Tuning in to Kids

1. Introduction

Version followed: Tuning in to Kids (TIK), the core group programme for parents of children aged about 3–10 (CEBC gives 3–12), community format of 6 weekly 2-hour sessions plus boosters. The manual is Havighurst & Harley (2007), Tuning in to Kids: Emotionally intelligent parenting program manual, University of Melbourne. Session titles follow a 2021 licensed delivery by OzChild. The manual itself is not drawn on; it is sold only with or after facilitator training. [source: CEBC; AIFS; OzChild curriculum] [uncertain: the manual's session-by-session activities]

TIK is a manualised, emotion-focused parenting programme. Sophie Havighurst and Ann Harley developed it at the University of Melbourne. It teaches parents emotion coaching: noticing a child's emotion, naming it, empathising, and waiting for the feeling to settle before turning to the situation or to solutions. It also aims to reduce emotion dismissing, meaning avoiding, minimising or criticising a child's emotional expression. [source: CEBC]

The programme also works on the parent's own emotion awareness and regulation. The developers describe this as a "parallel process" running alongside the parenting skills. [source: Cambridge chapter abstract, Havighurst & Kehoe 2021; Unimelb group page]

Theory of change: when parents treat a child's emotional moments as chances for closeness and teaching, rather than withholding attention or punishing, children learn emotion awareness, understanding and regulation. Better child emotional competence is expected to lead to better social skills and behaviour. [source: CEBC; Mental Elf summary of Havighurst et al. 2010]

The emotion-coaching model comes from Gottman's work on parental meta-emotion (Gottman et al. 1997, cited in the Cambridge chapter). The five-step form used below comes from the Gottman Institute, not from the TIK manual. [source: Cambridge abstract; Gottman Institute blog]

The programme family includes:

Tuning in to Toddlers
Tuning in to Teens (also used in a Whole School Approach)
Dads Tuning in to Kids
Tuning in to Kids Online (TIKOL)
Teachers Tuning in to Kids

This guide covers only the core TIK programme. [source: Unimelb group page]

2. Framework

Format [source: CEBC; Foundations; AIFS]

Groups: up to 14 parents in a community group; up to 6 for higher-need or clinical groups. Ideally two facilitators.
Individual delivery: possible with single families (Foundations). The Unimelb page says one-to-one delivery is still being tested in a trial.
Settings: community centres, agencies, hospitals, outpatient clinics, schools and daycare, or online.
Equipment: a room, a whiteboard, and a screen to play the programme video; online delivery is also possible.
Session count:
- Community version: 6 weekly 2-hour sessions.
- Higher-need or clinical groups: CEBC recommends 8 sessions, but elsewhere on the same page mentions a 10-session clinical programme [uncertain].
- Boosters: 1–2 sessions at roughly two-monthly intervals, recommended for all groups. The Iranian pilot (Aghaie Meybodi et al. 2017) delivered 6 sessions plus 2 boosters two months apart.
Methods used across sessions: psychoeducation, role play, small-group exercises, group discussion, video demonstrations and home activities. Homework is optional (CEBC). [source: Foundations; CEBC]

Session sequence (titles from the OzChild 2021 delivery; the content summaries are drawn from the CEBC list of core components, so how they map onto sessions is [uncertain])

Session	Title	Goals and likely content
1	Setting out: raising emotionally intelligent children	Orient the group. Introduce emotion coaching versus emotion dismissing. Parents start reflecting on their own reactions to emotion and on their family of origin.
2	Naming the emotion	Noticing emotion in the child, including at low intensity. Naming emotions; feeling-faces resource. Responding with empathy.
3	Understanding your child's emotional experience	Staying with the feeling; empathy and comfort; waiting for the emotion to settle. Coaching sadness and fear or worry [uncertain placement].
4	Problem solving and self-care when emotion coaching	Moving from empathy to problem solving and negotiating limits on behaviour. Parent self-care and managing the parent's own strong emotions.
5	Emotion coaching your child's anger	Coaching anger in the child. Managing parental anger, for example with slow breathing, relaxation and the turtle technique [uncertain placement].
6	Emotionally intelligent parenting, now and in the future	Consolidation, planning ahead, and preparing for the boosters.

