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It’s when parents tell me that they don’t enjoy anything about their lives that I start to think about burnout. When they tell me that their children’s milestones don’t fill them with wonder, and that the prospect of a night off just makes them think about going to bed early.

I'm just back from the EMDR-Europe conference in Prague, where I delivered a pre-conference workshop on working with EMDR and neurodiversity in children and adolescents. My presentation was called 'You're Okay Just As You Are' and I think the title sums up my approach to using

When I was thirteen, I started at a new school. The other kids disliked me and called me names. I found the work boring and pointless. I felt like an alien. I dreaded each interminable day. I stopped wanting to go to school. Every Sunday evening I was filled with misery. If that

Jenny asked me for help with her daughter Eva. “I don’t know what to do” she said. “It doesn’t matter what I say, all I get is a No.” Shall we go to the park? NO Would you like to read a story? NO How about making a cake? NO Jenny found it hard to understand – because the

There’s a lot of misinformation out there, and the more it is repeated, the truer it starts to sound. A recent study found that over half the top TikTok mental health videos contain misinformation. I’m addressing some of the myths I see most frequently, in a bid to balance the

It’s late at night and you are exhausted. Every bone in your body is tired and your brain just wants to stop. But you’re stuck in a familiar dilemma. How do you use this precious time, the only time in the day when you are by yourself? Do you scroll through your phone, knowing

From early on, we teach our children that feeling good about themselves requires them to perform for us. When they are young we give them stickers and certificates when they do what we say. We praise them for ‘being good’ and give them consequences when they disrupt our plans.

When I was young, I got very good at taking exams. I sat nine GCSE’s, each with at least two papers. I went to 6th form college and sat more exams there. Onto university, and at the end of each year there were more exams which I had to pass in order to continue. Summer after

Some autistic children seem to get stuck. They need to do the same thing again and again – perhaps washing their hands until they are raw, or asking the same question hundreds of time. No matter how many times they do it, it doesn’t feel ‘right’. They can’t stop and they get very

Claim: The term ‘neurodiversity’ means that neurodivergence is neurological. In the last fifteen years or so, use of the word ‘neuro’ has mushroomed. Just in my LinkedIn feed today I see calls for ‘neuroinclusion’, the establishment of ‘neurohubs’ and discussion of different

If we can see a difference between people’s brains on a scan, doesn’t that mean that the difference is neurological (and therefore that ADHD and autism are neurological differences)? No. Or only if we decide to define almost all behaviour as neurological. The differences that

‘Why can’t you make them behave?’ So much of ‘good parenting’ is about children’s behaviour. Right from the start we’re encouraged to try and mould our children, so they are ‘well-behaved’. We’re told to use star charts, and praise, and to set firm boundaries. Tell them our

Those early years of parenthood are punctuated by calls. ‘Mummy!’ ‘Help!’, ‘Look!’ ‘Come here!’ ‘Quick!’. The same level of urgency for a strange looking beetle, a missing Lego piece or a brother pushed down the stairs. You are needed Now, Straight-Away and you’re already too

One of the life-long things we learn at school is how important school is. In fact, we start to learn this before we go to school, when we tell our three and four-year-olds that schools are where learning really starts, and that they’re too old now to play all day. Many of us

I just heard that my first book, Changing Our Minds, is 99p on Kindle for a limited time. It's about self-directed education, how it works and why it works. Please share if you know people who might appreciate it. amzn.eu/d/4e5c8Ip

Recently I’ve been making people angry online. Very angry. In fact just in the last couple of days I’ve been told that I’m harmful, ableist and ignorant. The message is clear from some people. Stop it. It’s tempting to do what they say and keep quiet. Their messages are