Parent Pause

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....

You know the one. It’s the conversation you’ve rehearsed in the shower, the one you’ve dissected with your friends, and the one you’ve tucked away so many times it’s started to grow a layer of dust. We tell ourselves we’re staying silent to be “kind” or to avoid a scene, but if I’m being honest, that’s rubbish. We aren’t protecting them; we’re protecting ourselves. We’re choosing the safety of our...

There are no prizes for coping. So why are we trying to do this on our own? I’ve been thinking about this a lot, because I think one of the biggest sources of stress in parenting isn’t just what we’re doing - it’s the feeling that it’s all on us. And it isn’t meant to be. I remember a time when my children were younger and everything felt relentless. No sleep, constant noise, work, emotions, the l...

What if trying to be a “good parent” is the very thing exhausting you? In Stress Awareness month I’ve been reflecting on parent stress, and I think for many of us, the stress isn’t just parenting - it’s the standard we’re holding ourselves to while we do it. Patient. Present. Calm. Consistent. All the time. It’s like we’re quietly measuring ourselves against an invisible checklist, and of course w...

You can’t take sick leave from parenting… so what happens when you’re completely done? Not tired in a manageable way - but that bone-deep, can’t-even-make-toast kind of tired. And still, the day rolls on. Lunchboxes, questions, moods, needs. I had a moment like that recently where I thought, I can’t keep doing this. And what I realised was - I can’t keep doing it like this . Not parenting itself,...

Your child’s anxiety isn’t the only thing in the room - yours is too. And I don’t say that to blame us. I say it because it’s true. I’ve felt it myself. My child anxious, and suddenly my own body tightens, my thoughts speed up, my voice sharpens. And in that moment, I’m not calming anything… I’m amplifying it. Because children don’t just listen to us. They feel us. They borrow our nervous system....

What if all that helping… is actually making things harder? I see this so often. A parent saying, “I just want them to be okay,” and underneath that, a constant smoothing. Preparing, checking, guiding, stepping in. Like those people in curling, frantically brushing the ice so nothing gets in the way. And it comes from love. Of course it does. When we smooth everything out for our children, we quie...

What if the thing you most want to get rid of… is actually the part trying to help? When a child is anxious, everything in us wants to fix it. Calm it. Make it go away. I sat with a girl recently who said, “I just feel like something bad is going to happen all the time.” And her mum looked at me as if to say - please, can you stop this? But what if anxiety isn’t the problem? What if it’s the signa...

What if your child’s anxiety isn’t the problem - but the part that’s still working? When our child is anxious, something instinctive kicks in. We want to fix it. Remove it. Make it go away as quickly as possible. It can feel almost unbearable to watch. But what if anxiety is actually doing its job? Not a malfunction but a signal. A signal that something feels too much, too uncertain, or not quite...

What if trying to be a ‘good parent’ is the very thing slowing your recovery? I’ve been ill for a couple of weeks, and I’ve caught myself doing something so familiar - trying to parent well while feeling dreadful. Still tidying, still sorting, still pushing myself to be patient and present… and all it’s done is delay my getting better. Much better, when we’re ill, is if we can let everything extra...

The moment I feel ill, I don’t think “I need to rest” - I think “who’s going to hold everything together?” That’s the panic. Not the illness itself, but the fear of what might unravel if we stop. I remember standing in the kitchen, dizzy, making packed lunches, and realising something I didn’t like at all - I’d made myself indispensable. And yes, some of that is love. But some of it is habit. And...

What if your body stopping you isn’t bad timing - but accurate timing? I’ve been ill for two weeks, and if I’m honest, I’ve felt slightly offended by it. Like my body has betrayed me. I don’t have time for this. People are relying on me. So I do what many of us do - I try to keep going from under the duvet, still managing, still thinking, still holding everything together. But lying there, I reali...

What if EdTech is just AI in a fluffy jumper? It looks friendly. Helpful. Educational. Sometimes I picture it in a corduroy jacket with patches on the elbows. Very reassuring. But underneath… it’s still AI. And if we’ve learned anything from technology over the last twenty years, it’s that it usually starts free, friendly and useful - and then slowly becomes profitable. Which raises an awkward que...

Quick question before you scroll on - when was the last time your child was properly bored? Not “there’s nothing good on Netflix” bored. I mean the deep, staring-out-of-the-window kind of boredom where imagination used to live. These days boredom barely has time to appear before a screen fills the gap. Short videos, fast scrolling, endless stimulation. Neuroscientists have started calling the resu...