The OzChild delivery also provides resources for role plays, Feeling Faces, and a Five Steps of Emotion Coaching handout. [source: OzChild]

Moving between phases. TIK runs on a fixed weekly curriculum. None of the sources describes mastery criteria for moving from one session to the next. [uncertain]

Practical suggestions [synthesis]:

Move on as scheduled. Re-cover any step the group cannot yet role-play at the start of the next session.
Use the boosters for parents who cannot yet do steps 1–3 without moving straight to fixing or limit-setting.
Use 8 sessions or more when most parents are high-need or the children have clinical-level problems.

Facilitator requirements [source: CEBC; Foundations; AIFS]

Training: delivery requires TIK training. CEBC describes 2 days (14 hours), in Melbourne or on-site. Foundations describes 13 hours in person over 2 days, or 13.5 hours online across 3 sessions.
Manual: available only with or after the training.
Background: ideally a university qualification in psychology, social work, nursing, teaching or medicine. Foundations adds that peer support workers can also train.
Licensing: Foundations says no licence is required.
Fidelity: CEBC describes self-report fidelity checklists in the manual, completed after each session. Foundations reports no fidelity-maintenance system [uncertain: the sources conflict]. Use the manual checklists.
Support: free monthly online supervision for trained facilitators, themed workshops, and "Running Your First Group" sessions for new facilitators.
Translations: materials exist in Arabic, Cantonese, Somali and Vietnamese.

3. Guiding principles

Emotions are opportunities for connection and teaching. In practice, coach parents to treat a child's upset as the moment to connect and teach, not as misbehaviour to stop. [source: CEBC; Gottman Institute blog]
Tune in early. Help parents read small cues and respond before the feeling escalates. [source: Gottman Institute blog]
Reduce dismissing. Help parents spot their own habits of avoiding, minimising or criticising a child's emotion, and practise alternatives. [source: CEBC]
Empathy before solutions. Parents name the feeling and comfort the child, then wait for the emotion to subside before discussing what happened or what to do. [source: CEBC]
Use few words when the child is upset. Encourage short, warm responses rather than lectures or questioning in the heat of the moment. [source: Emerging Minds podcast topic list, Havighurst 2020] [uncertain: the podcast transcript]
Limit behaviour, not feelings. Every feeling can be accepted; unsafe or hurtful actions still get a limit, followed by problem solving. [source: Gottman Institute blog; CEBC]
Parallel process: the parent's emotions come first. Facilitators work on parents' own emotion awareness and regulation alongside the parenting skills, and attend to parents' feelings in the group the way parents are asked to attend to their child's. [source: Cambridge abstract; Unimelb page] [the mirroring stance is synthesis]
Know your automatic reactions. Help parents identify their reflexive responses to emotions such as anger, sadness and fear. [source: Emerging Minds topic list; CEBC]
Reflect on family of origin. Explore how emotions were handled in the parent's own childhood and how that shapes their responses now. [source: CEBC]
Parent self-care. Plan for the parent's wellbeing, because coaching is hard when the parent is depleted. [source: CEBC; OzChild session 4]
Learn by doing. Teach through role play, video and small-group work, with home practice brought back for discussion. [source: Foundations; CEBC]
Homework is optional. Invite home practice without making it a condition of taking part. [source: CEBC]

4. Intervention inventory

What this inventory is based on. The sources name TIK's components and methods but do not give the manual's scripts. For each item:

Purpose: from the cited source.
Steps: the facilitator procedure, which is my [synthesis] unless a source is cited. It was built to fit the named component.
Example language: illustrative wording.

Use your TIK manual's own activities where they differ.

4.1 Psychoeducation: emotion coaching versus emotion dismissing

Purpose: Introduce the programme's central contrast and help parents locate their own style. Session 1, revisited throughout. [source: CEBC; OzChild session 1]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Ask the group to recall a recent time their child was upset and what they did.
2. On the whiteboard, sort the responses into two columns. Dismissing: avoiding, distracting, minimising, criticising, punishing the feeling. Coaching: noticing, naming, empathising, staying with the child.
3. Explain the idea that children learn to understand and regulate feelings through how adults respond to them.
4. Show the programme video clip contrasting the two styles if your kit includes one.
5. Normalise: every parent dismisses sometimes. The aim is more coaching, not perfection.
Example language (illustrative): "When your child is upset, there are two broad ways we tend to go: make the feeling go away fast, or move toward it. This week we just want to notice which way you lean."
Watch for: Shame ("I've been doing it all wrong"). Parents hearing coaching as "giving in". Signs of progress: parents spontaneously label their own dismissing responses in later sessions.

