Dr Emma Tonin, Clinical Psychologist

25/04/2025

If my partner and I were chatting and he said “Ughhh, I’m so stressed out by writing this dissertation, I could just throw my computer out the window!”

I wouldn’t say, “Well, you aren’t allowed to throw your computer out the window.”
I might say, “I know. I know it’s maddening.”

If my boss and I were talking and she said “Yet again I’m having to fight to get this kid what they need. It makes me want to scream!”

I wouldn’t say, “Screaming is a bad choice.”
I might say, “Yeah. That’s totally understandable.”

So when my child said to me, “I don’t want to brush my teeth! I want to break my toothbrush and throw it!”

I didn’t say, “You’re not allowed to break your toothbrush.”
I didn’t say, “Well, you have to brush your teeth.”

My child already knew those things. That’s the whole reason why they were saying them—to try to assert authority, to gain control, because they were hurting and sad and it felt to them like being powerful for a moment would help.

I said, “I get it, I know it’s hard.”

I didn’t say another word.

And then I held my child (and held their toothbrush so it couldn’t actually be thrown anywhere) for about half an hour on the floor of the bathroom while they cried about a dozen things that had nothing to do with a toothbrush really.

I brushed their teeth, which they still weren’t thrilled about. I’m not saying this because it’s a “trick” or because it “works” if your definition of “works” is that it makes children compliant in both action and emotion. My child doesn’t have to be compliant, especially not in emotions. There’s nothing to comply with; they can feel however they feel.

Then we went to their room and continued to have a deeply emotional bedtime because for whatever reason they had a lot of emotions to deal with right now, and this was how it came out.

I feel like it’s very common for adults to believe that if they don’t negate their child’s verbal expressions of frustration, then their child will “think that’s okay”.

“I want to hit you!”
“I’m going to throw you in the dumpster!”
“I’m never going to sleep ever ever EVER!”

You can watch them, or silently intervene, to make sure that an angry expression that is literally feasible (like throwing a toothbrush or hitting a sibling) doesn’t take place. Pick up the toothbrush and hold it, while not engaging in a verbal battle about it. Stand between the child and the sibling, or stand nearby—not like “I have to protect a victim from an aggressor,” but like, “The words being spoken here suggest that both sides of this social situation probably need adult support.”

And you can literally just let go of, or empathize with, angry expressions that are literally impossible (like putting someone in the garbage or never sleeping ever again). Nobody who’s using hyperbole, whether happy or sad or angry, enjoys having it pointed out to them that their hyperbole is not literal. Of course it’s not, it’s hyperbole.

Your child does and says these things when they are mad BECAUSE they already know they’re “not okay”. If they thought they were “okay”—enjoyable for the sake of themself, enriching to their lives, connecting with their adults—they would do them when they weren’t mad.

[Image description: Two cartoony word bubbles, one pink and one yellow, labeled "Q" and "A" (as in "question" and "answer"). The Q is: "How will he know it's not okay?" and the A is: "He already knows, and right now, *he's* not okay." There are little doodles of stars out to the side as well, and my handle, . End description.]

18/04/2025

The radio show went out today. If you missed it and want to hear it you can listen again here - in the first box choose "good morning marlow" and in the second box put today's date and it should come up

The website for the community radio station Marlow FM

15/04/2025

Well the cat's out of the bag now 🤦‍♀️🤣 do tune in if you want to hear me waffle on about psychology and parenting

Please join us for this months parenting show on Marlow FM this Friday 18th April from 10am - 12pm where we have the usual great music and parenting chat as well as the brilliant Dr Emma Tonin joining us in the studio, to talk about her career as a Clinical Psychologist and her journey (since 2020) home educating her two boys. A show not to be missed!

18/03/2025

The Pressure Paradox is one of the most powerful traps in parenting. Stated in a few words, it’s this.

The more you pressure your child to do something, the less likely it is that they will do it.

The reason why this is so difficult for parents to get their heads around is because the Pressure Paradox is the opposite of how we are told that parenting works.

Most of what you read about parenting is typically about how to use pressure effectively. The idea is that a good parent will pressure their child into ‘good behaviour’ by a series of strategies, and then over time this will be internalised and the child will no longer need to be directly controlled by their parent. They don’t call it pressure. They call it ‘authority’ or ‘being in control’ or ‘firm leadership’. But to a demand avoidant child it can feels like pressure.

Sometimes this pressure is very obvious – shouting and punishments – and sometimes it’s much more subtle – shaming and emotional pressure – but the basic paradox remains the same. The harder the parents try, the worse the problem gets. Everyone gets entrenched.

