Why this site?
Welcome to Help me, Help my Child, the site that can offer you answers to your worries about your children. Sometimes you just need to hear someone else’s ideas, to have someone else confirm your thinking, to check what you might do next. Because we know how child development usually progresses, we know when things are unusual.
Our children are a source of endless delight, lovable, beautiful small people for whom we would die; we watch them grow, we cherish them, we teach them and we worry for them. At first the worries are fairly simple – the baby stays in one place, and we try to make sure that he has enough to eat and drink, stays well and sleeps enough – then parents can sleep enough too.
As the baby gets older, the worries change and we become anxious as to whether the baby is developing as it should, as other babies do, learning to move and talk and communicate as ‘the books’ say. And then every month brings new concerns: Is my child clever enough? Will he ever be dry at night? Will he get into that school? Is he happy? Has he got friends? Is this normal? Do other children steal? Why is he so upset about the cat? Will he grow if he only eats baked beans? Why does he talk like that? Why doesn’t he practise his instrument? Is he spending too long on the computer? Does it matter that his Father hardly ever sees him awake? And a whole lot more you can’t imagine until they happen. Of course, some of it relates back to our own childhood too. How can I make sure he doesn’t have an eating disorder? or get bullied? or hate his mother and father? Having children reminds us that we are part of a huge and never-ending sequence; as parents, we maybe finally understand what our parents meant, or totally disagree with what they did.
But we all want to be the best parents we can be, and we look for answers. It used to be that there was always someone to hand – extended family, Nanny, the Doctor. But now, to whom can we refer? And if we don’t get help, what might happen? Remember, you are the expert on your child; you know best what makes him or her happy, what helps him or her to learn, what he or she finds distressing. We are the experts on child development, education and child rearing, we are the psychologists. Together we can do a wonderful job to help you maximize your child’s potential and happiness.
We are a group of Child Psychologists led by Ruth Coppard, a Child Psychologist with years of experience. And we are parents. We have worked professionally with children from the age of a few months to late adolescence, and with their parents and teachers.
Ruth Coppard has over twenty five years experience in educational and child psychology and is currently a Senior Practitioner within the National Health Service. Her main body of work is derived from G.P., Paediatricians, Consultant and Local Authority referrals encompassing a wide variety of cases and dealing directly with both child clients and their parents or carers. Privately, Ruth composes and presents legal reports for the benefit of the Courts in Child Contact, Asylum and Criminal cases where minors are involved. Ruth has a high media profile. She was the child and educational psychology expert on the WellBeing cable television channel. Ruth has been used extensively by the BBC 1 news programmes and Richard and Judy when they were on Channel 4, BBC Radios 1, 4 and 5 as well by numerous local radio stations and continues to be so. Articles, quotes and advice regularly appear in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines including The Times, the Guardian, the Sun, the Mirror, the Telegraph, Saga magazine and That’s Life. She is the Psychologist recommended by the B.P.S. to represent Child Psychology in the pull-out on Psychology featured in Top Santé. She is also consulted by the Press Association and BBC teletext.
Elizabeth Watson. Elizabeth Watson had over twenty years experience in Educational Psychology before choosing to work independently. She is committed to family work but also gives legal advice in a range of cases, involving matters from Divorce to Dyslexia. She has some media experience but prefers to remain largely in the private domain.
Dr Sam Willerton Sam Willerton has many years of experience in the NHS, first as a nurse and latterly as a Clinical Psychologist with children. She has specialist experience with children with diabetes, but works with the whole range of child problems. She trains health personnel in parenting skills and techniques, as well as conducting regular sessions of Family Therapy. Increasingly, Sam is involved in Early Interventions with everyone. There is the Family Nurse Partnership which includes working with newly pregnant adolescents, and a lot of work on Attachment.