4.2 Parent reflection on own moods and emotional reactions

Purpose: Build the parent's own emotion awareness, the parallel process. Covers reflecting on one's own moods and identifying automatic reactions. [source: Foundations; Cambridge abstract; Emerging Minds topic list]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Have each parent pick one emotion (anger, sadness, fear, joy).
2. Ask them to note where they feel it in their body.
3. Ask how comfortable they are with it in themselves, and how comfortable when their child shows it.
4. Ask what they usually do in the first few seconds.
5. Pairs share; the facilitator collects themes.
6. Home task: notice one automatic reaction this week.
Example language (illustrative): "Before we look at your child's feelings, let's look at yours. When your child cries, what happens in you in the first five seconds?"
Watch for: Parents who cannot name any feelings (go slower; use the feeling-faces sheet for adults too). Strong distress (see 5.3). Signs of progress: parents report catching a reaction before acting on it.

4.3 Family-of-origin reflection

Purpose: Help parents see how their own upbringing around emotions shapes how they respond to their child. [source: CEBC]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Give private reflection time with prompts:
  - What happened in your family when you were sad, angry or scared?
  - Which feelings were OK and which were not?
  - What do you want to keep or change?
2. Invite voluntary sharing only. Do not push for trauma detail in a group.
3. Link back: "So that's partly why anger feels so hard to sit with."
4. Offer a private conversation or referral if strong material arises.
Example language (illustrative): "You don't need to share details. Just notice: when you were little and upset, what usually happened next?"
Watch for: Re-emerging trauma, grief or anger at one's own parents (see 5.3). Signs of progress: compassion for self and for the child ("I don't want her to feel how I felt").

4.4 The five steps of emotion coaching

Purpose: The core skill sequence. TIK provides a "Five Steps of Emotion Coaching" handout (OzChild resources). CEBC summarises the TIK sequence as:
1. Notice the emotion.
2. Name it.
3. Show empathy, often by comforting the child.
4. Wait for the emotion to subside before discussing the situation or solutions.
The step wording below follows the Gottman Institute's five steps, on which emotion coaching is based. The TIK handout's exact wording is [uncertain]. [source: OzChild; CEBC; Gottman Institute blog]
Steps (teach each, model on video or live, then role-play; see 4.8):
1. Tune in (become aware). Notice small, low-intensity cues such as a furrowed brow, clenched fists or slumped shoulders, before the feeling peaks. [Gottman blog]
2. Make a choice: see it as an opportunity. Pause and decide to respond rather than react, treating the moment as a chance for "connection and intimacy" (Gottman blog) and for teaching. [Gottman blog; CEBC]
3. Listen and empathise. Get alongside the child. Reflect back what you see and hear, and comfort them. Use few words while the child is highly upset, and wait for the feeling to settle. [Gottman blog; CEBC; Emerging Minds]
4. Help the child name the emotion. Offer words for the feeling. The Gottman version suggests asking first and offering choices if the child struggles. With young children, parents often name it for them [synthesis]. [Gottman blog; OzChild session 2]
5. Set limits and problem-solve when needed. Once calm returns, accept the feeling and limit the behaviour. Then work out what the child wanted, generate options, evaluate them and let the child choose. Not every emotional moment needs this step; sometimes empathy is enough [synthesis]. [Gottman blog; CEBC]
Example language (illustrative, except where quoted):
- Step 1: "You've gone quiet since you got off the phone with Dad."
- Step 3: "Oh, that was so disappointing." Then a pause, a hug, few words.
- Step 4: "You look really cross, or maybe a bit embarrassed too?"
- Step 5, Gottman phrasing: "It's okay to feel/want ___, but it's not okay to do ___." and "What is a different way to get that?" (Gottman Institute blog).
Watch for:
- Parents rushing from step 1 straight to step 5 by fixing, reassuring or lecturing.
- Empathy delivered as a formula followed by "but".
- Labelling used to tell the child what they "should" feel.
- Signs of progress: shorter, calmer episodes. In role play, parents stay in steps 3–4 without jumping to solutions. Parents report children using feeling words.

