Gemma’s Blog


Jun 1 2020

How do you make good apologies? I know I have spoken to you before about certain words that you may want to use (and particular words that you may want to avoid) when you are negotiating with people. Apologizing is not that dissimilar to negotiation, except there needs[…]

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May 1 2020

A lot of parents often bring their young people to see me at my therapy clinic in Hertfordshire when they are struggling with the problems and challenges that life often throws at us. They are in need of some resilience boosting. But what does that actually mean? Resilience[…]

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Apr 1 2020

Today I want to speak to you about that habit that you might have of taking on other people’s nonsense. Sometimes you, young people, you are so caring and you are so good at problem-solving that you end up taking on other people’s stuff! You might have a[…]

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Mar 19 2020

NLP is also about thinking and attitude. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t just about fluffy positive thinking or unrealistically hoping for the best. But having a positive attitude will generally mean that you approach tasks in life with an energetic open mind and this can positively impact[…]

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Mar 1 2020

I’m going to be sharing with you the various ways in which you can begin to get a little bit more independence in your lives. If you are a young person who is going through that transitional phase of childhood into teenage years, or maybe you’ve just come[…]

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Feb 1 2020

I often run free community workshops in Hertfordshire to help children and young people who otherwise could not afford mental and emotional wellbeing support. And I thought I would share with you a case study from one of those workshops about the tolerance and acceptance that we should[…]

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Jan 1 2020

Making friends should be easy but sometimes it’s not! I remember when I was little I just used to walk up to random people and go ‘hello would you like to be my friend?’ and for some reason, I don’t do that anymore. Maybe because it is less[…]

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Jan 1 2018

Let me first begin by excusing the title of this article. I know that for many parents or professionals who are reaching a point of desperation in the relationship or interaction with a challenging young person, the idea of taking control would have captured your eye. However, just[…]

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Dec 1 2017

As a nanny, I was very conscious of ensuring that all of the children felt that they had an equal (within reason) share of my time. We used to do an activity called DSNFSE (I know it’s not a very catchy title!) It stands for Do Something Nice[…]

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Nov 1 2017

“First, we have about 30 minutes of saying ‘No! I don’t want to go to bed’. Then I normally have to part drag him up the stairs to brush his teeth. We have a story together – one book is never enough – sometimes we will have up[…]

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