If pressure makes your child anxious, then none of the usual techniques are going to be helpful. Not star charts, not clear consequences, not counting to 3, not Time Out. Not being firm but fair or warm-strict. They will all make things worse. If all the solutions which parents try are based on pressure, then all their efforts are doomed to make things worse. It starts to feel as if you are banging your head on a brick wall.

Do you want to understand more about the psychology of demand avoidance? Come and join me at my webinar on March 24th. It's recorded if you can't make the time.

Illustration by Eliza Fricker.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/understanding-and-helping-your-demand-avoidant-child-tickets-1246046932919?aff=fb4

30/12/2023

The irony of using a youtube video to discuss the dangers of youtube is not lost on me. However, I've been having the conversation of youtube og vs youtube shorts with a lot of people. Shorts, like tiktok, is designed to create addiction. This guy has put into words a lot of the things I've been trying to say....hope it helps some of you!

*NEW Theorywear Available!*Shop the Northern Lights Collection Now! ► https://tinyurl.com/Northern-Lights-GT-DWhat do you think about YouTube Shorts? Since t...

11/12/2023

Today I said “I’m fine”, not once
But five times altogether
When people asked “how are you?”
Then made small talk of the weather

And so I hid behind my mask
The one I’d worn a while
I set in place my bravest face
And dressed it with a smile

And that was how the day went
All “I’m fine” and talk of rain
Until somebody asked me how I was
Then asked again

They asked if I was truly fine
And I said I was not
And they said they were sorry
That they couldn’t do a lot

But then they sat beside me
Whilst I spoke the truth at last
They listened and they held me
As the tears slipped through my mask

And where before, I’d felt I should
Maintain this brave façade,
I realised there was much to gain
By letting down my guard

See, though my load was still the same
It now was not as heavy
‘Cause sitting and offloading it
Had helped a bit already

Today they asked “how are you?”
And I told them I was fine
‘Til someone saw behind the mask
And asked me one more time

And though they may have felt
That there was little they could do
They’ll never know how much it meant
To tell someone the truth

*******

Becky Hemsley 2022
Lovely artwork by Illustrations by Majali

“I’m fine” is from my second collection:
https://a.co/d/hz7kmJs

04/08/2023

27/01/2023

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=130994246528177&id=100088528062608

Cuddled Up With A Book
Is Reading to Your Children Always A Good Thing?

When my son was very young, a charity called the Book Trust was giving all babies a bag of books. It was called Book Start. We all got the same books, and fairly quickly the charity shops around where we lived in East London all had a shelf full of copies of those books. In the pack was an illustrated guide for parents, with lots of pictures of parents of all sorts reading to their babies. They all looked happy and engaged, and the message was clear. Read to your child. Every day. Even if you spend most of the time trying to remove it from their mouth as they try to take a big tasty mouthful of cardboard.

I took it to heart, and tried to read with my son. The centre where we went for Stay And Play had signs up on the wall about how important it was to read with your child every day, how this was one of the most significant things a parent could do for their child. Even the doctor’s surgery had posters about reading - and if you turned up for their vaccinations when they were toddlers, you got more books. This time with a few more words.

The message was all around me. Good parents read to their children. Reading to your children will give them a head start at school and is known to be associated with all sorts of positive outcomes later in life.
I was open to this message. I was an avid reader as a child myself and had learnt to read before I started school. I was seldom spotted without a book in hand and one spare, just in case I finished the first. My parents still sometimes tell the story of the time I read the whole way through my sixth birthday party - I do have memories of trying to read during Pass the Parcel and how the game frustratingly kept getting in the way of the book. I loved reading.

My son, however, was not me. Fairly quickly he started to make it clear that snuggling up with a book was not his idea of a good time. He would take it out my hand and put it back in the bookshelf. He’d crawl off. The moment he could start to talk he’d say No when he saw a book and instead lead me to the cupboard where we kept the ingredients for messy play, or, as he got older, the TV.

No matter, I persisted. Good parents read to their children, right? Children loved being read to, sharing a book together would be ‘quality time’, there was posters all around me with pictures of happy children and parents reading. I saw no reflection at all of children like mine, who actively resisted reading. The more I tried to read with them, the more they told me not to. I was worried. What was I doing wrong? Why didn’t my children love being read to? What were they missing out on and was it going to blight their chances for life?

As with so many of the edicts issued to parents, there was a crucial element missing. The child. For reading with a child isn’t just something a parent does. It’s something the child has to do too. It is a two-way process but it’s presented as if only one person makes the decision. When we tell parents to read to their children, the child’s consent is assumed. It’s invisible, until a child says No.
This happens a lot when we talk about parenting. Parenting is presented as something which parents do to children, no matter how the child feels about it. Even fun books are full of suggestions which say things like ‘Have your child do…’ as if they are a robot with no views of their own.