4.5 Naming emotions and the Feeling Faces resource

Purpose: Build an emotion vocabulary for parent and child. Supports step 4. Session 2. [source: OzChild session 2 and resources] [uncertain: how the manual uses the sheet]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Show the feeling-faces sheet.
2. Ask parents to list feelings beyond happy, sad and angry (frustrated, disappointed, jealous, worried, embarrassed, lonely).
3. Practise reading faces and body cues.
4. Home task: name one feeling a day for the child ("you look proud") and one for yourself ("I'm feeling a bit rushed").
5. Debrief next session.
Example language (illustrative): "Kids can only use words for feelings if someone has given them the words. This week, be the dictionary."
Watch for: Naming only negative emotions (include positive ones). Over-labelling during a meltdown (keep it brief). Signs of progress: the child starts using the words.

4.6 Empathy, comfort and waiting (staying with the feeling)

Purpose: Help parents tolerate the child's distress long enough to empathise and comfort. Session 3, "Understanding your child's emotional experience". [source: CEBC; OzChild; Emerging Minds]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Ask parents to imagine the situation from the child's height and age, using a recent incident.
2. Practise a three-part response: a short empathic statement, physical comfort if the child accepts it, then quiet presence.
3. Discuss what makes waiting hard (time pressure, own anxiety, onlookers).
Example language (illustrative): "You don't have to fix it. Your job in that minute is just to be there with them while the wave passes."
Watch for: Parents who feel waiting rewards bad behaviour (see 5.1). Signs of progress: parents report the feeling passing faster than expected.

4.7 Coaching specific emotions: anger, sadness, fear and worry

Purpose: Apply the five steps to each emotion, and manage these strong emotions in both parent and child. Anger has its own session (session 5). Sadness and anxiety are named core content; their session placement is [uncertain]. [source: CEBC; OzChild]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. For each emotion, ask the group:
  - What does it look like in your child?
  - What does it trigger in you?
  - What does the child need?
2. Anger: keep everyone safe first. Coach the feeling underneath ("you really wanted a turn"). Set limits on hitting or throwing. Problem-solve once calm.
3. Sadness: slow down, comfort, allow tears, avoid a quick cheer-up.
4. Fear or worry: acknowledge the fear before reassuring, explore what the child imagines, then problem-solve small brave steps.
5. Role-play one example of each.
Example language (illustrative): "Anger is often the bodyguard for another feeling, like hurt or fear. What might be under it for your child?"
Watch for: Parental anger escalating alongside the child's (use 4.10). Reassurance used as dismissing ("there's nothing to be scared of"). Signs of progress: parents can coach anger without getting into a power struggle.

4.8 Role play

Purpose: Rehearse the coaching steps in the room. This is a named TIK method; role-play resources are supplied, and parents bring home examples back to role-play. [source: Foundations; CEBC; OzChild resources]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Use a parent's real recent incident or a supplied scenario.
2. Work in threes: parent, child and observer. Rotate the roles.
3. The "parent" practises a single step (for example step 3 only) before trying the full sequence.
4. The observer notes words and tone that were coaching and any that were dismissing.
5. Debrief the "child" first: what did it feel like to be responded to that way?
6. Facilitators can demonstrate a "dismissing" version, then a "coaching" version, of the same scene.
Example language (illustrative): "You played the child. When Mum said 'you're fine, stop crying', what happened inside you? And the second time?"
Watch for: Embarrassment (facilitators model first; keep groups small). Parents playing the child cartoonishly. Signs of progress: the "child" reports feeling understood, and parents produce empathic statements without scripts.

4.9 Video demonstrations

Purpose: Model coaching and dismissing responses, and prompt discussion. Programme sessions use video material; the kit requires a screen or DVD player. [source: Foundations; CEBC; AIFS]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Before each clip, give the group a viewing focus ("watch what the parent does first").
2. Pause the clip and ask what the child might be feeling and what the parent did.
3. Link the clip to the five steps on the whiteboard.
Example language (illustrative): "Before we press play: watch the dad's face, not the child's."
Watch for: Parents dismissing the clip as unrealistic. If so, invite them to say how it would go in their house.

