Ask Rachel anything A healthy body image: Feeling happy and satisfied with your body and what it can do. An unhealthy body image: Highly self-critical, comparing their body to others and obsessing about some aspect of it. Beauty and body image are universal triggers for shame. Shame is a deeply painful sensation from the belief that we’re not good enough and will not be accepted by a group. Influences: Family environment,Ability/disabilityAttitudes of peersSocial mediaCultural bac...
Ask Rachel anything We'd all love our children to breeze through school, enjoying a satisfying academic life, having lots of friends, and coming out at the end feeling a success. But what if you have a child that doesn't thrive in an academic environment? What if they can't or won't do the work? How do you deal with it and what techniques can you use to motivate them? And our listener’s question comes from Emma: '‘My fourteen year old is very musical, but wants to st…
Ask Rachel anything Our teens are growing up in a world of TikTok, You Tube and Instagram, places full of barely dressed people talking freely about body positivity and sex. It’s hardly surprising that they might have a different view of what’s acceptable from that of their parents. In the UK, sex is legal at age 16, but any sexual images of a person under 18 are deemed child pornography, even when the person sending them is the creator. Research compiled in the UK for Cultureframed.org...
Ask Rachel anything Remember those years when your child followed you everywhere, and gazed at you with adoring eyes because you knew everything? Have they now turned into a teenager who simply grunts, or screams at you, when they occasionally emerge from their bedroom? Changes in a teenage brain help them to develop abstract thinking and self-reflection but they also make them hyper-critical and keen to develop emotional distance so they can practice life without you around. What to do: D..…
Ask Rachel anything You only have to scan the jokes on birthday cards in the shops to see how much drinking alcohol is ingrained in our culture as both fun and an escape from drudgery. So there's little wonder that teenagers can be eager to join the club. But when should we let them start, and how do we keep them safe? And in tangling with our teenagers Alex asks "How do I stay connected with my teenager when they argue, and don’t seem to want me anymore?" Join Susie and Rache…
Ask Rachel anything Just when you thought that you’d got the hang of parenting, your child changes again... and now they're a teenager. In this episode, we have a rummage in your parenting toolbox to work out what’s in there, and how useful it actually is. And in Tangling with your Teenager, we gather all of your suggestions to answer Natalie’s question. ‘How do I get my son to do what I say, and tidy his room?’ Answers range from taking the door off to pretending there are mice in the …
