Welcome to the world of the Moffles!

When a child is traumatised in relationships with those who should keep them safe, it creates a great sense of confusion and shame. It’s terrifying for a child to acknowledge that the adults they love have hurt them so badly, and so they are more likely to blame themselves. The pain and shame of relational trauma can lead to a fragmenting of the emotional experience from the reflective experience – the ability to think about what happened – in the child’s attempt to not feel so bad.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

Loving a child with relational trauma can be tough. It’s hard to keep giving when your child fears being parented. It takes courage to show that you want a relationship with your child when they are so emotionally defended against it.

Courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Loving deeply is turning up and keeping on giving, even when the rewards are small. You don’t have to be perfect; you just need to hold the hope that one day your child will let the love in. That one day your love will be their strength.

If you have a copy of Billy Moffle’s Straight Lines, you might have noticed that it is dedicated to a teacher, Roy Mapplebeck. He was the teacher at primary school who made a difference.

He encouraged my love of reading and storytelling & I remember listening enthralled, to The Hobbit in his class. He was enthusiastic, creative & kind, putting hours into helping us to stage plays & musicals, leading our gym lessons by example – he could turn a very impressive cartwheel – & rummaging with the best of us at the school jumble sales.

Connection with others is so important & it’s something that children with relational trauma find hardest to achieve. Never underestimate the power of your empathy & acceptance in helping a child connect with you.

When you have trust & connection, everything else starts to fall into place. There’s less need for correction when your child is motivated to be in relationship with you.

Think of empathy & acceptance as being the sunshine that helps the flower of connection blossom & grow.

Father’s Day has multi-coloured feelings & meanings for each of us, in our own ways. For children with relational trauma, Father’s Day can be one where they struggle with muddled feelings, about fathers they have lost or are separated from.

Our children learn about themselves through the relationships they have with us & they see themselves reflected in our eyes. When we look with acceptance, curiosity, & empathy, we help our children grow into themselves with confidence, self-love & hope.

In caring relationships, we are open to the influence of each other. We look to each other for confirmation of how we see the world & even how we see ourselves. We trust the responses & opinions of those we love, and we take them into our hearts and minds. Experiences of joy & delight are amplified when we share them. Experiences of sadness & fear are less painful and lonely when we share them.

We are all storytellers. Stories are part of being human. For children especially, the natural language for expressing feeling is through images & stories. It’s so important to find ways to help our children articulate their stories & understand them.

We know that one of the indicators of good mental health is being able to hold a coherent narrative about our life – a joined up story that makes sense of our own thoughts, feelings & motives, & also those of others in our story.

Thank you for your interest & please let us know what you think of the book. Any reviews gratefully received – you’ll be helping to increase awareness of the Moffle stories & resources & will help us to reach more little Moffles & their families.

Buy ‘Billy Moffle’s Straight Lines’ – the latest book in the Moffle’s series

If you live in the UK you can buy the book directly from here using PayPal. The book is £9.99, second class postage & packing adds an additional £2.50. Please note, this is only for the UK.

£12.49

‘Billy Moffle’s Straight Lines’ is also available to order in the UK from Amazon now.

If you live outside the UK, please use the contact form here to let us know where you are located & we will get back to you to confirm postage cost.

Countdown Klaxon! Just 3 days until publication of Billy Moffle’s Straight Lines 🤓 📚 It will be available to buy from Friday 13th May 2022 – definitely lucky for some 👍

It’s the second picture book in the Moffle series, written for families living with relational trauma. Billy’s story explores the impact of domestic violence on one little Moffle. Can making everything straight & tidy in his new home help to keep him safe?