"My aim of Suzie Super Trooper is equip parents with what they need to help their children get what they need, and to get families talking opening about how everyone is feeling."
Kay Woodburn, Author
A leading mindset coach who helps high achieving individuals, competitive athletes, and entrepreneurs master their mindsets to help them achieve things that they never dreamt were possible has focused her attention on a different audience during this last week, having directed her passion and purpose into the creation of a children’s book like no other.
Having created the book in just 7 days after feeling totally driven to produce this, Kay Woodburn, 37 from Cheshire, has poured all her neuro-science knowledge, her neuro linguistic programming expertise and her compassion as a mother into something truly unique, intended to help our kids navigate some of the emotions they are feeling right now.
Taking a simple story of a little girl on lockdown, and taking her on an imaginary adventure into a parallel world, Kay transports her into different scenarios to help the child to see what’s happening around her, through an alternative pair of eyes. Guided by a friendly supercat Suzie Super Trouper learns many lessons on her journey, and thanks to Kay tapping into subliminal NLP techniques, she hopes these will stick in the reader’s unconscious mind.
Suzie sees behind the scenes of what key workers get up to, faces her own challenges on her adventure and receives a personal letter of thanks from the Queen, for playing her part, and being a little super hero herself, in helping keep the country safe. Throughout the book we see Suzie experience a myriad of emotions, something which is visually represented by the colour of her dress changing to match her mood, as Kay recognises within the storyline that this is a confusing time for kids.
Suzie Super Trouper, which is now available as a free flip book is recommended for kids from 4-10 years old, and is passion project that Kay felt compelled to launch after chatting to parents with kids much younger than her own. Having heard regularly that their primary age kids were scared to touch anything for fear of spreading the virus, upset about not seeing their friends, cross with their parents for making them do school work at home and angry that mum and dad had to do their work whilst they were at home, Kay sensed a lot of emotions bubbling over. She was also hearing that parents didn’t know what to say to their kids to calm them, re-assure them and communicate in a way to make it all seem better, as they didn’t have the right tools or skills to positively respond to these frustrations.
With a strong background in linguistics, and specialisms in helping clients to overcome anxiety; limiting beliefs; life-changing situations; mental health challenges and self belief and self worth struggles, Kay felt drawn to help both the children, parents and carers to find a way to communicate with each other, in a way that was positive.
She said: "Everywhere I turned over the last week I saw kids panicking and feeling upset, lashing out with temper tantrums they wouldn’t usually have, and struggling to deal with very complex emotions about what is happening to them right now. I also saw parents in despair, many feeling broken already by the unnatural juggling acts they are being asked to perform and a sense of panic from them too that they really didn’t know how to make everything better for their family unit. This came both from my own network, and when I started to do wider research amongst other parents, teachers and children. I just felt that this situation of a bubbling pressure cooker isn’t ok and I had to try and do something about it”.
“Having now done week 2 in lockdown I think we all have now got over the ‘novelty’ of this - we have realised it is not a holiday and that our lives have changed dramatically, practically overnight, but for who knows how long. We know things are not normal, and don’t really know what our new normal is supposed to look like. At this point it is natural that we start to have a real mix of emotions, both as kids and adults. We get scared, we panic, we grief our old lives, we feel sorry for ourselves, we feel resentful, we feel angry….so many emotions are coming out this week”.
“My aim of Suzie Super Trooper is equip parents with what they need to help their children get what they need, and to get families talking opening about how everyone is feeling.”
Kay, who runs a coaching and training business, Gritty People, driven by her own life experiences of having overcome much adversity as a child, has collaborated on the book with her friend and colleague, Miriam Burrell, Founder of ‘Be Mighty’. Miriam is a fellow behavioral coach whose expertise is working with, adults, children and within schools, between them they have created a story that sets to address a myriad of the emotions our children may be experiencing and encourages them to reframe them. The ultimate goal is for the reader to re-evaluate how they are behaving to those around them, and how they could change that behaviour to make this whole experience more of a positive one. The added bonus for the parents is that they are showcased as one of the superheroes on the book, alongside the keyworkers of the nation, as Kay encourages the children to appreciate just how hard this is for the grown ups too.
Within the book there are clever linguistic techniques delivered subliminally to teach children how to change their state when they are cross or sad and to provide anchors and triggers to help them set new behaviours, the idea being that they will naturally adopt these and bring them into their everyday life.
To launch the book Kay is doing a virtual book tour around the country for families, where she will read the book and perform the ‘state change’ practices live online, teaching the kids a song and actions that they can tap into whenever they need a pick me up. Kay said: “We would LOVE to get as many families and children connected around the country as possible! We will teach your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews …all the little Super heroes in your lives, the Super hero dance before reading the story. To register click on one of the links below:
- Tuesday 7th April at 2pm - Registration via bit.ly/suzietues
- Thursday 8th April at 2pm - Registration via bit.ly/SuzieThurs
Kay added: ”I have never written a book before but felt so guided to write this. The feedback I have had so far has been incredible and if I can help just a small percentage of the population reframe what is going on right now so they can find some positives in this then I will be really proud. It’s crucial we are kind and supportive to each other at this time, and help each other through this and this is my way of doing my bit”.
For get hold of the free book see http://online.flipbuilder.com/abdf/uyaz/
