 When a child is struggling, at school, with friends, or with their emotions, our instinct is often to jump straight into “Why?”
Although these questions come from care and concern, they often have the opposite effect of what we intend. Instead of helping children open up, “why” questions can actually shut the conversation down. Understanding why this happens, and how to shift to more supportive ways of asking questions, can make a huge difference in how children share, process, and feel understood. The Problem With “Why?” 1. “Why” Feels Like Blame or Judgement For an adult, “why” sounds neutral. For a child, it can feel like they’re being accused or put on the spot. A “why” question can sound like:
2. Children Often Don’t Have the Words Most children, especially under 12, don’t yet have the emotional vocabulary or cognitive processing skills to explain motives. They may feel something strongly but have no idea why. So when asked a “why” question, they genuinely can’t answer, which can make them feel overwhelmed, confused, or frustrated. 3. “Why” Focuses on the Problem, Not the Experience “Why” questions dive into justification. They pull the child into self-defence instead of reflection. They tell the child to explain their behaviour instead of helping them feel safe to talk about what’s happening. The Power of “What” Questions Moving from “Why did you…?” to “What happened…?” changes everything. “What” questions are:
They guide the child into describing events, sensations, interactions, and emotions without feeling cornered. Here are some examples:
These small shifts create big changes. Why “What” Questions Help Children Open Up 1. They Feel Emotionally Safer “What” questions invite sharing, not defending. The child feels like you’re trying to understand them, not judge them. 2. They Help Children Build Awareness “What” questions guide children to connect their actions, feelings, and experiences, essential building blocks for emotional intelligence. 3. They Lead to Real Answers Because children aren’t overwhelmed or defensive, they can tell you what’s actually happening:
This is where the real insight lies. How to Use “What” Questions in Everyday Life Try integrating these phrases:
Each one creates connection instead of conflict. Connection First, Understanding Second At its heart, the shift from “why” to “what” is about relationship, not interrogation. It tells the child:
And when children feel understood, they become more open, confident, reflective, and resilient.
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 We’re thrilled to announce two exciting developments to help you step confidently into your role as a mindfulness educator and coach: 1. New Flexible Pricing for Mindset Matters: Life Coaching for Kids Teacher Training Whether you're looking to launch a new career or enhance your existing work with children, we now offer three course options designed to suit your schedule, learning style, and goals: £475 – Self-Paced, Content-Only Option (Available with Mindset Matters + Adult Mindfulness) Perfect for experienced coaches, educators, or wellness professionals who prefer independent learning and want to dive into the content in their own time and style. This option includes the full training programme, and lifetime access to all resources and future updates - without the 1:1 mentoring support, assignments, certification accredited by us. (Can be added in at a later date) £900 – Full Training Package with 1:1 Support Includes the full course plus bi-weekly 1:1 video mentoring sessions with our founder, Patricia Maddalena. Ideal if you want expert guidance, personalised feedback, and accountability as you build your confidence and wellbeing business. Comes with assignments, accredited certification, and lifetime access to all resources and future updates. Special Bundle Price – £675 Each When You Enrol in Two or More Trainings If you're ready to invest in two or more full training packages, each course is just £675 (instead of £900) - including full 1:1 support, assignments, certification, and lifetime access. Perfect for those looking to expand their skillset across children’s yoga, teen yoga, mindfulness, and life coaching with expert mentoring every step of the way. 👉 View Full Details & Enrol Here  2. New! Self-Paced Mindfulness & Meditation Teacher Training for Adults We’re also excited to launch our brand new Self-Paced Mindfulness & Meditation Teacher Training, which will enable you to teach adults who want to deepen their personal practice and share the benefits of mindfulness with others. Ideal for teachers, yoga instructors, wellness professionals, and community leaders, this flexible training gives you:
Bonus: Trauma-Informed Practice Module Included in the course is our essential Trauma-Informed Practice Training, helping you create emotionally safe, inclusive spaces, and understand the neurobiology of trauma and emotional regulation. Bonus: Launch ToolkitYou’ll also gain access to our Teaching Launch Toolkit, with business templates, a sample risk assessment, and marketing strategies to help you set up classes, workshops, or a private practice. 👉 View Full Details & Enrol Here  🦊 Online CPD Courses from £30–£97
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Whether you’re just beginning or growing your teaching practice, our self-paced programmes give you everything you need, at your own rhythm, in your own space, with expert support when you need it. 👉 Explore All Courses Here We can’t wait to welcome you into the next phase of your mindfulness journey. If you have any questions or want help choosing the right training path, just reply to this email, we’re here to support you. Warm wishes, Trish and the WiggleBums Family x  We all want our children to be successful, resilient, and confident in their learning. But here's a truth that may surprise you: Resilience doesn’t always feel resilient.
