Welcome To Globally Thriving Families!

Welcome to the Globally Thriving Families Podcast: Introductory Episode

In this introductory episode of the Globally Thriving Families Podcast, host Clare O'Byrne, a parent coach and occupational therapist, welcomes listeners and shares her extensive background in supporting children and families worldwide. Clare discusses the unique challenges of raising children internationally and addresses the overwhelming flood of parenting information available today. She explains the foundational role of occupational therapy in child development and introduces the concept of parent coaching. Clare outlines future podcast topics intended to help parents and caregivers gain insights and practical tips to support their children's development in diverse environments. Listeners are encouraged to engage with Clare for future topic suggestions and further insights.

00:00 Introduction to Globally Thriving Families Podcast
01:10 Meet Your Host: Clare O'Byrne
01:52 Navigating Parenting Information Overload
03:43 The Unique Challenges of Raising Kids Internationally
05:16 Understanding Occupational Therapy
08:00 The Role of Parent Coaching
11:13 Conclusion and Contact Information

Connect with Clare: globally.thriving@gmail.com

Website: https://www.globallythriving.com

Connect with Clare on Instagram: http://instagram.com/globally_thriving

Book a free 20 minute call with Clare: https://tidycal.com/globallythriving/20-minute-meeting

Transcript

Clare: 0:06

Are you a parent or caregiver raising your child internationally? Are you curious about how to nurture your child's development? But find all the parenting information out there confusing? If so, you are in the right place. Welcome to the Globally Thriving Families Podcast. I'm your host, Clare O'Byrne, a parent coach and occupational therapist with a passion for supporting children and their families for more than 25 years. Whether it's understanding how to build resilience to practical tips for language development, screen time challenges, and staying calm amongst the chaos, Globally Thriving Families is here to help. Join me as we explore the topics that give you the insights and guidance you need to support your children to thrive. No matter where your family's adventures take you. Welcome. I'm thrilled to have you here. This is a short episode today to introduce myself and tell you a bit about how this podcast is going to help you and what you can expect in future episodes. So I'm Claire. I am a parent coach and an occupational therapist, and I've created this podcast to help you understand some of the valuable information that impacts not only your child's development, but can actually influence your family life as a whole too. So whether you have just relocated to a new country, or if you've been living internationally for a while, this podcast is for you. So as you probably already know, there's a lot of information about parenting and child development available these days, particularly on social media. Some of this is really good thought provoking information and we can learn something from it. But the thing is, with all the information out there across all the different platforms, there are also a lot of contrasting opinions and approaches, which can feel overwhelming at times when you are the one trying to figure out what's relevant to you. Especially if you're raising kids internationally, there's a different dynamic to it. So some of that general parenting advice or support doesn't factor in those nuances of international family life. I also find with social media particularly because it's a very short form in terms of the time and the space available to discuss a topic or introduce a topic, it doesn't really leave room for considering the nuances of each situation. And that's where comparison and pressure to do more and be more and be better comes from. Um, you know, we see a quick 30 second video about something and we react immediately. You know, maybe it's guilt of, oh my God, I'm not doing that. Or fear, oh, no, I, I need to start doing this if I want my kids to be successful. Or maybe we feel smug, and happy with ourselves because it's like, oh my God, thank God I'm doing this. Now I know that you and I are doing our best with the information that we have, and so in this podcast, I want to help you understand just some of the fundamental topics in child development to be able to discuss things in a non-judgmental way. And give you some ideas to implement at home. And maybe it's just some things to reflect on to see what fits for your family and your personal situation. Now, if you are living internationally or just considering it even. We know that that's a unique experience. There's so much that the experience of living internationally gives an individual and a family. You know, in terms of our children's development and the way we parent this is massively influenced by the environment that we're in, the culture that we come from, and also the people that we are surrounded by. And these factors really shape our experiences and our approach to raising a child, which I want to explore more in future episodes. So a bit about me. I'm married with two children. I have a daughter and a son, and I've been an occupational therapist for about 26 years. I trained in the UK and I've been really fortunate in my career to have worked in several countries around the world, the UK and Ireland, Canada and Kuwait. My family and I have been living in the Middle East for almost 10 years now. So firstly, we moved to Kuwait from Canada. And now more recently we're in Abu Dhabi in the UAE. It's been such a privilege to have worked with both adults and children in a variety of settings such as hospitals and