06 Jul 2018
A group of enthusiastic parents of the JCS parents Community completed the 123 Magic Course with JCS School Psychologist Melissa Phillips over three evenings during May.
123 Magic promotes a very practical and easy strategy that aims to help families to better manage their children's difficult behaviour. The strategy is based on two underlying perspectives on parenting. First, that children can be taught to respond with more flexibility when they are frustrated or upset and second, that parents and carers can be taught easy-to-use skills they can use at particular parenting moments.
According to Melissa Phillips, families often develop patterns of behaviour over time in response to ongoing issues and some may not be so helpful. 123 Magic explicitly teaches the 3 choices model so that parents have a suite of options available to them. Overwhelmingly, the program encourages parents to be loving and to provide limits too.
Parents learned how to use the 1,2,3 Magic strategy and how to implement at home through gaining a better understanding of common mistakes in addressing misbehaviour, particularly the problem with too much talk and too much emotion, how negative reinforcement works and the characteristics of patterns and how to interrupt them.
Melissa has been a psychologist for over 20 years working with young people aged 3 to 18 and has conducted many different courses. "The reason I keep coming back to 123 Magic is because parents seem happy with the length of the course and the applicability of the skills learned to real parenting situations".
"Most courses focus on a rewards and sanctions 'outside-in' approach however 123 Magic encourages children to learn 'inside-out' strategies also known as self-regulation."
"Ultimately we would love all children to apply their own mental brakes at times rather than being solely reliant on adults as external moderators of behaviour".
""1-2-3 Magic & Emotion Coaching Gives parents back the power to know how they can be their child's first teacher with practical ‘how to' solutions. It is a fantastic course that gets down to basics, using the latest research and principles on children's brain development in an easy-to-learn way for all families," said JCS School Psychologist and Course Organiser Melissa Phillips.