Live chat with Dr Tanya Byron, Thursday 6 September between 1-2pm

[OliviaMumsnet]

Hi all
We're delighted to announce that Dr Tanya Byron will be here for an online chat with Mumsnetters this Thursday, 6 September.

Tanya is a practicing consultant in child and adolescent mental health and has two children of her own. Her new parenting book Your Child, Your Way encourages you to really think about the kind of parent you are and the kind you want to be, but mostly to understand your child.

Tanya will be joining us for an hour on Thursday at 1 o'clock, so grab your sarnies, get your questions ready and join us then.

For those of you who have unavoidable lunchtime commitments, we'll let you post your questions in advance here.

Thanks, MNHQ

For the rest of you, we'll see you on the 6th.

Hi Tanya

I know you have experience with children with special needs. My 8 yr old daughter has Aspergers and is constantly talking to herself. She says that she is talking to her imaginary friends in her head. Now the reason it is a problem is she does it in public and I hate people staring at her. Any ideas? Thanks xx

Tanya, do you feel that people are more likely these days to turn to TV parenting 'gurus' for answers about their children's behaviour, rather than asking family and friends for support and advice, and if so, what effect do you think this is having on our society and our communities?

Ooh, the sanest person on tele! Can I ask a question? Do you have any tips for parents not losing their cool (shouting, ranting & raving ) when the kids are being difficult. I have unfortunately a very short fuse atm and feel extremely guilty that I seem to be getting angry with my boys (3, 6 & 8) when their behavious usually is the trigger, not the cause, if that makes sence.

Oh and, any tips for kids who move in slow motion. I hear all the time about hyperactive kids, but mine are really slow motion and it casues a huge amount of stress to get anywhere on time (obv. try leaving early & timers/alarms, but their slowness expands to fill the time available)

sorry it's long

Hi Tanya,

Just in case the system goes into meltdown at lunchtime today I'll post my question here.

I have an 18 month old son who won't go to sleep by himself. I have to lie with him on our bed and he sucks my finger, then when he is asleep I carry him to his cot. Once he is asleep he is fine, nearly always sleeps through, but sometimes it can take him up to two hours to settle (from 7pm - 9pm). He never took to a dummy and has sucked my finger since birth (I did this to save my poor cracked nipples when he was comfort suckling). We have a good calm bedtime routine consisting of bath, watch In the Night Garden, bottle, read stories (all with dim lights and quiet voices).

I know he can go to sleep by himself because he does so at nursery for his nap, but if I or my husband try to put him down (after a suitable period of calming down) he really cries. I can't bring myself to leave him to cry. I know this is a situation of my own making, but how can I unmake it?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Hi Tanya,

My son is 6 and has Selective Mutism.
Was very interested watching The House of Tiny Tearaways when you had the little boy on who had SM.

I know it is quite a rare condition and in my experience a very misunderstood condition.
It is especially difficult in school were the teachers seem to have no knowledge of SM at all.
From what I can gather in the US and Canada they have much more knowledge on SM and more support groups etc.

Apart from SMIRA ,which have helped me a lot in the past,why do you think here in the UK we are sadly lacking more support groups and more information and knowledge for the parents and schools on SM?

Thanks in advance.

How do you cope with sibling rivalry? Two year old sooo jelous of Six year old sister. DD1 cannot even give me a cuddle or read a book with me without her little sister pulling her hair, punching her etc. Then moving onto 'its my mummy not yours' 'til 6 yr old said one day in tears 'you won't be happy until I don't have a mummy will you'. BTW quite happy to share daddy!

Hi everyone
Just thought we?d warn you that we've asked Tanya to take a look at this thread in advance and she?s advised that given the sheer volume of questions she may not be able to get round to answering the very specific ones. So do bear in mind it?s unlikely she'll be able to answer everyone's questions during the live chat but obviously she?ll do the best she can.
See you at lunchtime!
MNHQ

I did suggest locking her in a cupboard until all the questions are answered!

Nbg - thank you for your offer - I'm at work at the mo, but I will CAT you this evening, if that's OK.

Offer her an Most Honorary Mumsnet Chair and have done.

Do you have any advice on how to stop other children copying bad behaviour?

Blimey! Popular one this then!? Hasn't even started yet!
MNHQ who has been the most popular guest-poster in MN history?

I suppose you'd need to judge content of posts rather than just quantity though wouldn't you? Since contraversy prompts responses!

Sorry - off topic!

how to controla nad 'deal with a tantrumming 2 year old boy who only seems happy going around breaking everything?
not an aggressive child by nature, just INCREDIBLY boisterous and destructive, you cannot take your eyes off the child, so is very draining

oh i LOVE dr tanya.

i love her hair, and her wrap dresses, and her eye make-up and her boots and her nail varnish. and what's more, i love that she never gets her (probably also lovely) knickers in a twist.

i have no questions. well, other than 'what do you think of Baby Led Weaning?' i suppose... but i doubt she'll get this far down the email.

Either way, i think she's great and much as i respect her decision not to do more telly i feel it will only leave space in the schedules for more 'undermining of parents as entertainment' stuff.

can we ask her to come back another time? Please?

LOL, just give her a weekly slot.

Thats fine Mablemurple

Will be great to hear your advice on this Dr T!

We think Dr Tanya is DEFFO BRILL

My 12 year old son,{KANGABOY} is in year 8, {2nd year high school}

He has problems with relating to the other children, they think he is "weird"

He follows the rules very strictly, {which annoys the others},

Do you have any ideas how he can learn to relate to his peers better please?

He is a very good actor and drama is one of his favourite subjects.

{btw he is dyspraxic}

Thanks

RTKM

PS please come and join Mumsnet full time we all love you on here.

Hello Dr Tanya

My little girl has a friend who's the same age as her, but the friend is an only child. How can I smooth over the disagreements they have without always seeing to be on my daughter's "side"? Particularly over issues like sharing (which the other girl obviously doesn't have to do so much at home)

thank you

can I post my question now, please?

I have a 13 yo dd1, who is incredibly jealous of dd2 who is 3 - she's not so bad with ds who is 2 but she bullies dd2 horrendously. If I leave the room or turn my back for a moment, I can hear dd2 screaming within seconds as dd1 has hurt her.

When will she grow out of this hatred of her sister and is there anything we can do to speed it up?

She's generally a very nice girl, but put her together with her little sister and she turns into a monster.

Thank you

(incidentally, we do reassure dd1 that she is loved very much and dd2 has not replaced her in our affections iykwim)

Flightygirl - the sharing one is ime fairly simple (Yu have to do it lots tho!) if they are arguing over a toy take the toy away and explain to them both if they can't play with it together/ share then you will take it away and they will both go without. Then encourage them to take turns - unless they cary on arguing in which case take the toy away. (this is what i do and its worked well so far.)

hello everyone - it's Tanya Byron here. Thank you MumsNet for inviting me to have this chat and thank you so much everyone for the kind and complimentary things you say about me. I've never done something like this before so forgive me if I mess it up at first - with your support I'm sure I'll get the hang of this eventaully (let's hope before 2 pm when we finish!) I have read through most of your questions and want to try and tackle most subjects before 2pm so forgive me if I don't answer yours directly (they are so many!!) but I hope within my answers to others you'll get some useful stuff. (Stuff being a technical word us psychologists use of course!!) But firstly can I tell you how much I have laughed at the comments about clothes and makeup so as a warm up do you want to hear something about that?

yes.

Just a quick one to welcome Dr Tanya Byron, we're delighted that she's here and know that she'll try and answer as many questions as possible.
MNHQ