4.10 Parent emotion regulation: slow breathing, relaxation and the turtle technique

Purpose: Give parents (and, through them, children) ways to calm down before coaching, especially around anger. Foundations names slow breathing, relaxation and the "turtle technique" as TIK emotion-regulation strategies. It gives no procedure for any of them, so their TIK form is [uncertain]. [source: Foundations]
Steps [synthesis, not TIK manual text]:
1. Slow breathing: practise in session with a longer out-breath for a few minutes. Parents choose a cue to use it, such as noticing a raised voice or a tight jaw.
2. Relaxation: run a brief guided body-relaxation exercise in session.
3. Turtle: as generally taught, the person pulls into an imaginary "shell" (stops, withdraws attention, breathes) and then "comes out" to think about what to do. It is usable by parent and child [synthesis; TIK-specific wording not found].
4. Plan a personal "pause" routine for high-risk moments, such as getting out the door or bedtime.
Example language (illustrative): "You can't coach while you're flooded. First the breath, then the child."
Watch for: Parents with trauma who become uncomfortable with eyes-closed relaxation (offer eyes open, grounding instead). Signs of progress: parents report fewer shouting episodes.

4.11 Problem solving and negotiating limits

Purpose: Teach the step-5 skills: accepting the feeling, limiting the behaviour and solving the problem together. Session 4. [source: CEBC; OzChild; Gottman Institute blog]
Steps (structure from the Gottman blog; facilitation is [synthesis]):
1. Name the feeling and the limit.
2. Ask what the child wanted.
3. Generate at least two or three options.
4. Evaluate them against likely outcomes and family rules or values.
5. Let the child choose what to try.
6. In session, practise only after the empathy steps. Emphasise waiting until the child is calm.
7. For preschoolers, offer two options [synthesis].
Example language (illustrative, plus a Gottman quote): "You were so angry he knocked your tower over. It's not okay to hit. What did you want him to do? What else could you try?" Then "So what are you going to try now?" (Gottman Institute blog).
Watch for: Problem solving started while the child is still flooded. Limits dropped out of fear of upsetting the child. Signs of progress: the child generates their own solutions.

4.12 Parent self-care

Purpose: Sustain the parent's capacity to coach. A named TIK component, session 4. [source: CEBC; OzChild]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Each parent identifies their warning signs of depletion.
2. They list small daily and weekly replenishing actions and support people.
3. They commit to one action this week.
4. Review it next session without judgement.
Example language (illustrative): "What fills your tank? Pick one thing small enough that you'll actually do it before next week."
Watch for: Parents who have no supports or show signs of depression (screen and refer; see 5.6).

4.13 Small-group exercises and group discussion

Purpose: Peer learning, normalising, and applying the steps to members' own situations. [source: Foundations]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Use pairs or threes for personal material and the whole group for summarising.
2. Start each session by reviewing the past week's emotional moments: what happened, which step they tried, and what they noticed.
3. Draw out successes, however partial.
Example language (illustrative): "Who had a moment this week where they noticed the feeling, even if the rest didn't go to plan?"
Watch for: One parent dominating. Advice-giving that is itself dismissing. Facilitators model emotion coaching of the parents themselves.

4.14 Home practice (optional homework)

Purpose: Transfer skills to home. Practice is optional, and parents bring examples back for discussion and role play. [source: CEBC; Foundations]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Agree one small, specific task per week:
  - notice the child's emotions;
  - name feelings daily;
  - try steps 1–3 once;
  - notice your own automatic reaction;
  - one self-care action.
2. Suggest a quick note of what happened.
3. Debrief at the start of the next session.
Example language (illustrative): "No marks, no pass or fail. Just bring us one moment, good or messy."
Watch for: Shame about not practising (see 5.4).

4.15 Consolidation and booster sessions

Purpose:
- Session 6 ("now and in the future") reviews the programme and plans for future developmental stages.
- 1–2 boosters at roughly two-monthly intervals maintain skills.
[source: OzChild; CEBC; Aghaie Meybodi et al. 2017]
Steps [synthesis]:
1. Parents review their own before-and-after ("what I used to do / what I do now").
2. They anticipate coming challenges, such as school entry or a new sibling.
3. At boosters, review real incidents and re-role-play the weakest step.
Example language (illustrative): "Which step has become most natural, and which one slips first under stress?"
Watch for: Drift back to dismissing under stress, which is normal. Use boosters to re-practise.

4.16 Facilitator fidelity self-checklist

Purpose: Keep delivery true to the manual. The manual contains self-report fidelity checklists, completed after each session. [source: CEBC]
Steps:
1. Complete the checklist straight after each session.
2. Bring any deviations to the free monthly TIK online supervision. [source: CEBC; Foundations]
Watch for: Session content cut for time. Problem solving taught before empathy is solid.

