MySoetlief

MySoetlief Every child is trying to tell us something through words or behaviour. Social skills aim to teach the principles that guide intimate social relationships.

MySoetlief exists to help parents understand those messages through articles, stories, practical ideas, and guidance drawn from 30+ years of working with children and families. Emotional And Social Skills Development

Children Programs from Age 3-21
Soetlief Programs teach children the Emotional Skills to identify, communicate and control emotions. Parent Coaching
Parents receive practical guidance in parenting. Teacher Training
Training focus on practical guidance regarding emotional management of children's emotional needs and behaviour and establishing authority in the classroom.

Consistency reduces the amount of thinking requiredTo me one of the most important reasons for consistency is it allows ...
23/09/2026

Consistency reduces the amount of thinking required
To me one of the most important reasons for consistency is it allows the child to learn the pattern instead of repeatedly testing the situation.
When the pattern becomes familiar, the child doesn't have to solve it every time.
Instruction → action → predictable response.
This becomes particularly important for a child who already struggles with impulse control, shifting attention, processing language, emotional regulation or tolerating being told what to do.
Inconsistency simply adds another layer of uncertainty.

Why Consistency Matters More Than We RealizeI remember often hearing and reading that consistency with kids is important...
15/09/2026

Why Consistency Matters More Than We Realize
I remember often hearing and reading that consistency with kids is important. But I only learned later what consistency does for my kids.
It simply makes life easier for them — and for me — because life becomes more predictable. And predictability creates a sense of safety.

So, I made effort to establish a pattern: Mom or Dad says something → I understand what is expected → I respond → something predictable happens next.

I realized that if this sequence kept changing, my kids would have to work out the rules again every time.

Imagine the instruction is: “Put your shoes in the cupboard.”
On Monday, I ask three times and eventually do it myself.
On Tuesday, Dad asks once and immediately becomes angry.
On Wednesday, my daughter argues and I negotiate.
On Thursday, she ignores Dad for long enough that everyone forgets about it.
On Friday, she is offered a reward for doing it.

Now stop and think about what my child learned.
Something far more complicated than simply putting her shoes in the cupboard.

Every time an instruction is given, her mind must first work out:
Which adult is asking me?
What mood are they in?
How serious are they?
Can I delay this?
Will arguing change it?
How many times will they ask?
What will actually happen if I don't do it?
That's a huge amount of extra processing for a child. And my inconsistency created it.
That was the part no-one explained to me.

Consistency wasn't simply about getting my kids to listen.
It was about making their world predictable enough that they didn't have to keep figuring out what my words meant.

Many parents describe their child as controlling, bossy, stubborn or argumentative, or say that everything seems to have...
08/09/2026

Many parents describe their child as controlling, bossy, stubborn or argumentative, or say that everything seems to have to happen on the child’s terms.
These behaviours can be deeply exhausting for families and often create conflict at home, at school and during play with other children.
When we see controlling behaviour, it is easy to assume that a child simply wants power, wants to be in charge, or insists on getting their own way.
Sometimes that may be part of the picture.
But for many children, control serves a very different purpose.
Control can be an attempt to create safety.
When the world feels unpredictable, overwhelming, confusing or difficult to manage, being able to control what happens next can make a child feel more secure. The behaviour we experience as “Everything has to be your way” may sometimes be the child’s attempt to make their world feel manageable.
This distinction matters.
When we understand controlling behaviour only as a character flaw or deliberate defiance, we are more likely to respond with consequences, arguments or power struggles.
When we become curious about what the child may be trying to manage through control, we can begin looking for the actual difficulty underneath it.
The goal is not to let the child control everything.
It is to understand why they need control so badly — and help them develop other ways to feel safe, cope with uncertainty, tolerate things not going their way, and gradually become more flexible.

When Defiance May Be a Communication ProblemI recently saw a boy who was described as increasingly defiant towards teach...
01/09/2026

When Defiance May Be a Communication Problem
I recently saw a boy who was described as increasingly defiant towards teachers, schoolwork and homework. A great deal of effort had already gone into supporting him. Educational assessments had been completed, medication had been introduced to support focus, and the adults around him were genuinely trying to help. Initially things improved, but over the past few months his resistance had become increasingly difficult to manage.
I was asked to help him understand how much support was being offered and to motivate him to do his part.
My approach, however, is always to first understand the child’s experience of the problem.
Once we began breaking the schoolwork down, something important emerged. He explained that he struggles particularly with reading and writing, while understanding much better when information is read to him. Interestingly, this was not new information—it was consistent with what had already been identified in his educational assessment.
The difficulty was in how he had been communicating it.
When he said, “I can’t do this,” adults understandably interpreted this as “I don’t understand the work.” They would then explain the work or encourage him to try again. But that wasn’t necessarily what he meant. He often understood the content. The difficulty was accessing or producing it through reading and writing.
He did not have the vocabulary or self-understanding to explain that distinction. Until we separated the different parts in the session, he couldn't tell us precisely where “I can’t” was happening.
And this created an interesting relational dilemma.
The adults experienced his refusal and resistance as defiance towards them: We are helping you. We know you can do this. You still need to do the work.
Yet his experience was almost the reverse. He experienced the schoolwork environment as defiant towards him: I keep telling you I can't do this, and nobody seems to hear me. You just keep making me do it.
Neither side was necessarily unwilling to cooperate. They were responding to different understandings of the same problem.
This doesn’t mean that expectations disappear or that he no longer has a responsibility to participate and work. But before we can meaningfully address motivation, effort and responsibility, we need to make sure we have correctly identified what he is actually resisting and why.
Sometimes the first step in changing a child’s behaviour isn’t helping the child understand us better.
It is discovering what the child has been trying, unsuccessfully, to help us understand.

