Extraordinary Parenting: the essential guide to parenting and educating at home

Creating more predictability through rhythms can help children navigate transitions, because they learn to expect what is coming next so they aren’t caught off-guard. When more rhythm is brought to these points, the whole day starts to flow better, with less conflict and stress all round.

In the Waldorf philosophy, the breathing-in phase refers to a period of time when you are connecting with your child.

If a day needs to be a complete write-off, there’s always tomorrow.

It’s about working on ourselves as humans so that we can live as happily and peacefully with the younger humans that we share our lives with as possible, to everyone’s benefit.

With younger children especially, leaving an invitation to play for them to find in the morning can be a great way to buy you time to have a quiet coffee first thing.

If you have young children, create a visual chart of what needs to happen when.

For each breathing-in period, the child needs a breathing-out period, and so a pattern is established; breathing-in tops up the child’s connection with you and fills them up, so that they can then spend time without your full attention as you breathe out.

Calm communication is as much about a shift in thinking as a shift in language, allowing you to move from a place of judgement, anger, or frustration (‘He is doing it on purpose to annoy me! How did I raise such an entitled brat?’) to a place of compassion and empathy, where you seek to understand the motivations of those around you

Unconditional Positive Regard. Coined by the psychologist Carl Rogers, it means that, when we’re interacting with someone, we choose to accept and think the best of them, regardless of what they say or do.