Samara Counselling & Consultation

02/08/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18HJhTxNZX/

10/07/2025

Magda Ge**er inspired me to realize that I could have “basic trust” in my baby to develop according to her own inner timetable. Oh, what a relief it was! Through trust I experienced a radical transformation in both perception and experience: first, by discovering my baby’s astounding natural abilities to learn without being taught, to develop motor and cognitive skills, communicate, face age appropriate struggles, initiate and direct independent play for extended periods and much more; then by realizing the tremendous energy and stress I had been wasting by struggling to entertain, teach, and second-guess my child.

Thank you, Magda ✨💛✨

08/13/2025

https://www.facebook.com/100034855281201/posts/1543846503453844/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

02/22/2025

02/09/2025

https://www.facebook.com/100034855281201/posts/1391371095368053/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

02/07/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BKVTRZzeb/

Your Natural Learner - Leah McDermott 💗

01/20/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CtafHyMRk/

Shelly Robinson - Raising Yourself 🧡

01/15/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15obADfBwi/

One little brave step at a time. It doesn’t matter how big the steps are, or how long it takes as long as the steps are forward.

The steps won’t always feel gentle. The big feelings that come with this won’t hurt them, as long as they are safe and they aren’t alone in their distress. Lead, with love. ‘I know this feels big, and I know you can do this. I’m right here with you. We’ll handle this together.’

It doesn’t have to be you who is with them, as long as it is someone they feel safe with and care about by - a teacher, a relative, a grandparent - any important adult in their lives who can help them feel seen, loved, and safe through the storm.♥️

01/14/2025

Dr. Jenn Hardy 🩷

01/14/2025

💕
🥰 It’s rare that we one only feel just one thing at a time. Our emotional world is usually a little more complex.

🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️ “Parts” language can help us feel more authentic in our emotional expression and help us better understand what’s going on inside us.

✨It kind of sounds like this:

💬 “One part of me feels upset, but another part of me feels hopeful.”

💬 “One part of me feels angry with you, but another part of me just wants a hug.”

💬 “One part of me wants to run away, and another part wants to stay close to you.”

💞When we model and teach this type of emotional expression to our kids, it helps them better understand themselves and their emotional world better too.

🔀Try it out for yourself and see if it resonates. Then try it out with your kids and see what happens!

01/10/2025

https://www.facebook.com/100068490722118/posts/913274210965595/

Imagine this scenario:

A seven-year-old with "just" fine motor difficulties (i.e. -- no formal diagnosis of any medical/social/emotional condition) wakes up in the morning.

He struggles to get himself dressed, because the clothes that he wants to wear have small buttons on them that he doesn't know how to do. The last time he tried, he got upset and gave up, then his parent yelled at him for not getting dressed when he was supposed to. So he skips the clothes that he actually wants to wear, and puts on a different outfit.

He fumbles around brushing his teeth because it's hard to coordinate, then his parent gets onto him for not doing an adequate job of it and brushes the other half for him, doing it too fast and too rough and hurting his gums on that side. He struggles to get the zipper to catch on his jacket and finally gives up, wears it unzipped, and feels cold on the way to school.

When he gets there, he has to use a pencil that's the wrong size for his hand, and he holds it with a grasp that makes his hand hurt after awhile, but it's what he has to do in order to form letters with enough pressure on the pencil for anyone to be able to read them. Pushing down that hard on the pencil also makes his hand hurt. He tries to take a break and fidgets with something to give his hand a rest, then his teacher snaps at him for "playing" and threatens to take away recess.

He's supposed to be writing a sentence like the one they have on the board, and his hand already hurts. He has an idea and decides to try writing with his non-dominant hand, but that turns out not to work, it's barely legible. Not that his normal handwriting is that much better. He switches back to his tired, dominant hand, and tries writing again, pressing down hard on the pencil to make sure that it can be read, and--

SNAP!

The pencil breaks.

He's wearing the wrong clothes, he was too cold, people have gotten onto him all day, he feels like it shouldn't be this hard to write, nobody else is having to work as hard as he is, he's just bad and he's doing a bad job, he doesn't know why he can't keep up and why the teacher is always yelling at him, and NOW HIS PENCIL IS BROKEN??!!

He loses it. He puts his head down and cries. Or he stands up and throws something.

And the occupational therapist in the back of the classroom, who was observing him for fine motor problems and poor handwriting, nods and makes a note, "Low frustration tolerance."

But...if an adult had to handle that many frustrating things in a day, they'd be losing it too.

Maybe he has a normal amount of frustration tolerance. Maybe he just has too many frustrations.

It's an interesting thought experiment, anyway.

[Image description: A black-and-white picture of a child's hands writing on a notebook, with font over it that says, "Sometimes I wonder if children with 'low frustration tolerance' are actually just exhausted from tolerating a thousand small frustrating things in a day that we don't see."]

01/09/2025

https://www.facebook.com/100034855281201/posts/1367496331088863/

Thanks for sharing the Synergetic Play Therapy 4 Threats to the Brain 💜