London-based mental health, wellness and coaching clinic The Soke has announced the second webinar as part of its “Consequentially Speaking” series, which will focus on teenagers and adolescents and the importance of communication.
The next instalment of the 6-part series will take place on 28th January and will include dialogues between wellbeing experts, with re-enactments centred around the theme of communication and the healing of relationships through talking. It aims to help parents navigate through volatility and enhance their abilities to distinguish between “normal” teen angst and behaviour indicating more deep-rooted issues.
This live event will feature Luke Shaw, communications coach, and actor, who will demonstrate common conversations that often lead to unnecessary conflict between parents and their teens. The format encourages input from the online audience in order to observe the possibility of alternative outcomes through small changes.
Providing analysis throughout the session will be Dr Shadi Shahnavaz and Holli Rubin, Clinical Board Members at The Soke. The event will be chaired by journalist and author Simon Brooke.
With the UK once again under the strictest lock down restrictions including the closure of schools and colleges, there is growing evidence of the worrying toll the pandemic is taking on the mental health of young people across the country. A recent 2020 follow-up to a nationwide NHS study carried out in 2017 found that one in six children between the ages of 5 and 16 were likely to have a mental illness, an increase from one in nine three years ago.
Research shows that negative relationships can cause stress, impact mental health and even cause physical symptoms in individuals. Other family members will feel that tension, too, and often don’t know how to respond. Learning how to maintain healthy and regular communication is crucial.
It is The Soke’s view that talking is the essence of therapy, and that it can work outside the therapy room too. All of our relationships can benefit from enhanced communication skills, from partner to partner to parent & child, siblings, extended family members, friends and colleagues. The make-ups, break-ups and challenges of all those relationships are put centre-stage in the “Consequentially Speaking” webinar series.
Dr Shadi Shahnavaz, Head of Family Therapy at The Soke, comments:
“Adolescents go through difficult transitions of changes in their body, their mood, their character, their sexuality and so forth and with the current situation they are under even more pressure to adapt to new situations which are imposed upon them. Adolescents thrive through their interactions with their friends and peers, and not being able to socialise with them naturally has a big negative impact on them. The fact that they are now forced to spend all their time with their parents is yet another unnatural circumstance they need to deal with.
“Parents can often feel ‘unwanted’ by their teenage child or even rejected, and they can therefore react in unhelpful and hostile manners which can cause a vicious cycle of misunderstandings and conflict. In this seminar we hope to discuss more constructive and helpful ways of creating conversations with your teenager(s).”
Maryam Meddin, CEO at The Soke, comments:
“The Consequentially Speaking webinars are built around a format that invites interaction with the audience. We have tried to create a learning platform that doesn’t feel like a one-size-fits-all series of instructions coming from experts, but an informal and engaging discussion that takes into account different ideas or views, based on the real experiences and circumstances of our viewers.
“Having actors play and then re-play the same scene but incorporating changes in behaviour, speech or tone, as suggested by a live audience, enables everyone to ‘test’ ideas to see how they might influence a different outcome to what may have, in its previous iteration, been a rather thorny conversation between the parties – in this case parent and child.”
Future webinar themes will include a review of communication with colleagues, communication with siblings, communication through bereavement, communication with those experiencing eating disorders or substance abuse and much more. Confirmed schedules will be added to The Soke’s website where there will be a sign-up facility to register to attend.
The webinar will take place on Thursday 28th January 2021 at 11am via the following link: https://youtu.be/w3vGiOfdMGk
