‘Science is magic that works’. I love this quote on the t-shirt worn by Professor Gregory Walton in his publicity shots. Gregory who? Good question. His name doesn’t spring readily to mind, but that’s partly because he&rsquo…
Do you remember when your kids were little and they’d play some form of ‘it’. The only way they could be safe was if they managed to make it to ‘home’ before being tagged. The home would be a lampost or a tree or, when …
A parent's guide to teen self-discovery In the years since I started my podcast, and watched closely as my bonus daughters and teens developed, I've learned that identity formation is perhaps the most complex and critical journey of adolescence. It…
Welcome to our disorienting parenting world. Here's my clutch of question prompts for parents. A few days ago the mother of a 10 year old asked, ‘Should I get my son to watch the show? I’m not quite sure.’ There was an immed…
How Your Mindset Can Unlock Your Teen's Motivation It's easy for us parents to fall into the trap of believing that teenagers are inherently short-sighted, illogical, and incapable of making wise decisions. So many of things they do seem to back u…
41% of parents and caregivers say they are so stressed they cannot function most days." This was in the report, Parents Under Pressure, issued by the US Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy". Some of the key factors outlined in the report include things…
One of my husband’s long standing friends moved to Florida when he graduated, but he always stays with us when he’s in the UK. His daughters were home-schooled and we’ve vaguely followed their progress all the way to the latest sta…
I never went to a festival as a teen. I didn’t have any money, and I didn’t know anyone else who did. Still, I did some pretty ‘exciting’ things at the age my kids went to their first festival alone. I was sixteen when I mov…
I began this podcast in December of the year my youngest was 13. To be honest, if my friend hadn't told me she needed me to make a podcast to help her it simply wouldn't have occurred to me to start one. Yes, my skillset is audio/visual and present…
I've had the immense privilege of hosting a bunch of girls for five days, being entrusted to listen in on the highs and lows of their lives. It prompted me to ask listeners who follow me on Instagram what they would like to know. The questions were …
The 'do hard things', or 'less validation' model. The whole point of my podcast is to hand back some agency to parents who've grown accustomed to thinking they don't really know what they're doing, or that they know exactly what they're doing and w…
Every loving parent wants their kid to succeed and be happy. The difficulty is that success and happiness are ephemeral concepts. Sure, there are lots of books and articles about children who’ve achieved great things, and the parents tha…
If you recognise the song from my title then you may well be as old as I am, which means we've had a lot of time to evolve over the years. Still, making changes that stick is so difficult that it's a wonder many of us begin afresh every new year wit…
It's hard enough dealing with the messy rooms, their anxiety about starting a new school, and all the friendship issues, without expecting us to become experts in an industry that's moving at warp speed. There is no equivalent to a driving…
When I started the podcast I had absolutely no idea where it would go. I just felt it was important; both for my personal growth, and to share with others who found parenting this year group particularly tricky. It's our two year annive…
It’s rare that I’m asked to research a topic then discover I’m not comfortable producing a thirty minute podcast on my findings. The gender movement is one such topic; it’s too political and I risk too much by wading in on th…
Our story started in a conversation with a wonderful friend @alexpodell whom I’d met through my daughter’s school.She insisted I should make a podcast about parenting teenagers because I was a parenting coach, and had a background i…
Going through a break-up is incredibly stressful, but it can feel so much harder when you have to convey the situation to your children. I'm not going to opine on the subject, because I haven't personally been through a divorce. I have, howev…
This week I had the rare pleasure of sitting with an old friend in the lunchtime sun, talking about everything and anything. It’s so unusual for us to have this luxury that I didn’t even know about the accident her son had suffered. He&…
I started school over and over again as a child, because we moved countries repeatedly. I went to four different schools after I arrived in England - between the age of ten and thirteen - and then two different colleges before going to University. …
My daughter's friend is coming to stay. My daughter has just said 'I can see her on Snapmaps. She's at the airport. I don't know why she's riding an armadillo though.😂'Snapchat is a tricky app, because it's so much a part of being a teenager now, it…
Top tips from our listeners: Give them their own cupboard/fridge shelf with foods they are allowed to eat. bermudatriangle loves the idea of sending them food shopping with their own money to start understanding the prices. fp-massage sugge…
I do hope you found my interview with Mike Nicholson of www.progressivemasulinity.co.uk helpful. For me, one of the most interesting points was that once boys know that they won't be instantly judged or shut down - and that we are genuinely trying t…
I hated going to sleep when I was a teenager. I simply couldn’t understand the point. It seemed boring, and pointless, and there was something thrilling about being awake when nobody else was. It felt empowering and rebellious. Of course, it a…