The Child Who Is Slow to Join InI’ve recently seen several parents who were concerned that their child was shy.A mother ...
25/08/2026

The Child Who Is Slow to Join In
I’ve recently seen several parents who were concerned that their child was shy.
A mother described how her daughter takes quite a while to warm up to people — even people she knows. Her grandparents struggle to understand why she doesn’t immediately greet, talk and interact with them.
Another child was described as appearing to have very little joy or happiness in social situations.
And then there was the dad who described his son: “He’s slow to join an activity until he knows what to do. And then we can’t stop him.”
Different children. Different concerns.
Yet all of them had, at some point, been described as shy.
And, of course, I wanted to know why.
Because shy describes something we can see.
A child who hangs back.
A child who doesn’t immediately answer.
A child who watches while everyone else gets involved.
A child who takes longer than expected to join.
But it doesn’t necessarily tell us what is happening inside that child.
One boy described himself as shy. He told me that sometimes he was simply too shy to talk.
But as we explored it, we discovered that during this time he was also trying to figure several things out. He had learned to call that experience shy. After all, that was the word he had heard others use to describe it.
Maybe your child has also been labelled as shy.
But what if, sometimes, they’re simply trying to figure something out?

Connection OR Correction?What if they were never meant to be separate?“Connection before correction.”It’s a phrase I’ve ...
18/08/2026

Connection OR Correction?
What if they were never meant to be separate?
“Connection before correction.”
It’s a phrase I’ve heard often, and there is important thinking behind it. It reminds us to see the child before simply reacting to the behaviour.
But lately I’ve found myself wondering about one small word.
Before.
Why have we put connection and correction into a sequence? First connect. Then correct.
Perhaps connection isn’t something we quickly create when our child has done something wrong.
Connection is built on ordinary Tuesdays when nothing particularly important seems to be happening.
It’s supper-table conversations. Listening to the story that matters enormously to them. Knowing when they need to talk and when they need some time first. Being available. Sharing life.
I think of connection as drops of water slowly filling a bucket.
Drop by drop.
Every conversation. Every laugh. Every time we listen. Every difficult thing they discover they can tell us. Every repair after we get something wrong.
Occasionally, we will handle correction badly. It can feel like throwing a brick into that bucket and watching some of the water splash out.
But the bucket wasn’t empty before the brick landed.
Connection was already there.
And perhaps correction needs rescuing too.
Correction doesn’t have to mean criticism, punishment or judgment. Sometimes it is simply part of teaching our children what they will eventually need to do for themselves.
You don’t brush your teeth for Mom.
You don’t learn to manage your belongings for Dad.
You don’t learn to speak respectfully because it makes your parents’ lives easier.
We are teaching children how to eventually take responsibility for themselves.
And that sometimes requires boundaries.
A child can dislike a boundary and still be connected to us.
They can be disappointed.
They can think we are unfair.
Sometimes connection sounds like:
“I know you don’t like this. I understand why you’re disappointed. And the answer is still no.”
The emotion remains welcome.
The boundary remains too.
Maybe children don’t need us to choose between connection OR correction.
Maybe they need something far more integrated:
Correction that happens within connection.
And connection strong enough to hold correction.
This is the shorter Facebook version of this week’s Soetlief article. If you would like to read the full article, Connection OR Correction? — What if they were never meant to be separate?, leave a comment or send me a message and I’ll gladly send it to you.

Sometimes our children don't answer the request...They answer the interruption.Sometimes a child's words arrive before t...
14/08/2026

Sometimes our children don't answer the request...
They answer the interruption.
Sometimes a child's words arrive before their thinking has caught up.
That doesn't mean we ignore disrespect.
I've written the full article about what this ordinary morning taught me as a parent.
✨ Send me a message with "Article" if you'd like me to send it to you.