When our kids are learning something new—whether it's mastering a new skill, tackling a difficult math problem, or even learning to ride a bike—the journey between Not Knowing and Knowing can be tough. That space in the middle? It’s what we call the Learning Space, and it’s often filled with one feeling: Frustration. You’ve probably noticed it too. Whether it's in school, at home, or on a team, learning something new often feels anything but comfortable. It’s easy to want to exit the process, give up, or think “I’ll never get this!” But what if we could change how we see that frustration? The Learning Space: Where Growth Happens The truth is, frustration is a sign that your child is actually learning. It’s not something to fear or avoid; it’s something to recognise and embrace. When your child is frustrated, they are in the Learning Space. This space is crucial because it’s where all the growth happens. It’s where they build skills, resilience, and the confidence that comes from pushing through the tough spots. Do you see that wiggly line in the pic above? That line represents the journey from Not Knowing to Knowing. The Learning Space is the in-between part—the part that’s messy, uncertain, and, yes, frustrating. But it’s also the part where resilience is built. The Power of Frustration Tolerance Here’s something many people get wrong: Resilience and success don’t come from reaching the 'Knowing' part as fast as possible. Success actually comes from how long we can tolerate the frustration of being in the Learning Space.It’s not about rushing to the finish line. It’s about how long can we stay with the frustration, work through it, and keep trying. Why is this so important? Because most people think that resilience means quickly moving past frustration to “get it right.” But the real power lies in sticking with it, even when it feels hard. The longer they can stay in the Learning Space, the stronger and more capable they become. And eventually, they will get to the Knowing part—where they feel proud of what they’ve accomplished. How to Support Your Child Through the Learning Space So, what can you do as a parent to support your child when they’re in the Learning Space? Here are a few things you can try:
Empowering Your Child to Love the Learning Space Here’s the empowering part: Once your child understands that frustration is part of the learning process, they can start to love it. They’ll recognise that every time they feel frustrated, they’re actually one step closer to figuring it out and mastering the skill. The more they can tolerate that frustration, the quicker they’ll move from Not Knowing to Knowing—and the more resilient they’ll become. Remember, the Learning Space is where all the magic happens. It’s not about getting through it quickly, but about learning how to stay with it, ride the waves of frustration, and emerge stronger. So, next time your child feels frustrated with their learning, remind them: Frustration means they are learning. And that’s something worth celebrating! With resilience and support, your child will thrive through the Learning Space and beyond. BIG Love, Trish and the WiggleBums Family x I was walking down the High Street and stopped to chat with a good friend. I was telling him about a challenge in my life, calling it bad luck. His response was simple: "Maybe." That single word caught me off guard. I paused and asked, "What do you mean, 'maybe'?" He smiled and said, "Well, you don't know yet. It may end up being something good for you in the long run." I laughed because I understood immediately. I was so focused on the moment, stuck in my own story, that I wasn’t seeing the bigger picture. He then shared a story from Alan Watts—the famous Chinese Farmer story. It goes like this: The farmer’s horse runs away, and his neighbors exclaim, "What bad luck!" The farmer replies, "Maybe." The next day, the horse returns with several wild horses, and the neighbors say, "What good fortune!" Again, the farmer responds, "Maybe." This continues with ups and downs, and each time, the farmer’s answer remains the same: "Maybe." This story is a wonderful reminder that we often don't see the full picture. What seems like bad luck today could turn out to be a blessing tomorrow. Instead of getting stuck on labeling something as ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ embracing the power of 'maybe' helps us stay open to life's possibilities. In yoga, much like in life, this mindset is valuable. By staying open to whatever comes our way—whether it’s a difficult pose or a challenge off the mat—we build resilience, flexibility, and calm. It’s a beautiful way to flow with life's changes. This lesson is something I love to share with kids. It helps them understand that not everything needs a label. Feelings and situations can just be without the need to call them good or bad. By embracing the power of 'maybe,' they learn to stay curious, open, and ready to face whatever comes their way—on and off the mat.  Today is #WorldMentalHealthDay got me thinking about the tools I use on a regular basis that has formed a solid raft in my life. It is something I come back to time and time again. It has quite literally kept me alive and at others, filled me with such peace and acceptance of who I am, what I can do, what I can not and the courage to express that.