clinics and schools, and in clients homes, and it's really been a rich learning experience for me working in all these different countries over the years with families. Now if you are not familiar with occupational therapy, which let's face, it could be many of you, I want to give you a sense of what OT is, and just to understand a little bit the lens through which I'm talking about, child development and parenting. It's not always a well understood profession, but it can have such a significant impact on people's lives. So I want to be able to share that with you a little bit. So basically occupational therapy is all about helping people to do the things that they need to do or they want to do in their daily life. We work with all ages from zero to a hundred and beyond. Now, thinking about it in the context of children. OTs support children to carry out whatever functional activities they need to do in their everyday life. So that's playing, eating, getting dressed, brushing their teeth, socializing with friends, completing their schoolwork, participating in a hobby, doing sport, basically anything that's part of their daily routine. Now, if there's something getting in the way of what they need to do or they want to do, then an OT can support them. So there could be all sorts of reasons why they might be having difficulty. Maybe it's an illness or an injury, a developmental delay, a mental health condition, or neurodivergence, all sorts of reasons. so when an OT assesses a child, they're getting really curious and being detectives about all aspects of that child's life, their environment, their routines, as well as their personal skills and abilities. So we would be interested in motor skills and thinking skills and visual perceptual skills. In sensory processing and social emotional skills. But like I said, we get curious about the whole child's world, so we take a holistic approach in that. We also look at their environment and how that impacts their daily life. Sometimes we help to change an activity in the way that it's done to make it easier for a child, or we might provide some equipment to help them complete a task more efficiently. Sometimes we recommend changing something in the environment, or even just changing the expectations of the people around the child. Sometimes we're working on building and improving specific skills for them to complete an activity, and to do that we use a variety of activities that are enjoyable and meaningful for the child. So there's lots of different parts to the role, which makes it a really dynamic profession and at the heart of it is really that commitment to help somebody thrive in their daily life. And this is a good segue into parent coaching. So coaching is a component of occupational therapy as it is with other health professions too. And in pediatric ot, working with families to help them understand how they can support their child and support themselves as a family member. Is a really valuable part of the role too. One of the things I came to realize as a therapist over the last few years particularly, is that it's not just what we do with a child that is important. So when a therapist or another professional sees a child in, say, a clinic setting or the school setting, perhaps they might see them once or twice a week for maybe an hour. But after that session, then they go home to their family or they go back to school. And life just carries on. The piece that sometimes is missing to this is the support for the parent to maybe better understand what their child's needs are or even feel comfortable in their ability to support their child. So helping parents and caregivers, and even educators to be aware and to understand perhaps why a child behaves a certain way or how to just grasp a child's needs and abilities is really important. I've delivered parent workshops in schools, and one thing that. Has struck me was that whenever I did a session, many parents afterwards would just tell me oh, I didn't know that before. I didn't realize that this was important, et cetera, et cetera, and I realized that. You don't need to have a diagnosis to benefit from understanding more about wellbeing, about child development or brain science. This is actually information that benefits the whole community, which is another reason why I really want to share these insights with you. I shifted my focus to parent coaching because I saw how powerful it is when parents feel truly seen and supported and confident in their role, especially when raising children in the context of international life I that most lasting changes happen when caregivers have the tools and the insight and the space to reflect and grow. Navigating those everyday challenges as well as the added layers of raising a family abroad and getting used to different systems and different expectations, and building a remote family even. These are all ups and downs to, to that dynamic, and so I'm really looking forward to talking about that more in this podcast too. My two kids are aged 11 and 13 at the moment, so I am most definitely also on a learning journey with that, and I'm trying to navigate just like you, how to help them thrive. I am not a perfect parent, as a perfect parent. It doesn't actually exist, but I do know that I'm doing what I can. I'm learning every day with them, and they're my teachers basically in this journey. So I really hope you'll join me each week. I would love to hear also your suggestions about future topics. If this resonates with you, and you can email me at globally.thriving@gmail.com, or you can find me on Instagram at globally_thriving and please message me. I would love to hear from you. Okay, so thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you next time.