Growing families one circuit at a time
Growing families one circuit at a time
Why parents are the most powerful teachers of emotional skills
Imagine learning piano for just one hour a week, then never touching the keys in between. Progress would be slow, frustrating, and uneven.
Therapy is the same.
An hour in the therapy room can be powerful, but the real growth happens in everyday life. Children learn emotional skills best when they are practiced at home, not just once a week, fortnight or month.
Therapy gives children a safe place to try new skills. They may learn how to name a feeling, take a calming breath, or reframe a thought. But if those skills stay inside the therapy room, they fade.
Parents are the bridge. When mums, dads, and caregivers bring psychology-informed tools into daily routines, children get the repetition their brains need to truly wire in new habits.
This is how resilience, confidence, and self-awareness grow.
Children learn more from what they see than what they are told. That means parents are not only their child’s first teachers, but often they are the best teachers.
When you model your own Inner Team out loud, you show your child how to do the same:
• “A part of me feels nervous about this meeting, but Confident Charlie is reminding me I can handle it.”
• “Negative Nala is being loud right now. I am going to invite Thelma to help me pause before I respond.”
This kind of modelling teaches children that all feelings are normal, and that adults use the same skills they are learning. It makes emotional literacy part of everyday life, not something separate or clinical.
The good news is that practicing therapy skills at home does not mean adding another task to your already full plate. It is about using everyday moments as learning opportunities:
• At homework time: “I can see Negative Nala is loud right now. Can we invite Confident Charlie to help us start?”
• In the car: “Which Inner Team member showed up at school today?”
• At bedtime: “Let’s use Thelma’s pause before sleep and take three calm breaths together.”
These small, consistent conversations turn skills into second nature.
At The Growth Circuit we have created the Inner Team Framework, playful characters that bring evidence-based skills to life.
• Confident Charlie helps children find their strengths.
• Thoughtful Thelma reminds them to pause before reacting.
• Negative Nala teaches how to talk back to self-doubt.
These characters work just as well at the dinner table as they do in a therapy session. That is the beauty of them, they create a shared language for emotions that children, parents, and therapists can all use.
Parents sometimes worry that they are “not doing it right” if they use therapy ideas at home. But children do not need perfect delivery, they need practice, presence, and patience.
When you help your child notice their Inner Team, pause for a breath, or use a tool you learned in therapy, you are not replacing the therapist (if you have one), you are reinforcing the learning.
You are giving your child the chance to practice resilience in the moments that matter most
The Growth Circuit empowers parents with fun, psychology-based tools to raise emotionally aware children.
