The walk with no agenda

The activity

Walk with your child at the same time each week, side by side. Some weeks they will talk, and you still go on the weeks they do not.

What it is for. Many children say the hardest things when nobody is looking straight at them. A regular walk gives your child a chance to say them, without any pressure to.

• The first step. Choose a time you can keep most weeks, and a route you both know. A familiar walk is easy to start.

Safety. For under-fives, hold hands near traffic; the looking walk is best on a quiet route.

When to get help. If your child has hurt themselves, or talks about not wanting to be alive, stay calm, thank them if they have told you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day: help them ask the surgery for an urgent appointment, and if it is closed, use the routes under “If you need help right now”, at the foot of every page. If your child tells you that someone is hurting them, stay calm, thank them for telling you, don’t promise to keep it secret, and act that day, using those routes; if the person hurting your child lives in your home or your child’s other home, go straight to children’s social care or the police. If your child is badly hurt, or may have taken too much of a medicine, get medical help straight away, even if they seem well. If a change in your child’s mood or behaviour lasts for several weeks, gets worse, or begins to affect sleep, eating or school, talk to their school and your GP.

The other four steps, and your part in it, are in the library.

The sheet that goes with it comes with a subscription: The walk with no agenda.

It goes with

• When They Stop Talking to You. For parents whose teenager hardly talks to them any more.
• The Conversations Parents Avoid. For parents who need to tell their child something hard and don’t know how to start.

The first chapter you open here is free to read in full.

Free on this subject

• Difficult conversations. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.
• Parenting strategy. What to do first, what helps, and who else can help. Free to read and to print.