The self-reflection that comes with the practice, has helped me forge strong boundaries, grown belief in myself and raised my worth and value from off the floor. It costs nothing to do except time and needs nothing of great importance to practice. I do it as needed, so it has become an integral part of my life; and that of my children. I consider it to be one of my most valuable tools for life and up there with how to cook, change a plug and earn money. Mindfulness is a deeply complex subject and something I’ve been exploring for over 20 years but for me, it simply means to be awake at the moment, of bringing my attention into the now. Of tuning into the present, still my mind and slowing down. Feeling inside my body, feeling anchored into the present moment. And it’s by being here right now and awake and aware at this moment that brings me time to be in creation of my behaviour rather than in reaction mode and playing out past outdated programming that’s been triggered within me. It’s when I am in this place of being, in this place of awareness I can choose to move my focus of attention from what I don't want to have happen, to what I do. It gives me time to consciously create the steps to take me and the situation that I am into a positive conclusion. And to help do this we can use our senses. By focusing on what you can see or hear around you, what you can smell, what you can taste, what you can feel, leaning into where you are right now rather than brushing it under the carpet and using the numerous distraction techniques we have all mastered. Using your breath and doing some focused breathing will rapidly change how you are feeling. It will regulate your nervous system helping settle your brain so you can think more clearly, changing your emotional state from the fight or flight mode, to the rest and digest mode. Focused breathing will pull your attention from the negative spiral of thoughts about what could happen, what has happened, the worry and fear around that, the overwhelming feelings that are coursing through your body and reconnect you to an anchor; the breath. It will help you stay connected to the present moment. Where you realise you are safe and all is well in this moment. It is in this state of ‘being’ that we have a choice, you have the ability to choose the direction you wish any particular situation to go. We can create an anchor with our children and ourselves really easily. You can use their favourite teddy, my son had a clothes peg he would squeeze when he was overwhelmed, space can even be an anchor, sitting on your favourite part of the sofa can be an anchor. One of my anchors is up by the cooker, being at the helm of my home. I like to use one which incorporates a bit of EFT tapping and breath work and when I use it my body relaxes and my mind goes still. It brings me back to myself. It regulates my nervous system and deescalates situations really quickly. It’s one of those things that the more you practice the more effective it becomes. Start by tapping the edge of your fingertips tips, by the nail, with your thumbs, go through each finger, however many taps and cycles you need and at the same time take a deep breath in through your nose for the count of 4 and out through your mouth with pursed lips, for the count of 6; or longer. I like to call this Ninja Tapping or Stealth Tapping because you can do this in the supermarket or the children can do this under their desk in school and no one will see them doing it. Try it now… As you tap and breathe bring your focus of attention to this and only this, notice how the body relaxes, your shoulders will drop and your mind goes still. Our mental and emotional health is as important as our physical health. We need all three in balance to experience a positive and healthy life and there are a lot of amazing tools out there that can help. We have a Positive Parenting online course that is free at the moment if you fancy that or if you would like any more info or have any questions then please get in touch I'd be happy to help. Big Love, Trish, Founder of WiggleBums, NLP Master, Trainer and Integration Therapist As you may know, self-regulation and mindfulness plays a massive part in our wiggleBums and wiggleKids classes. One of the techniques we use is called ‘Flipping your Lid’ because when you have a visual and you can see what happens in the brain and understand what’s happening in the body, it can help us gain conscious control over our behaviour and bring us back into right relationship with ourselves, change what the brain does and change those negative patterns of behaviour.
