No matter how therapeutically we parent, there are times when the word ‘no’ has to be said. ‘No’ can be about ‘no, that’s not safe’, or ‘no because that infringes…
Something has changed in our family and it feels significant. Our eldest child who has for so long driven life here, is growing up. He has needed a lot from…
Money is disappearing, food is disappearing, rudeness is rife, phones and tablets disappear at bedtime, school trousers come home plastered in mud and torn, the toilet isn’t flushed, the soap…
Playing the Long Game Getting out of the house and experiencing the world safely is not straight-forward for families with children who have felt the keen wind of danger on…
For Mr D and me the journey from blind hopefulness to realistic acceptance has been littered with shocks, some of them earth-shattering, and we’re still not through the woods yet. …
Our house was falling apart, Shakin’ Stevens style; missing roof tiles, rotting windows, flaky paint and general shabbiness (not the chic type) have been taking hold whilst our attention and…
If your children are anything like mine, they struggle to piece together past present and future. Time is an amorphous mass, like a jelly. Clocks are a bit of a…
Self care is not only about cutting one’s nails regularly, or getting a haircut now and again, or cleaning one’s teeth twice a day. When we’re knee deep in therapeutic…
‘Tomorrow is a brand new day’ is a frequently used phrase in our family. It speaks of fresh starts and clean slates and new leaves turned over. It’s used at…
Some years ago I concluded that homework was much less important than bonding and attachment, and as homework was increasingly stamping all over bonding and attachment, it had to go. …
There was I spraying Febreze on to a mattress after having stuffed a single duvet into a washing machine drum a little smaller than the size of a single duvet. …
‘I want an iphone’ he declares for perhaps the seventeenth, eighteenth, twentieth time that day. ‘Shut. Up. About. The. Bloody. Iphone’ I say in my head. ‘Help me to understand…
And Chee-Chee very proudly took the animal inside and showed him to the Doctor. “What in the world is it?” asked John Dolittle, gazing at the strange creature. “Lord save…
‘Dinner’s ready’ I call. ‘Dinner’s ready!’ Then a few minutes later ‘DINNER’S READY’ to the sound of no one finishing what they’re doing and coming to the kitchen. I am…
I used to work with someone who I’ll call Bob. Bob had a problem. Bob could not stop talking. He would stalk the office like a hungry lion looking for…
Is it fair to your children, to parent them with different styles to suit their individual needs? And if you do, what will the repercussions of this be to their…
It is difficult to imagine a more perfect instrument of torture for the average adoptive family than The Advent Calendar. Particularly a family that contains siblings, one of whom is…
‘Mummy I love you.’ Is there anything more delicious than overhearing a child say ‘mummy, I love you’? It melts hearts, it unites bystanders in exchanged glances of ‘ahhhh, how…
Exit Through the Gift Shop ‘Mum. Mum. Mum. MUM. MUM. MUUUUUUM!’ a voice shouts across the display of botanical tea towels. Heads turn. Lips purse. ‘CAN I GET THESE I’VE…
This time last year our family came shockingly close to a breakdown. Jamie, our adopted son was lurching at the cliff-edge of adolescence, he was finding school very difficult and…
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