Why does this matter? Well, because forcing someone to do something (even gently) is very different to doing something with them which they want to do. Even if it’s apparently the same activity. Forced reading is a very different experience to freely chosen reading. Forcing your child to read or listen to reading is not fun or a bonding experience - and in fact the research shows pretty clearly that it can do harm. Children who are made to complete mandatory reading logs quickly become less motivated to read, and I’ve met children whose experiences of being made to read daily at school have left them unwilling to even pick up a book for years afterwards.

When I realised that my son didn’t enjoy reading with me, I had a think about what children get from reading with a parent. Closeness, conversation, time focused on them and their interests - I thought I could achieve that through other means. It didn’t have to be centred around a book. So I started to watch TV programmes with him, and take a genuine interest in those instead. We watched a lot of Fireman Sam and the Octonauts - I tried buying the spin-off books but he still wasn’t interested and I couldn’t blame him, Fireman Sam is more fun when he moves around and talks. I can still sing all the theme tunes - he, of course, doesn’t remember them at all.

My son is fourteen now, and he can read. We never forced reading on him and so he learnt late in schooled terms, between the ages of 8 and 10. He learnt from Minecraft and road signs. He skipped reading books and phonics and went straight in with Ramona the Pest. He reads for pleasure and his reading level is up to what would be expected at his age.

I wonder sometimes what would have been different if I’d persisted with reading with him every day, even when he was so clearly telling me no. Because those early choices led on to respecting his decisions in other ways, and choosing not to force education upon him. We allowed him to come to different forms of learning in his own time. And perhaps that’s why all the Read with Your Child posters never acknowledge that the child has a choice. The child is positioned right from the start as someone to whom things are done, no matter what they think. And as they grow, most of us never question whether education should be something which is done to children, rather than something in which they are a more-than-equal partner.

15/01/2023

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=126333470327588&id=100088528062608

Right From The Start

Before I had children, I stayed with a friend who had a young baby. Among the many books on her shelf was one called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I read it (this was a while ago so I may have some aspects wrong but this is what I remember). It explained that the route to a happy family was good sleep, for parents and babies, and the way to achieve that was by getting the right habits in place from the start. So to that end the baby should be in their own room from early on and they should get used to the idea that their parents wouldn’t come in and soothe them in the night. In other words, they should be left to cry until they stopped. In time, they would stop crying, and everyone would sleep better and be happier. That’s the theory. My friend explained the baby had slept in his own room since the first week of life, so he wouldn’t get used to being in with them. Their doctor had recommended it.

At the time this seemed deeply wrong as an approach to babies, but once I had my own children I discovered that this idea about habits popped up a lot in parenting. Parenting practices which made children happy like co-sleeping, making children food they prefer, playing with them if they were bored were met with comments that you were ‘making a rod for your own back’. In other words, being too nice to them now might lead them to expect that for ever - and that would result in them being too dependent for too long.

As I worked with more parents, I found that many were haunted by fears of the future. As they allowed their scared 7-year-old into their bed, they worried that they’d still be doing it at 17. As they played Minecraft with their five-year-old they worried that they weren’t giving their children the chance to develop independent play and they’d never be able to entertain themselves. If their child’s behaviour was very challenging, they weren’t just responding to the distressed 8-year-old, they were worrying ‘If I don’t sort this out now, what will they be like in 10 years time?’.

And of course, those whose children were hardest to manage right now, worried the most.

It led parents to try and push their children towards the next stage, in case they never got there. It stopped them from seeing the situation as it was right now, because the feared future catastrophe loomed so large. And it led them to blame themselves. As they made chicken dippers for the millionth time they would sigh, ‘I should never have let them try these.’

It’s a profoundly unhelpful way to think about children. For child development is so much more than setting up habits. Children’s brains change dramatically between the ages of 0 and 18, and many of those developmental shifts take their parents by surprise. Children who wanted to be close to their parents at all times suddenly start to focus on their peers. Children who never played alone are suddenly immersed in their own worlds. Children who wouldn’t try anything new suddenly start to explore. Their habits as babies and toddlers seem like a life time ago (and, for them, are).

It works the other way too. Babies who ate everything can become 10-year-olds who only eat nuggets. The placid and cooperative toddler can turn into a strong-willed and determined teenagers (good for them!). Children aren’t blank slates. They bring their own personalities to the table. Parenting is a dynamic process which happens in the interaction between parents and children.

There are no guarantees in parenting, and fear of the future can sap the ability of parents to respond to the child you have right now. For yes, the future might be hard. Yes, child development isn’t a linear process. When the future happens we’ll have to deal with that - but right now you don’t have to. All you can do right now is live with the child you have today.

For all the rest is simply a mirage. And mirages disappear when you get too close.

(If you plan to (or have to) co-sleep with your baby, please get advice on how to do it safely).