How Not to Screw Up Your Kids

This episodes responds to a listener question highlighting something so many parents worry about. How do we know if our children or teens are struggling making / keeping friends and if they are - when and how do we help?? In this episode I'll share how best to uncover any potential issues and then how to support them to make the very best of friendships for them. Here are the highlights:   (0...

Children's brains are built. At birth they have nearly 90 billion brain cells, and these cells makes connections which then wire together. Understanding how this happens and the role experience plays is crucial if we are to raise children who become happy, confident, resilient adults. I'll share four facts we all need to know. Here are the highlights:   (01:00) Neuroplasticity  (03:44) B...

My next interview was so good I’ve split it into two parts! So for the next two I am joined by the excellent Nadim Saad.  Nadim is a parenting and relationship coach and author of seven books including the highly acclaimed Kids Don’t Come With a Manual, Happy Confident Me Journal series and Raising Happy Confident Kids. Father of three and founder of The Happy Confident Company – focused on h...

My next interview was so good I’ve split it into two parts! So for the next two I am joined by the excellent Nadim Saad.  Nadim is a parenting and relationship coach and author of seven books including the highly acclaimed Kids Don’t Come With a Manual, Happy Confident Me Journal series and Raising Happy Confident Kids. Father of three and founder of The Happy Confident Company – focused on h...

This episode is all about ways we can encourage our children to do what we ask first time! I know it’s probably one of the most frustrating things we can up against as parents - ask isn’t once, twice, three times and then getting angry and frustrated that our children haven’t listened.  Now I’m going to tackle this in two half’s because there’s the dealing with it in the moment and then there...

Wife to Harry, Mummy to Lola Kit & Lockie, Violinist, and Author of Dare to Dream & Mindfulness 4 Mums.  With all the ‘perceived’ privilege and celebrity status people might attach to someone with over three hundred thousand followers on Instagram Izzy couldn’t be more real, humble, and honest about her and Harry’s parenting journey - from IVF, childhood anxiety, to juggling three chi...

Resilience is all about our children’s ability to bounce back from setbacks and it is very closely related to confidence and self-esteem. Resilience isn’t innate, it’s learnt and as their greatest teachers you can use my simple strategies to start developing your child’s resilience as well as asking yourself this simple question - “how am I modelling resilience??”    Here are the highlig...

In life there are times when you come across people who you just know are going to be instrumental in changing your perspective on life and I am really not over playing it when I say this about Zoe. She has read, trained and pulled together all the research and best practice on navigating motherhood with self-awareness and her insights on intergenerational cycles, conditioning and what every child...

Alright, so this episode is all about New Year's resolutions and its only November!!! Please just go with it as it could quite literally change your life and inspire your children too.  It all starts with this simple question “If you could design your life for 2023; how it makes you feel, who you want to spend it with, and what experiences you want to have, how would you design it?”.  In...

As the saying goes, ‘we all juggle multiple hats’ as parents and finding balance seems to be illusive to most of us. Some days we feel we’re acing it, yet I think I speak for most of us when I say we more often than not feel like we are constantly teetering on the edge of exhaustion.  Helen Hopkins is a Wellness Coach and approaches balance from the perspective of habits and how we can find o...

Friendships can be one of the biggest challenges our girls have to navigate. It can cause so much upset and make life miserable. So, Amy and Jess wrote a book to help their daughters so they never had to struggle with friendships as they did. They hope the hard lessons they learned help smooth the road for young girls and help them walk with their heads held high, never doubting who they are, or w...

When we have a child who seems hellbent on arguing with everything we ask of them, making up their own rules, and struggling to manage their emotions – it can leave its mark on all of us.    We often feel like we’re parenting in a war zone and then feel guilty and sad with how we’ve handled things. There isn’t a magic wand approach which will change everything, yet my seven strategi...

In this episode Stephanie shares her strategies as an educational consultant and coach for supporting children and teens as they navigate tests and exams.  Whether your children are taking tests which measure their progress, exams to get into their next schools, or exams at 16 and 18 which are likely to determine University or career pathways you’ll want to listen to this. In fact I found so...

A whole generation of children and teens are desperately unhappy.  A recent survey by the Children’s Society ranked UK children amongst the unhappiest in Europe, although the unhappiness trend is not just a UK phenomenon.  I’ll share my thoughts on why so many children are unhappy and what we can do to reverse this worrying trend.    Here are the highlights:   (00:28) The...

This is the first in my Investing In Yourself mini-series where incredible people share their wisdom and expertise across different areas in which we can invest in ourselves as parents.  Heather, the driving force and dynamo behind Supermums talks about her journey investing in herself, and how we might go about doing the same. Whether we want a new career or a better balance between work and...

Whilst the release of this episode is immediately after the death Queen Elizabeth II, the approach I suggest is intended to cover any situation where a child comes into contact with the death of someone - whether that’s a direct relative, a friend, neighbour, public figure etc.  For some the current world event may mean you are talking about death for the very first time and your child might...

Do you feel overwhelmed with the task of having a full work life whilst being present for your children? Juggling work and being a parent can be a challenge, prioritising one without the other being affected is something many parents struggle with. In this episode I discuss tips and tricks on how to manage this balance and reduce stress.  Here are the highlights:  (03:23) 45% of parents...

We have all heard a variation of one of these comments from our children - “I am not very good at... ‘this is rubbish’, ‘I can’t’, I’m not good at…’ but what does it mean?? There are potentially 6 different reasons why and yet, it is doesn’t really matter which reason it is – the comments tell us something about how they are experiencing things right now AND how to help them. I will talk you throu...

Josh is one of the UK’s most influential mental health advocates. Josh has also spoken in the House of Commons, contributed to mental health policy and even advised the scriptwriting team on Hollyoaks. He has run resilience workshops for village schools and global brands alike. Additionally, he is an ambassador for Nacoa – a national charity supporting people affected by a parent’s drinking. In th...

Let’s talk honestly about the impact of social media. From Twitter to TikTok and the whole Metaverse in between, it is now well documented to have a significantly negative impact on our children’s mental health – linked to depression, anxiety, and increase suicide rates. What do we need to know about these platforms, how do we help our children and teens navigate these platforms, and where do...

Siblings argue, this is perfectly normal. They are vying for a limited resource – our time. Yet the type of battles our children have with each other, are very much influenced by the ‘role’ our children play within the family dynamics. You cannot begin to make meaningful changes, until you fully understand, and potentially address any issues which arise from these roles. I will talk about ‘roles’...

I’ll be talking “Back to School’ and how we can prepare our children and teens to go back to school, start school for the first time, transition to junior school, senior school, boarding school or university. Whether you are listening to this before you children start school or well into the school term, the principles I am going to share are helpful at any point in time when you need to reset pat...

This episode isn’t just for you if you are step-mum, it’s for every mum, dad, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, nanny etc who stands at the school gate, does nursery or pre-school pick up. Blended families are on the increase and societally we have failed to recognise and support step-mums and the unique challenges they face. Being a step-mum can be incredibly isolating and as a result the in...

Today’s episode “We Need To Talk’ is all about how we can have meaningful conversations with our children and teens. You know what I mean - conversations which are two-sided, you learn more than you teach, and you feel a connection. Whether that’s talking about big things such as sex, boyfriends and worries or everyday conversations about using their voice, kindness, compassion. These conversation...

Toxic relationships are on the rise! They are friendships which aren’t healthy – they’re not about mutual respect, trust, and sharing. Instead, they are manipulative, controlling, one-sided and make our children feel awful about themselves. In this episode I will talk about how we can spot the signs our child or teen is in a toxic friendship and how we can then best support them to get out of it –...