I hear you! My blogs are one-sided and unfair. The answer always seems to be that you have to change when really it is your child who is the one with the problem. I get it, I truly do, and it’s hard but I also know that all families become happier when parents find a...

Last month I wrote about ‘Fire and Fury’ and how to avoid escalating the situation when your child or teen declares war by shouting ‘I hate you’ to your face, and you find yourself morphing into Kim Jong-un or Donald Trump. I promised that I’d return with advice...

While it was flattering for a while to be so loved and needed, the truth is it is beginning to wear you down.

The constant asking about what you are doing, where you are going and when you will be back is by now feeling more like a prison than a popularity contest.

Here’s the thing: Maybe they are genuinely fearful of being apart from you, incredibly afraid of germs and downright petrified of robbers coming into the house at night.  And perhaps they feel genuine terror about making mistakes in their homework.

But there is something else going on as well.

You understand intellectually that your child is obviously deeply distressed and in emotional turmoil to behave like they do, but it still feels like a punch in the gut when they shout 'I hate you' in your face. Some days you crumple inside and retreat but other days...

Living with a perfectionist isn’t much fun: their endless self-reproach and criticism can be tiring and boring. However, being the perfectionist is a thousand times worse!  At least you get to go out for a break; they can’t escape it!

The perfectionist has to live with the joy-zapping thief of all the jolly, fun, relaxing, silly things in life. All that makes life blissful gets stolen by the belief that ‘perfect exists and I must always attain it.’

I hear so often from parents that family life would be perfect and harmonious if only [that one child] didn’t always provoke arguments, pick fights and disrupt the peace with petty wind-ups. It feels like sabotage, it feels predictable and it is exhausting and...

You feel so helpless and powerless when your child is struggling with friendships and belonging. Your upset at their upset can be really overwhelming. It is seriously stressful and all too easy to lose perspective as well as sleep and patience. When your child feels...

Around 40% of the children I see in my practice are suffering from stress because of school work. Is your child or teenager feeling overwhelmed by their amount of school work? Is the pressure of deadlines and tests making them feel anxious, inadequate and stressed? Is...