Parent Pause

What if the best thing you could give your child this summer is... boredom? I know that sounds like a strange thing to say. We all reach for screens sometimes - I’ve done it too. But I’ve been wondering what happens when the digital babysitter never goes home. In this Parent Pause, I’m thinking about boredom, creativity and why those empty moments our children complain about might actually be wher...

What if the greatest danger of social media isn’t what our children are seeing, but who they’re becoming? We spend a lot of time worrying about what our children might come across online. I think there’s another loss that’s much harder to spot. In this Parent Pause, I’m reflecting on the childhood many of us remember, why time away from adult eyes mattered more than we realised, and what children...

What if we’re worrying about the wrong thing when it comes to social media? The debate about banning social media for under-16s has become loud and polarised. But I think there’s a much bigger question we should be asking ourselves. In this Parent Pause, I’m reflecting on what childhood is really for, why boredom might be one of the greatest gifts we can give our children, and what I fear screens...

What if we’re so busy helping our children move on that we’re forgetting to help them say goodbye? We spend so much time celebrating firsts, but life’s deepest lessons are often found in the lasts. In this Parent Pause, I’m reflecting on why good endings matter, what one girl in a Girls Journeying Together group taught me about saying goodbye, and why making space for tears might be one of the gre...

Have you ever found yourself missing a stage of your child’s life that you wouldn’t actually want back? I’ve been wondering whether we’ve misunderstood what it means to miss something. We often assume sadness means we want to go backwards. I don’t think it does. In this Parent Pause, I’m reflecting on why joy and grief can exist side by side, what our children’s sadness might really be telling us,...

What if those tears over an old school jumper, a pair of scuffed shoes or the end of another school year aren’t silly at all? I wonder if we’ve become so focused on helping our children look forward that we’ve forgotten how important it is to stop and notice what’s ending. In this Parent Pause, I’m thinking about good endings, why they matter just as much as good beginnings, and how taking a momen...

Adults can become slightly obsessed with readiness at this time of year. Ready for secondary school. Ready for more independence. Ready for change. But children aren’t a conveyor belt. I think we underestimate how much children grieve transitions - even positive ones. They lose classrooms, teachers, rhythms, friendship dynamics, familiarity, identity. Even moving up one school year changes a child...

I think some children are crawling towards the end of term absolutely exhausted by how much “fun” we’re trying to squeeze in. Dress-up day. Sports day. Water fight. Leavers’ assembly. Reward trip. Barbecue. Transition day. Party day. By July, some children aren’t celebrating anymore - they’re surviving. Many children spend the end of term performing happiness while privately feeling overstimulated...

Every July we start rushing children towards the next thing - new schools, new uniforms, new routines - while they’re often still emotionally living inside this school year. A girl said something quietly heartbreaking to me recently:“No one’s asking me if I’m sad.” I think children need help not only preparing for what’s next, but noticing what mattered about what’s ending. The end of term can bec...

The child everyone praises is sometimes the child I’m quietly worried about. You know the one - sensible, helpful, mature for their age and never any trouble. Adults love these children. I know because I used to work with one. She was thoughtful, responsible and always thinking about everyone else. But when I asked her a simple question - “What would you like?” - she couldn’t answer. Not because s...

The children we worry about are often not the ones carrying the heaviest loads. Sometimes it’s the capable child. The one who remembers. The one who helps. The one who never needs reminding. This week I’ve been thinking about a girl whose job was to feed the family dog. Every evening. No rewards, no praise, just a responsibility that taught her something powerful: “I matter here.” Children need op...

What if the most “helpful” child in the family is carrying a burden they were never meant to carry? We often celebrate children who are mature, thoughtful and no trouble at all. But sometimes I wonder what’s sitting underneath that. There’s a big difference between a child helping because they’re growing and a child helping because they’re protecting. One builds confidence. The other asks them to...

What if your child doesn’t need fixing nearly as much as they need delighting in? When our children are struggling, it’s so easy to become focussed on helping them overcome their challenges. More confidence. Better organisation. Greater resilience. We want life to be easier for them. Of course we do. That’s love. But in this Parent Pause, I talk about a girl who had become so used to hearing about...

