parenting advice I’ve ever been given is to remember that my job, as a mum, is to develop adults. This I’ve taken to mean that the over-arching goal of my work as a parent of young children has been to help those kids become ready for adult life. Remembering this goal has really helped when faced with a tricky decision over one of my daughters or when I’ve had…

What I’ve learnt from borrowing other peoples’ kids September 13, 2015 – Posted in: Advice, Confidence, Relationships

As many of you know I have three daughters aged 11, 8 and 6. I also have the honour of ‘borrowing’ other people’s children for periods of time as a foster parent to older teenagers. We’ve been fostering as a family for nearly six years and it’s been a wonderful, life-affirming and challenging experience to share our home, our hearts and our lives with the young people who’ve joined our family.

Leave your emotional junk out of your kids’ lives August 24, 2015 – Posted in: Advice, Leaders and Teams, Relationships

When I first became a mum in 2004 my own childhood came into stark relief and I realised in a fresh way just how painful and traumatic much of my early years had been. With this in mind I became driven to do it differently with my own children to the point where I became a perfectionist about my parenting. One cross word from me to my daughter and I felt an immediate avalanche of…

Everything’s on loan – Posted in: Advice, Personal Development, Relationships, Spirituality

Nothing in this life is permanent apart from our sense of self and our connection to a higher consciousness. Everything else is on loan. This means our children are on loan to us, our parents, our friends and our colleagues. Some people are loaned to us for decades, others for a day but no one person is yours for the keeping no matter how much you’d like them to be. Our stuff is also on…