5. Handling problems

The Havighurst & Kehoe (2021) chapter covers "common barriers and challenges" in applying emotion coaching. The guidance below is [synthesis] unless a source is cited.

5.1 "This is just being soft": fears of permissiveness

Separate feelings from behaviour.

Show that step 5 keeps limits.
Role-play the same scene twice: a limit with dismissing, then a limit with coaching.
Frame emotion coaching as the route to better self-control, which is what the programme targets. [source for limits: Gottman Institute blog; CEBC] [synthesis]

5.2 Stuck at step 5: fixing, lecturing, reassuring

Have the parent practise steps 1–3 only for one week, with "no solutions" as the rule.
In role play, the observer flags each jump to solutions.
Ask what the parent feels when the child is upset. The rush to fix is often the parent's own discomfort, so return to 4.2. [synthesis]

5.3 Parent overwhelmed by own history or emotions

Family-of-origin work can surface trauma or grief.

Keep sharing voluntary and brief in the group.
Offer a private check-in.
Teach grounding or slow breathing (4.10).
Refer for individual therapy if distress persists.

In clinical groups, keep groups small (CEBC: up to 6) and consider more sessions. [source for group size and session count: CEBC] [synthesis]

5.4 Non-attendance and non-practice

Homework is optional (CEBC), so keep the tone curious, not corrective.
Shrink the task ("notice one feeling").
Text a reminder of the week's single focus.
For a missed session, give a short catch-up call that covers the key step and handout before the next session.

[synthesis]

5.5 Ruptures with the facilitator or group

If a parent feels judged as a "dismissing" parent:

Acknowledge it directly.
Name the feeling and validate it, modelling the coaching steps toward the parent.
Repair: "I can see that came across as criticism. That wasn't my intention, and I'm sorry it landed that way." (illustrative)

If a dominant member keeps giving advice, redirect to the pairs format. [synthesis]

5.6 Child or family needs beyond a community group

TIK can be used with clinical-level child difficulties. Use the higher-need format (8 or more sessions, up to 6 families). [source: CEBC; Unimelb]

Screen at intake for:

family violence;
child maltreatment;
parental depression, substance use or psychosis;
a child with developmental or neurodevelopmental conditions.

Follow local safeguarding and mandatory-reporting duties if risk emerges. Run individual work or a referral in parallel. [synthesis]

5.7 Child's anger or aggression is dangerous

Safety first: separate, protect, and stay nearby. Coach only once the child is calm enough. Emotion coaching does not replace safety planning. [synthesis]

5.8 Child refuses to talk or name feelings

Lower the demand: the parent names the feeling briefly, without questioning.
Use side-by-side activities, drawing or the feeling faces.
Accept non-verbal comfort.

The Gottman blog advises asking first and then offering choices if the child struggles. [source: Gottman Institute blog] [synthesis]

5.9 Sibling conflict

Give each child a turn to tell their side, and reflect back each child's view before moving to limits and problem solving. [source: Gottman Institute blog]

5.10 Cultural fit and language

Emotion display rules vary. Explore the family's values about emotional expression rather than imposing them. Translated TIK materials exist in Arabic, Cantonese, Somali and Vietnamese (CEBC). Adaptations have been trialled in China (Qiu & Shum 2022) and Iran (Aghaie Meybodi et al. 2017). [source: CEBC; HKU record; IRJ] [synthesis for the cultural guidance]

5.11 Engaging fathers and co-parents

Dads Tuning in to Kids exists as a separate, father-focused programme. [source: Unimelb]

Where parents disagree about "soft" versus "strict" parenting, invite both. Use 5.1 to show that limits are kept. [synthesis]

5.12 Steps used mechanically

If a parent recites "you feel ___" in a flat voice, or follows it with "but", slow down. Focus on tone, facial expression and the pause. The aim is attunement, not the script. [synthesis]

5.13 Age mismatch

For under-3s or teens, consider Tuning in to Toddlers or Tuning in to Teens rather than stretching the core TIK programme. [source: Unimelb] [synthesis]

5.14 Online delivery difficulties

TIK can be delivered online. A licensed online version, TIKOL, also exists (Unimelb).

Keep cameras on during role plays where possible.
Use breakout rooms for triads.
Check privacy, because children may overhear family-of-origin material.

[source: CEBC; Unimelb; OzChild] [synthesis for the practical points]

Sources

Sources: