It might help to tell him how much he is loved and that whatever he feels or however he acts you still love him and are still right behind him. This in itself can help some children to settle. At this stage, it might also help for your child to reflect on when they started to feel a particular emotion and if they remember what caused it. 3. Introduce The Inner Chimp Steve is a medical doctor; he specialises in mental health and the functioning of the human mind and has dedicated his working life to help people get the best out of themselves and to be in a good place. His current and past experiences include: clinical director of Mental Health Services within the NHS at a district hospital, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist and Undergraduate Dean at Sheffield Medical School. He has spent 20 years as an examination panel member at the Royal College of Psychiatry and has been an expert advisor to World Anti-Doping Agency.

One particularly interesting experience was talking about the habit of sharing. Peters presents this as our human wanting to share and our chimp not wanting to share. My son pointed out that actually he and his chimp and were in agreement that they didn’t want to share. I don’t know how common this would be but I’d tend to agree with my son that my system 2 by default (especially when I was younger) doesn’t particularly want to share. Being fully present and actively listening to your child when they share something like this is so important. At the moment I am guessing that she is feeling awful because of the feelings that she is getting and also because she knows that you want these to stop and therefore her behaviour to change. This is Peters’ number one habit - because it gives perspective and settles your Chimp. ‘Once we start learning to do it, we start to understand and learn to process feelings and the quality of our life improves.’ Often, we only talk when we’re already upset. Sit and talk to your partner or a friend regularly, on how the day has been and how you feel. Habit 5: Asking for help My 10-year-old daughter worries about all sorts of things. She gets really anxious when routines change or she needs to do something new, or go somewhere new.Professor Steve Peters is a Consultant Psychiatrist who specialises in the functioning of the human mind. His work, past and present, in the field of psychiatry and education, includes: the National Health Service (NHS) for over 20 years; Clinical Director of Mental Health Services; Clinical Director at Bassetlaw Hospital; Forensic Psychiatrist at Rampton; Senior Clinical Lecturer of Medicine at Sheffield University for over 20 years; Undergraduate Dean at Sheffield University for over 10 years; and visiting Professor at Derby University. He holds degrees, higher degrees and postgraduate qualifications in medicine, mathematics, education, medical education, sports medicine and psychiatry. Currently it sounds as if she is focused on the problem. It might be worth discussing with her what solutions there could be for her to overcome or at least lessen these anxieties. A simple apology can diffuse many complicated and stressful situations and make everyone feel better.’ There’s little point in a cursory ‘sorry’, as young children often do. The apologies that get the results you want - forgiveness, reconciliation - don't come from your Chimp. They come after you’ve reflected with an explanation - even if only ‘I don’t know why I did it’. Offering to make it up to the person will help you forgive yourself, too. Habit 3: Being kind to others

Once you are clear on what moral, ethical beliefs you hold, you can work out how to live up to these values. If, for example, your value is to respect others, then think about how you can demonstrate this. One example could be listening to others and accepting their opinions. What’s more, with our extensive experience working with children and young adults, we know exactly how to tweak and tailor our language so that it makes sense to every child of every age. One way that bullying can be countered, and a way in which your son could begin to rebuild his faith in others, is to help him to form close relationships with friends who are positive towards him and enjoy his company. The news of this scenario distresses me considerably. Sadly one feature of young children is to form a dominance hierarchy. This is driven by nature, but is very unhelpful in society in general. We can’t stop this innate drive but we can manage it.It had so much success that even Olympic gold medallist Sir Chris Hoy says that he wouldn’t have won gold at the Beijing Olympics without understanding his inner chimp. It's like she needs a timetable of events for each day to know what's happening and when. If she's left with a relative for example, which doesn't happen that often, she will worry about what time she's being collected and will get really anxious if plans change at the last minute.

The science behind the habits is discussed in a practical way with exercises and activities to help children think the habits through and start putting them into practice. My Hidden Chimp is an effective and powerful new educational book that offers parents, teachers and carers some ideas and thoughts on how to help children to develop healthy habits for life. The science behind the habits is discussed in a practical way with exercises and activities to help children think the habits through and start putting them into practice. The neuroscience of the mind is simplified for children to understand and then use to their advantage. This leads on to another potential problem. I suspect that some people might be unhappy with the book’s framing of your system 2 being the you that you really want to be and your system 1 being the part of you that acts without your permission. I’ve seen similar criticism of the Chimp Paradox. I have a nine-year-old boy who has been the subject of bully at school from two or three of his classmates - it’s been going on since September. Part of the nurturing process is to let the chimp have its say. By allowing the chimp to process its emotion it then starts to settle, Steve says.The fact that the chimp is a more narrow framing than the elephant might help assuage some worries but I’m not sure. There is a concerted effort to describe how our chimps can sometimes be helpful – e.g. our chimp helps us to have fun and warns us of danger. The often-humourous presentation of the chimps also helps with appreciating the chimp. This drive is built on survival so it is not surprising that the same problem comes up time and again. I will be slightly provocative! What she is doing is very normal and biologically very sound. Her machine is making sure that she will survive. The chimp model is Peters’ dual process metaphor. Different writers and models seem to me to have subtly different focuses—e.g. Robin’s Elephant and rider focuses on motivation, Kahneman’s system 1 and system 2 on decision making. The chimp model in My Hidden Chimp focuses on fast, emotional responses. The neuroscience of the mind is simplified for children to understand and then use to their advantage. In other words try to establish ideally how she would like to be in these situations and then allow her to make her way towards that gradually on her terms.