Parenting Experts Reveal…
It's not the separation but the unresolved conflict between parents that hurts children
Narcissists don’t co-parent, they counterparent with everyone as collateral damage. Including hurting their own children!
The kids come back to you and you spend most of the time trying to “undo” whatever has wound them up at the other parent’s house.
They won’t open up to you and you don’t know how to help.
You can feel them drifting away from you and you don’t know how to stop it.
Sound familiar?
The truth is that you cannot control your exes behaviour but you can control the impact it has on you and your children.
Parenting does not take place in a vacuum. It has been developing and taking shape for many years and perhaps even generations. Each parent-child relationship has its strengths and struggles that were already present before the relationship ended. These will have influenced how you went about separating and supporting your children through this transition. They will also be impacting your parenting skills and capacity post-relationship.
Understanding and appreciating your own uniqueness as well as your child’s can help to navigate the often turbulent co-parenting relationship. When you focus on nurturing the relationship with your children, you will find it much easier to make effective decisions about managing life and parenting, even with a difficult ex.
Introducing the Circle Of Security Parenting Programme: Your Powerful Tool To Create A Secure Base For Your Child To Develop Resilience In The Face Of Adversity
This could be your story too… Even if your ex is a narcissist and is trying to control your life…
Children who have a narcissistic parent grow up experiencing a lot of insecurity. Couple that with divorce or separation and the outcomes have the potential to be devastating. Narcissists are chaotic and bounce between neglectful and engulfing, giving children (and you) little freedom to explore their own world and make decision for themselves.
The Circle Of Security Parenting Programme helps you to create that secure base from which children can explore, develop independence and feel supported with life’s challenges.
Are you ready to shift your focus from your ex and put all of your attention on your relationship with your children?
About The Programme
The course consists of 9 weekly one and half hour online sessions with Una Archer, the founder of Parenting After Separation and a registered Circle of Security Parenting facilitator, and Sarah Squires, Founder of The Nurturing Coach.
These are group sessions and consist of:
- weekly check-in to talk about your week, your observations, reflections, wins and challenges
- studying the course material: each session covers an essential piece of the information about developing secure relationships. The content is delivered in a highly interactive and relatable way through videos of parents their children, graphics and plenty of time for reflection and discussions that will help you to weave your insights into your day-to-day parenting
- Reflecting on the session offers the opportunity to decide what you would to take away from the sessions and explore further during the coming week
Between sessions you will begin to develop more awareness as you go about your day-to-day parenting. It isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing differently.
Additional Support
- Before we start the programme, you will be sent a detailed questionnaire about your relationship to ensure we make the most out of our sessions together
- You will also receive a course workbook that highlights the key points covered in each session and helps you to stay focused on the current step. I am a huge believer in doing things one step at a time to prevent overwhelm, which if you have cPTSD, is really important. You have the information at your fingertips to review whenever you need it.
book now
Reserve your space now to avoid disappointment. If you have any questions about the programme, book an Initial Consultation with Una to find out how Circle of Security can help you in your unique situation.
There are only 4 spaces on each course available.
Next course starts Monday 2nd May 2022 and runs until Monday 27th June 2022 at 8pm to 9.30pm.
The cost is £347
Why this course?
How the course can help you
- Less conflict and perceived struggle with their child
- Increased experience of comfort, ease, and positive feeling in parenting
- Less negative attributions regarding their child’s motivations
- Increased sense of connection with their child
Powell, B.,Cooper, G., Hoffman, K. (2013) The Circle of Security Intervention: Enhancing Attachment in Early Parent-Child Relationships. New York: The Guilford Press
About Una
Una Archer is the founder of Parenting after Separation, a registered Circle of Security Parenting facilitator and Brainspotting practitioner. She helps parents to minimise the impact of separation on their children and to resolve emotional or behaviour issues that may have cropped up. Her experience of creating a new life after separation and assisting many other parents to do the same helped her to develop a distinctive relationship-based approach to parenting after separation that puts children’s emotional security at the heart of every parenting decision.
Common Questions
Narcissists thrive on conflict and so in most cases they are the party creating the conflict. However, you have been conditioned to respond in certain ways and that can create either external conflict (arguing) or internal conflict within you. Whilst you can’t change your ex, you can learn to manage your emotions and this programme will help you to manage those triggers.
Transitions between houses can be a cause of great conflict and anxiety for both you and the children. Whilst you can’t control how your children are treated in your exes care, you can ensure that you create a secure base in your relationship with them which gives them the skills and confidence to explore life and manage challenges.
Narcissism is based on a disorganised attachment style, with parents flipping between neglectful and engulfing quickly so children struggle to structure their attachment to their parent. This can create an insecure attachment in the child. In addition to that, you may well have an insecure attachment style as well which increases the changes your child will develop an insecure attachment. The Circle Of Security Programme can help you create a secure base for your child regardless of the challenges you are going through at the moment or faced in the past.
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT
You may prefer to work with Una one to one on your parenting so that you can have more personalised support. If so, this option is for you.
Circle of Security Parenting course is an easy-to-follow, step-by-step process designed to strengthen the sense of security in your relationship with your children. You will learn the skills that will help you to:
Confidently approach difficult conversations with your children
Help your children to express what is going for them and manage their intense emotions (including sadness, frustration, disappointment and anger)
Understand what is driving your children’s challenging behaviour and how you can help them to be more in control of their behaviour choices
Manage your triggers and come back to feeling patient and calm.
I’m certain that if you decide to do this course then in the years to come you will look back with pride on how you met this challenge and feel grateful for how your relationships have grown since then.
Course details
Duration of the course: 8 one and a half hour sessions. We can meet weekly or fortnightly.
Location: online
Once you sign up, you’ll receive:
A welcome questionnaire
Your course workbook
Access to email and voice message support
Fee: £995
For many people attempting to co-parent with a narcissist, they are stuck in a trauma cycle. Every interaction with either their ex or even their children is traumatic and this unresolved trauma can impact emotional processing, cognition and memory making it difficult to have a meaningful parent-child relationship which feels natural and authentic.
This is why we offer Brainspotting as additional support to the programme. Sessions can be help before, during or after the course.
Brainspotting locates points in the client’s visual field that help to access unprocessed trauma in the subcortical brain. Brainspotting is effective for a wide variety of emotional and somatic conditions. It is particularly effective with trauma-based situations, helping to identify and heal underlying trauma that contributes to anxiety, depression and other behavioral conditions.
Sessions are with Una Archer and cost £75 a session. If you would like to know more, book in for a free Initial Consultation with Una.
From Una:
“Soon after I started facilitating Circle of Security Parenting courses, I noticed that even when we have the knowledge and a huge desire to be there for our children, our past traumas can get in the way of connecting with our children and parenting how we really want to. Trauma can be a scary or painful experience that was too big to make sense of at the time. However, small things or an absence of connection (not feeling seen or heard) can be as traumatic. When I came across Brainspotting, I knew straight away that it was a perfect way to compliment Circle of Security Parenting work. Brainspotting is a gentle and effective way to locate and process those traumas and help parents feel more present, relaxed and available when they are with their children. I trained as a Brainspotting practitioner in 2015.”
ADDITIONAL SUPPORT
If you would like to talk through either of these options, please book a free initial consultation with Una to find out more about your best next steps.