Mum to Stella, age 3
“I was in absolute despair with my 3-year-old. Waiting every week for her to grow out of the terrible twos which didn’t seem to improve at all, wishing her to grow up!
Literally with a few simple tweaks of my own behaviour and positive direction given by Livvy about how to approach dealing with tantrums and defiant toddler behaviour, the dynamic between my little girl and I completely changed. My own confidence then grew and now I can enjoy her and our time together much more.”
Mum to Max, age 3
“Deciding to contact Livvy was one of the best parenting decisions we have made. As any mother of a strong willed “threenager” will understand, sometimes you just feel as if you are living in Groundhog Day and unable to change a particular cycle of behaviour. For us it has been my son refusing to go to bed and turning our household into a nightly battleground where we all end up exhausted and frustrated. Livvy’s no nonsense and calm approach was extremely welcome and I immediately felt she understood the issues and talked me through some simple step-by-step solutions. Implementing these (after taking several deep breaths!) made an almost immediate difference! Her expertise with children, especially older children/toddlers is evident and we now have a much calmer happier little boy at bedtime. Understanding a bit more about the reasons behind my son’s behaviour and amending my responses has been really helpful and changed bedtime for the better! I cannot recommend Livvy highly enough.”
Mum to Kit, age 7
“Livvy has really helped me calm and settle my over anxious son. I spoke to Livvy when my son was having a particularly tough time at school. He was being bullied, and whilst supporting him I personally felt overwhelmed - he was very upset at home and I knew the school weren’t dealing with what was happening adequately. Livvy was (and is!) absolutely brilliant - she listened to my concerns and suggested ways the school could be more effective, she came up with a much better approach for me in terms of how to process what was going on and tools that my son could use for coping with the situation. She really helped us through a tricky time with her invaluable advice and we are still using her tips and techniques today.”
Mum to Jamie, age 10
“I spoke to Livvy when my son was having a particularly tough time at school. Livvy has really helped me to calm and settle my over anxious son at play dates and parties. She’s offered great advice on being both gentle and consistent and not pushing him beyond where he feels happy. Over time this approach has resulted in him now being able to confidently wave ‘goodbye’ to me and go running off with his friends without the anxious over the shoulder glances back. I could not recommend Livvy more highly and would not hesitate to ask for her help again!”
Mum to Franco, age 5
“My then 3 year old was having difficulty at school – making friends and communicating. He had anger issues and we knew that there was something wrong with his speech. Lovely Livvy stepped in helping us realise that his anger was all due to frustration over speech after having been tongue-tied at birth. She did a brilliant report on sounds that he could say and those that he couldn’t, putting our minds at rest on some issues and flagging others but all done in such a straight forward/honest and gentle manner. We went on to see a speech therapist as she recommended but it was her initial assessment of our son and her encouragement that instantly made a difference to us all at home and the help that we then sought helped issues with friends and anger at pre-school. I cannot recommend Livvy highly enough and feel very lucky to have had her help when we did.
Olivia has worked with our family for over 14 years with our son with special needs. She has worked with him as a little boy of four through to the young man he is today and we have come to see her as a member of our extended family. During that time although ostensibly there to work with Joe’s learning difficulties and at times challenging set of behaviours, I have always been impressed by her understanding approach to the family as a whole. She has a wealth of experience and knowledge of children and families and coupled with her personalised and child-centred approach to dealing with difficult behaviours whatever they present themselves to be; she has been invaluable as a professional friend to this family."
Mum to Joe, age 18
"Olivia has worked with out family for over 14 years. Her experience and training in child development and the special needs world has informed much of her thinking and approach to raising children generally so that her work is characterised by a confident but kind under – pinning rooted in common sense. She has extensive experience of dealing with educational psychologists, schools and local authorities. Never judgemental, broad-minded and importantly with a good sense of humour, Livvy can be trusted to offer a way of negotiating even the toughest of behaviours successfully. She has been much relied upon and valued by this family."
Mum to Casper, aged 3
"Earlier this year my 3 year old son cut his finger… it did not seem serious, nothing that a plaster with Lightning Mc’Queen on wouldn’t sort out. A few days later I noticed my little boy drawing with his left hand, he is normally right handed, and I noticed he kept his hand all crunched up even when riding his balance bike. The GP sent us to A&E for an X-ray, and to a specialist ‘child hand consultant’ who couldn’t find any medical reason for him not using his finger and hand. The consultant said it is not uncommon for small children to be so shocked by something like a cut that they refuse to use their hand and finger again for the fear of it hurting, but that it was something to keep an eye on because it is so important for their development age 3 to use both hands.
We didn’t quite know what to do, our little boy is very strong-minded and can be quite anxious, and he was absolutely determined not to use his hand or even open it, even in return for nice things that we knew he wanted.
Livvy suggested she spend a few sessions with our son. Livvy was calm, relaxed with our son and although she clearly had a plan in mind to help us, our son had no idea! She played with him, offering him small rewards for little tiny steps in the right
direction using toys that were very exciting to him. Livvy showed us how to encourage little steps forward without him feeling there was too much focus on him and on his ‘hurty hand’. Livvy did this with a huge amount of energy, positivity, enthusiasm,
support and a real sense of fun for the kids. After a bit of hesitation our son was
actually looking forward to his ‘meetings’ with Livvy and he felt so proud when he made little improvements.
Over the last two weeks our son is now completely opening his hand again, using all his fingers, and feeling very proud. We are all (including his brother and sister) so relieved, as we were quite worried seeing him so anxious and with a tightly closed fist for a few weeks.
Livvy helped us to understand what was going on for our son, how tiring it was for him to choose to keep his hand closed even though he knew he wanted the reward, how we could support him little by little to start using his fingers again."