Have you ever stood in a playground full of people and felt completely alone? I think one of the hidden griefs of parenting a child with additional needs is that sometimes it doesn’t just make our child feel different - it makes us feel different too. Different from other families. Different from the parenting story we imagined. Different from the life everyone else seems to be living. In this Par...

Have you ever left a meeting about your child feeling like you’ve somehow lost them in the paperwork? I think one of the hardest things about parenting a child with additional needs is watching conversations become dominated by what they struggle with. Their difficulties, their diagnosis, their support needs. Important things, but not the whole story. A diagnosis can be useful. It can open doors t...

I don’t think teenagers are suffering from a lack of advice. Honestly, they’re drowning in it. “Be kind.” “Work hard.” “Stay safe.” “Believe in yourself.” “Protect your mental health.”And yet so many young people still feel anxious, flat, unsure of themselves and frightened of life. Because confidence does not grow from being told things. It grows from lived experience. From trying, wobbling, doin...

Our child’s growing up was never supposed to feel comfortable for us as parents. I think one of the saddest modern parenting myths is the idea that we’re meant to guide our children through adolescence while appearing calm, emotionally sorted, endlessly patient and completely unruffled. Like some sort of spiritual air hostess serenely pointing to the emergency exits while the plane is clearly goin...

We celebrate babies beautifully - first scans, first teeth, first steps, first birthdays. But then something strange happens. Our children begin the enormous transition into adolescence and suddenly many of us go quiet. Almost embarrassed. And our young people feel that silence. In this week’s Parent Pause I talk about what we’ve lost by abandoning rites of passage and why so many young people are...

We keep being told to protect our children’s mental health with apps, strategies, interventions and expert advice. But what if some of the most powerful things are actually astonishingly ordinary? A walk. A laugh. A kitchen conversation. A parent sitting beside them in the car. A bit more sleep. Less pressure. More outside. In this week’s Parent Pause I talk about the mental health tool I think ma...

What if your child doesn’t need a calmer, happier, more perfect parent… but just you, a little more present? I think modern parents are carrying an impossible job description. We’re supposed to be emotionally available, mentally healthy, patient, connected, successful, screen-free and somehow deeply fulfilled while raising children in a world that often feels exhausting and overstimulating for all...

Are we raising children who can think… or children who just know how to produce an answer? I had a conversation with a teenage girl from one of my groups recently. Bright, thoughtful, very capable. She said to me, completely matter of fact, “I use AI for everything. It helps me know what to think.” And I understand. Of course it does. It’s quick, it’s helpful, it gives you structure, ideas, someth...

What if the child who never gets it wrong… is the one we need to worry about? I’ve another story to tell you about a boy whose homework is always done, well and on time. No stress. No drama. His parents are relieved, no more procrastination, melt downs or despair. Everything looks good from the outside. He doesn’t get stuck anymore. And at first that sounds like success. Until you realise… he also...

Will AI do the thinking for your child before they’ve even had a chance? I told a story in a talk last week that’s I want to share with you. A little girl, Maya, asking her mum a simple question… and a device answering before her mum can even turn her head. Fast, accurate, impressive. But something disappears in that moment. The look. The pause. The shared discovery. And then one day the device do...

Is your silence actually expensive? I’m talking about that ten-minute conversation you’ve been avoiding for three weeks. You know the one - the one that would take less time than boiling a kettle, yet you’ve spent hours, days, even months mentally rehearsing it and then not saying a word. In our families, our friendships, and especially in our parenting, we do this strange dance of “adjusting.” We...

Are you being kind, or are you just being careful? I’ve been chewing on this lately. We often wrap our silence in the soft, respectable blanket of “kindness.” We tell ourselves it isn’t the right time, or that they’ve got enough on their plate, or that we don’t want to make things worse. It sounds lovely, doesn’t it? Very noble. But if I’m being honest - and a bit confronting - it’s usually a lie....