Lorna finds write way to help struggling son cope

Lorna Park was inspired to write her book by her son

The 45-year-old former postmistress hopes her first publishing venture will assist youngsters struggling with their emotions.

Lorna was inspired by her son Charlie, now 11, who suffered severe anxiety during his earlier primary school years.

Charlie believed he was failing despite achieving good results and suffered from severe stress and low confidence.

In a bid to support him, Lorna researched the approach of Positive Psychology and the work of global success coach, Niyc Pidgeon.

She learned about the differences between fixed and growth mindset to identify with Charlie’s struggles and understand his behaviour more and, along with a new teacher, helped him overcome his difficulties.

Lorna said: “Charlie was becoming increasingly frustrated with life, and was becoming a victim of his negative self-talk, stress and worries and I wanted to help him understand how his brain was working and how he could take control of altering this.

“As soon as he started to understand that he could change his behaviour, Charlie’s self-belief, resilience, persistence, stress levels and overall health improved significantly – I was amazed at how much he drank in, at just nine years old”.

She added: “Once we understood how to support Charlie better, our parenting style totally changed and we started to praise effort and hard work rather than natural ability and we encouraged mistakes so they could be learnt from.

“Amazingly the results were immediate, his confidence started to grow as did his persistence and resilience and alongside this his ability in things he was not naturally good at also grew.”

Lorna wrote her own book after failing to find anything suitable available about Growth Mindset, Positive Psychology and Mindfulness.

Her book, My Great Big Positive Life – The Ultimate Guide to All Things Happy, is both a guide and an activity-based journal to enable children aged nine and above to navigate their own way through their emotions.

It is available to pre-purchase online now and any one who orders before the end of November will receive their journal early December, in time for Christmas.

Lorna set up a social media site www.facebook.com/mygreatbigpositivelife/and mygreatbigpositivelife.co.uk.