 Mindfulness is about recognising what you are feeling in the present moment and naming that. Staying in contact with what is happening right here right and now and allowing oneself to feel all of that.
This is something that has been conditioned out of us as children. For many of us our BIG emotions, tantrums, or times of struggle could not be handled by our significant others and were stopped through various methods from chocolate biscuits, to be separated from the rest of the family to being chastised, belittled, shouted at or even slapped. We were taught that who we are in our times of despair was too much, we were unloveable, not likeable and as such, we needed to suppress, hide, distract and not feel those feelings or voice our upset. When all along the person who ought to have been guiding us just did not have the skills in place to do so. What a different landscape it will be when our children have grown in an environment with a mindful practice as the cornerstone of life. When we give our children space, support and guidance to be and work through their difficult experience it's amazing how fast they move through. When they are not given this space and the experience isn't allowed to be felt, acknowledged and understood and so gets stuck and will keep getting played out until adulthood in the hope that it will eventually be understood, healed and cleared. Rather than focusing on getting rid of any negative thoughts and feelings mindfulness offers an opportunity for you to lean in safely and with intention working through those big emotions, thoughts or behaviour and clearing it once and for all. WiggleBums & Mindset Matters Weekly Mindfulness classes x  Your mindset determines your experience of the world and impacts throughout all areas of life. It affects your motivation and productivity and will invade all key life areas from relationships to finance.
It is an essential building block to growing self-esteem and self-worth and will be the difference to succeeding at something or not. It affects our daily self-dialogue, that internal voice and plays a critical role in how you cope with life's challenges and setbacks and reinforces our most intimate beliefs, attitudes and feelings about ourselves. When a child is brought up with an 'I Can - I Am' attitude life's challenges are just that, challenges, that they can discover how to work through and overcome. Their resilience grows as does their self-esteem and confidence. They believe in themselves and their abilities, that they have a place in this world, that they deserve to be here and that it is o.k to shine. Their positive growth mindset shows in what they choose to do and be. When a child is brought up within an 'I Can't - I Fail' environment when they haven't been allowed to make decisions for themselves, been constantly criticised for getting it wrong or not been given the space to have a go at life with an 'everything is a learning' attitude, they will find life's challenges too much. Their resilience suffers as does their self-esteem and confidence. They lack belief in themselves and their abilities and it shows in what they choose to do or don't do. The brain adapts to the environment that it has and will respond perfectly to it. Some brains grow in a loving, conscious, happy environment and so it will be shaped to respond to that. Other's will be living with violence, the constant risk of being attacked either verbally or physically or both and it will adapt to that. In the latter a combination of freeze, fight or fly will be the preferred mode of protection. A child may withdraw and play it small to scared to put themselves out there, some may be in fight mode or on the defence. Whichever it is, the brain is working in direct response to their upbringing, what they have been told to believe about themselves and the world around and is working perfectly to protect themselves at all times. Both of these mindsets will be re-enforced over time through experience and will determine how they live their life. A mindset is developed by the projections, judgements and assumptions of significant others and reinforced through experience...
