Browse FAQs
Questions about CalmFamily's approach
Our classes are based on years of research, by many different specialists, and even more collective years of working with families to calmly support them through pregnancy, birth, the early days and months with a baby, and throughout the rest of childhood.
All of our consultants have extensive experience around parenting, supporting children, and/or caring for children in a professional capacity. We all share a realistic view and a completely judgement-free attitude.
We support, we listen, we build confidence, and we provide information and frameworks to guide parents through making their own plans.
We absolutely do not suggest prescriptive ways for raising children. We present unbiased, evidence-based information that is up to date. Our highly trained consultants focus on supporting parents to become confident in their role and to recognise that they are the expert.
We aren’t aware of any other organisation in the world offering what we do.
CalmFamily sessions are structured around ensuring that we meet the needs of our clients. When parents come to a workshop or course, they often feel that they are struggling or have a problem, and it is important that we hear that, and recognise the issue, and the impact it is having on the parents. Parents need a chance to freely express how they feel, and to be listened to. Parents’ feelings are often dismissed, they are told they are overreacting, or that everything is normal and fine. Everything they are experiencing may indeed be normal, but that’s not what parents are saying, they are saying “this is hard, I can’t do this, I’m struggling, I need help, I need to make a change because this is too much.” Sometimes parents tell us that the thing that made the most difference was having someone really listen, and validate their struggle and their emotions.
Through listening we help parents reflect on what is going on in their situation, and what about the situation is truly problematic. We offer information to help parents understand the particular area, such as sleep, developmental norms and psychology for the age of their child. From this position of deeper understanding we consider how ‘the usual’ solutions aim to tackle this, whether they will work, based on how they relate to our understanding of the issue, and any pros and cons they have. We then work through the relevant CalmFamily frameworks to look at ways to meet the needs of both the parents and the baby/toddler/child in the situation, asking parents to think holistically about their life, rather than focussing on the half hour before bedtime to improve sleep, or the management of tantrums in order to change toddler behaviour.
This means solutions tend to be evidence based, targeting the problem they are actually experiencing, and targeted to fit the life and needs of the family concerned. On the whole this tend to make them much more effective!
The original concept of the BabyCalm and ToddlerCalm programmes were accompanied by two books of the same name. It has been many years since their release and we have updated and expanded the programmes since then, and have even written a new programme for pregnancy and birth.
You do not need to read the books to benefit from our sessions. We provide all the information you need in our classes and they are fully up-to-date. We also back up your sessions with handouts and photos of the group ideas you developed to take home. Our consultants offer follow-up support by email and online, or through bespoke consultations for parent who need more individualised support outside of a group setting.
Having said all that, the books are great so if you fancy reading them then please feel free.
If you have read the book, don’t worry you will still get so much from our sessions. It’s the difference between being inspired by a concept and having support to put it into practice in your own life.
If you liked the book, you’ll love the opportunity to discuss the information with one of our consultants and with other parents, get updated information, enjoy interactive activities to help you draw your own conclusions and apply our frameworks to make your own plans.
Our approach is backed up by scientific and psychological research. We gather and act on feedback from clients and are always collating data to show our outcomes for parents.
The answer to this question depends on what you mean by “working”. Will your baby or toddler turn into a perfectly behaved, completely calm all the time human who sleeps 12 hours straight and eats every food in the world and brings you drinks and rubs your feet? Probably not.
Will they cry, whinge, tantrum less and sleep and eat a bit more or differently, probably. The only thing we can almost guarantee is that you will feel a lot calmer and more confident in your own personal approach with your family. We have an impressive list of happy parents so far. If you want to help by providing feedback then you can send it to us on our contact page.
The CalmFamily approach is based on supporting all people to have calmer relationships. Our page “Our approach” contains more information.
