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Possibly the best-kept secret on YouTube, this relaxation technique sends people to sleep, helps others concentrate, and has even calmed my fidgety children! * My children find ASMR videos really calming – at those times when they’re fidgety and bordering on dysregulated, these can help pull them back into a more regulated place. It sends people to sleep, helps others concentrate, and calms fidgety children. Some of our favourite ASMR videos: I’d love to know what you and your children make of ASMR – please leave a comment once you’ve given it a try.

This time, a book aimed specifically at preparing people for the reality of adoption: the process, the trauma, the different style of parenting, and what is required of them. Helen asks exactly the right difficult questions to help people examine themselves and their relationships carefully before making this enormous commitment. Those personal qualities, values, beliefs, sense of self and emotional strength that are required, whichever terrain confronts you.’ One of the things I love most about the book – and Helen’s style in general – is that she is very understanding of the reader’s feelings but doesn’t always seek to make them feel comfortable. ? ' asks exactly the right difficult questions to help people examine themselves and their relationships carefully before making this enormous commitment.

Yesterday we heard that the school we’ve been fighting Joanna for two years has decided not to offer her a place, despite having visited her in her mainstream school and having previously given verbal assurances that she would be welcome there. The reasons are spurious but we don’t hold out much hope of changing their minds, and after all this time and the various hurdles along the way, we’re running out of steam for the fight. But at least the girls aren’t having to mask any of their anxiety when they’re at home with me Plan D would be to get Charlotte back into school It’s been and post-adoption support, and two rounds of safeguarding nonsense, and CAMHS waiting lists and FASD clinic waiting lists and all the rest of it for such a long time that this feeling of being in limbo has become almost normal.

For example, I think most adoptive parents by necessity have a reasonable understanding of the amygdala and its function within the brain, but Cat brings our understanding of the brain to life in an accessible way, using Jane Evans’ analogies of the ‘meerkat brain’, ‘elephant brain’ and ‘monkey brain’. The Monster’ – Cat’s family’s label for her son’s trauma-fuelled behaviours –is a great way of personifying the problem and giving it an identity separate from her son, so that he isn’t viewed by others or himself as being to blame for responding to the trauma or things that trigger memories of it. This distinction is at the core of the book and is so incredibly helpful, particularly when conveying this necessary separation to family, friends, and teachers who need to understand. And if you fancy winning a copy, Cat and I have a competition to get your hands on the book for free – you can enter using the widget below.