Okay, so I am not kidding here....but April was officially my WORST month of this year so far....Here I am....ME...whispering this secret out loud!! WHAT?

You see, I turned 50 on 2nd of April and my month started off well and then it slowly started to deteriorate. Even with so many good things in my life...

Recently, I have noticed that a lot of people feel impatient. They want to help children. They want to do their best for children. They want to learn how to coach children BUT they want to do it quickly! 

In the past (I have been training people since 2009), this wasn't the case. I just feel that the media is pushing their agenda of declining mental wellbeing in children and people (perhaps you?) are feeling desperate to be part of the solution and help.

I am here to tell you that if you want to help and do be part of the solution there is only one way to do it.

PROPERLY!

Anybody who knows me as the founder of Kids Life Studio® Global and who has done our Kids Life Coach Certification training knows this about me....

• I don't do short cuts.
• I don't believe in short cuts.
• I don't do a half job.

When it comes to coaching children, you cannot learn to do that in a weekend or a short online course that takes a few hours and doesn't have rigorous training and a sustainable approa...

What a great Kids Life Studio® group strategy session we had today! With the United Nations announcing their brand new inaugural International Day of Play, last week, we spent time speaking through ideas to become involved as a global network of Kids Life Coaches.

Global research in the Lego Play Well Study 2024, surveying more than 25,000 children across 36 countries revealed that as many as 73% of children don’t believe adults take play – and how it can help them learn – seriously. 

As Play Based Coaches, we consider ourselves in a privileged position to support children to grow, learn, think, understand and apply their goal setting strategies in a playful but meaningful way. We play with a purpose and its time to get engaged and involved in this ongoing conversation on the declining rates of play in childhood!

We are all "Play Ambassadors" and to celebrate the wonderful work all of us are doing, you can prepare yourself and become involved in the following 5 ways:

1. Read the Yo...

It was ten years ago almost to the day that I arrived in England with my husband and two suitcases and nothing more than hopes and big dreams for kids life coaching as a profession. Arriving from South Africa, and having just turned 40, I felt tired (moving homes let alone countries, is not for the faint hearted!) but yet I remember a renewed vigour in my outlook. I saw opportunity and I knew that my world had dramatically expanded and that it was the perfect time to reach more children globally. 

Having coached children individually and in groups in South Africa for a decade by then, and having launched independently owned Kids Life Studio® branches across South Africa, I was ready to try a new way of doing things. 

So after offering my final face to face Kids Life Coach Certification training in South Africa, I launched the Kids Life Coach Academy and started working online. Was it easy? Absolutely not! For an organisation, whose highest value is relationships, it felt strangely im...

Okay so let us speak about the elephant in the room here!!! Yes...children as young as age 5 are being diagnosed with Bipolar! But what is it? Why is this happening? AND....can Kids Life Coaching help children who have been diagnosed with Bipolar?

With world Bipolar Day coming up on Saturday, 30 March, I wanted to share a few facts with you. Like....Did you know that this day was Vincent Van Gogh's birthday, who was diagnosed with bipolar after he died?

So why was he only diagnosed after he died you may be asking? Well perhaps a research paper published in 2020, can shed some light on that for you. It speaks of co-morbidities, alcohol abuse, malnutrition, epilepsy and many other things...

So why am I sharing this with you? Well it helps to answer the question "Is Kids Life Coaching for children diagnosed with Bipolar?"

You see, as a research Clinical Child Psychologist, my Masters degree showed me that it is easy to diagnostically label a child according to the criteria in the DSM ...

I am so pleased that when I started my Kids Life Coaching journey way back in 2003...I was naive, filled with optimism and perhaps a little too "blue sky" in my thinking! You see, I believed I could do anything for children and that nobody could stop me!

I really truly believed it!

Why?

Well, because I really cared! For me, coaching children wasn't just a career change from my teaching career which I absolutely loved. It was my way to serve my local community, earn an income and make a difference.

With over two decades experience under my belt, I know my stuff BUT what nobody ever told me....is probably not even related to what you think!! 

You see when I first started coaching children, there were no other companies doing what I was doing. I was the first! I pioneered my approach in South Africa (now expanded to countries all over the world!) simply because I believed I could and I wanted to help children. The biggest problems I saw facing children back then was watching too much...

For many years, I have been speaking to potential students interested in enrolling in our training. They ask me how our Play Based Coaching System® works. They are interested in our approach and almost always have been led to believe that it involves telling stories to children!

I am not sure where this misinformation has come from. Although there is a lot of truth in the fact that children love a good story book....especially colourful ones with a meaningful and fun protagonist...stories in coaching sessions are simply a waste of time. 

Let me tell you why!

In younger children, stories are meant for bedtime. This is a special time for parents to spend with their children reading to them and perhaps imparting a few incidental "words of wisdom" that teach them life skills.

As a children's author...I LOVE stories....but do I use my own Zeal the Zebra book in my coaching sessions? Nope...not at all! But do I recommend my book to parents and teachers? For sure!

You see, a properly tra...