When Your Child Responds Before They've Even ThoughtIt started with an ordinary morningThis morning my youngest daughter...
11/08/2026

When Your Child Responds Before They've Even Thought
It started with an ordinary morning
This morning my youngest daughter reminded me how easy it is to misunderstand our children when we only listen to their words. She was completely absorbed in designing invitations for her birthday, carefully choosing colours and thinking about how she wanted to invite her friends. Meanwhile, my mind was somewhere entirely different. I knew her lovebird would soon become noisy, I knew my husband would probably become frustrated by it, and I had a long list of things waiting for my attention. So, from my perspective, it simply made sense to remind her to take the bird out.
"Okay," she answered.
A little while later the bird was still chirping, so I reminded her again. This time her tone changed immediately. It carried irritation. When I asked what she was doing, she answered, "Something." When I asked what the "something" was, she responded, "Okay... I don't have to do this now then." A few moments later she walked into the room, picked up the bird’s cage and quietly started cleaning it.
When words and behaviour tell different stories
As I stood there watching her, something didn't quite fit. None of her responses had answered my questions, yet her behaviour told a completely different story. She had heard my request. She knew exactly what needed to happen. Somehow her actions and her words seemed to be telling two different stories, and I found myself wondering which one I should be listening to.
If I'm honest, I could also feel something tightening inside me. At first, I thought it was because she hadn't immediately moved towards what I had asked. But as I reflected on it, I realized that wasn't true. I knew she was deeply involved in something that mattered to her, and I know from working with children every day that moving from one activity to another is not always easy. What unsettled me most was the way she spoke to me. Her tone felt disrespectful, and like many parents, I immediately found myself searching for the right response.
Looking at the first response
The more I thought about that small interaction, the more I realized that children often respond before they have fully thought. A request interrupts whatever they are doing. Before the thinking part of the brain has had time to process what has been asked, the emotional part has already reacted. The words arrive first. The thinking follows afterwards.
Only then does the brain begin asking questions of its own. What did Mom ask? What do I need to stop doing? What happens next? Can I come back to what I was busy with afterwards? Sometimes the first words we hear are not a child's considered answer at all. They are simply the first response to being pulled away from something that already had their full attention.
Two conversations waiting to happen
That realization didn't excuse the way my daughter had spoken to me, but it did help me separate two very different conversations. By the time she came to fetch the bird cage, she was already doing what I had asked. Correcting the delay no longer made sense because there was no longer a delay to correct. What still mattered, however, was our relationship.
So I stopped her for a moment and told her something very simple. I explained that I had deliberately tried to keep my own voice calm and respectful because I knew she had been busy with something exciting, but that I hadn't liked the way she had spoken to me. It wasn't a lecture or an argument. It was simply a conversation about how we speak to the people we love.
The lesson I almost missed
What fascinated me was what happened afterwards. For the rest of the day, I noticed her becoming much more aware of the way she responded to me. It was as though separating the transition from the relationship had allowed her to actually hear what I was trying to teach. Had I tried correcting everything at once—the delay, the tone, the emotion and the request—I suspect she would have heard very little.
That morning left me with two lessons I hope I remember. The first is that children sometimes answer the interruption before they answer the request. The second is that understanding why a child reacted doesn't mean ignoring how they communicated. The request still mattered. The relationship still mattered. They simply didn't have to be taught in the same moment.
Sometimes the next lesson can wait
Perhaps that's one of the quiet wisdoms of parenting. We don't always have to correct everything at once. Sometimes our children need a little time for their thinking to catch up with their first reaction, and sometimes we need a little time to decide which lesson belongs to this moment. If we can make that distinction, we may discover that what first looked like defiance was often a child still making their way from one place to another.

As parents, one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is not trying to make them all respond the same way. It's...
07/08/2026

As parents, one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is not trying to make them all respond the same way. It's becoming curious about how each of them experiences the world.
When curiosity replaces frustration, understanding begins to grow.
In the full article, I explore why siblings can experience the same world so differently, how to recognise these patterns, and how understanding them can bring more peace into your family.
If you'd like to read the full article, simply comment "Article" below or send me a message, and I'll happily send it to you.

Why Two Children Can Experience the Same World So DifferentlyI still remember sitting at the dining room table as a chil...
04/08/2026

Why Two Children Can Experience the Same World So Differently
I still remember sitting at the dining room table as a child, crying because of the sound of my dad chewing. To everyone else it was simply supper. To me, it felt unbearable.
My sister's experience couldn't have been more different. Sounds hardly seemed to bother her at all, but peas would make her gag. We grew up in the same home, around the same table, yet we experienced the world in completely different ways.
Years later, I watched the same thing happen with my own daughters. One is sensitive to loud chewing, while the other dislikes the feeling of sweating so much that she once told me she didn't want to play sport because she didn't like being sweaty.
As a therapist, I now see this in families almost every week. One child covers their ears when their siblings are noisy. Another needs a huge amount of personal space. The youngest seems to fill the whole house with movement and sound.
Same family.
Same home.
Completely different experiences.
Sometimes our children aren't reacting differently because they're trying to be difficult. They're reacting differently because their nervous systems are experiencing the very same environment in different ways.
When we begin to understand that, frustration often gives way to curiosity, and curiosity creates room for compassion.
This is only a small part of the conversation.
In the full article, I explore why siblings can experience the same world so differently, how to recognise these patterns, and how understanding them can bring more peace into your family.
If you'd like to read the full article, simply comment "Article" below or send me a message, and I'll happily send it to you.

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