What you put in you get out! Children will only ever live up to our expectations of them and so it's up to us to help create a positive growth mindset by being aware of;
By becoming aware and consciously deciding on how we respond to children we can then create the space to start establishing a new way of speaking and being. Keep your eyes peeled for the next blog about language and how we can structure our sentences to have a positive impact on the children in our care. If you can't wait for that then you can use the code PositiveParenting1 at checkout to grab the Mindset Matters online course - Now only £37 until Midnight Sunday 26th April. Big Love, Trish x  How many times have you asked your child to put their shoes or coat on or do several things every day in which their reply is 'NO' and the start of a battle? How many times have you asked your child to go up to bed or brush their teeth or tidy their room in which their reply is 'NO'. How many times a day do you ask and they say, 'NO! I was at soft play yesterday with my five-year-old where I overheard a Dad make the classic mistake of saying to his daughter, "Do you want to put your shoes on now?" and she replied "NO!". I had to chuckle because then ensued the cajoling and the bribery that we all do just to get the little darlings out the door. You see the big mistake he made was when he asked. It is in that crucial first instance when we say "Do you want to put your shoes on?" Ahhhhhhh NOPE!! "Do you want to go to bed now?" Aaaahhhhhhhh NOPE! "Do you want to get your coat on?" Hahhahhahahaha aaa 'NO!'. Give a child the option of putting shoes on and going or the implied option of keeping them off and staying at the soft play they will always choose the latter. We need to focus on the command, what we DO want them to do e.g. "Come and put your shoes on now" "Put your coat on please" "Bedtime now, up we go". Never give them an implied better option because they will always try and take that. Giving them options and choices is great to grow a sense of empowerment and build decision-making capabilities, but I recommend only giving them choices between two things you want them to have or do. For example, "Do you want to put your shoes on now or in two minutes when I've finished putting Jame's shoes on?" "Do you want to brush your teeth before the story or after?" "You can get dressed whilst watching your program or it will be turned off and I'll get you dressed without watching your program?" By allowing them to decide between two choices YOU are happy with gives them a sense of power over the situation and will enhance their decision-making capabilities for years to come. When I started to change my language in this way I was so surprised at how often I asked my kids to do things instead of focusing on the command; and just how well they responded once I changed. Try it and see. Big Love, Trish, Founder of WiggleBums & WiggleKids x  My eldest is nearly 18 and I so wish I knew then what I know now. Although, to be fare it has seen us navigate the teenage years relatively unscathed!. My daughter is 5 and has been raised on this technique, that quite literally changed our lives!
I didn’t realise how important language actually is in influencing people’s behaviour until I started to put it into practice. It was a challenge at the beginning, because we are all, to one degree or another, brought up in a similar fashion when it comes to language and the words that our chosen to speak with our children. I believe this technique is revolutionary and everyone who cares for children ought to be taught it as it benefits both children and adults alike. Simply put, we need to ask our children what we DO want of them and not what we don’t. The brain at this age is very undeveloped and hasn’t learnt to recognise ‘negatives’ such as ‘don’t’ ‘try’ and ‘stop’. They are just making sense of language and what it all means and we take it for granted that they can interpret what we are asking from them. So when we ask them to do something we actually DON’T want them to do it is all very confusing. We are asking them to work out not only the words and their meaning but also what it is exactly we are asking of them to do. It’s much easier to deliver a straight forward, positive command; for example: “If you don't eat your tea you won’t get any pudding” The command they are hearing is ‘eat your tea and you won’t get any pudding’ See how confusing this is for them and the focus is on not getting any pudding! Flip it to: ”Eat your tea and you can have some pudding” Another example: “If you don’t get your shoes on we won’t go too the park” They are hearing ‘get your shoes on and we won’t go to the park’ Flip to: ”Get your shoes on and we can go to the park’ “Don’t run!” They hear ‘RUN’ Flip to ’Walk’ “Don’t spill that!” They hear ‘Spill that’ Flip to ”Keep the water in the cup’ You will be surprised just how many times a day we command our children to do the stuff we DON’T want them to do and they, in their innocent way responds perfectly; by doing it. So start to ‘FLIP’ your language for the opposite and positive, what you DO want them to do and see how your lives blossom. Ask your self “What is it that I really want them to do?” Because remember, our children only ever want to please and do what is asked of them and will always live up to your expectations of them; no matter how low or high that is. They are only after praise and love and kindness and connection and clear direction. This technique wraps all of that up and helps create a super positive growth mindset for both you and your child which will have a huge impact for years to come. If you feel too, I’d love to hear how this changes your daily experience; please share in the thread. Big Love, Trish, WiggleBums/Kids Founder x |
AuthorWiggleBums Teachers, Parents & Children Archives
November 2025
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