Growing up: Celebrating ‘Height Day’ at Thorpe Park
Why reaching the magical 1.4 metres in height is a rite of passage for kids at theme parks.
Essential Tips for Starting Secondary School
Invaluable advice for your child, from those who’ve been there
Parenting Teens: Why I’m letting my 13 year old watch #LoveIsland
How to use the reality show as a parenting tool…
Mental Health and Suicide: Q&A with Jonny Benjamin
Suicide. The biggest killer of middle aged men, and of new mums. And now suicide amongst teenagers is at its highest rate in 14 years, with more than 4 young people per week taking their own lives. The problem is even worse amongst young women in their early twenties, and it’s estimated that most of the mental health issues leading to self harm have begun before the age of 14. One of the common themes I see discussed by mental health campaigners is that we just don’t talk enough about mental health, self-harm and suicide enough, that people feel isolated, …
Self Image and Body Confidence in Teenagers
*Updated: Missguided have now taken the item off sale and it no longer features on their website. Let’s hope it stays that way. Thanks to everyone who contacted them about this, and for all the support on Instagram. Body Confidence and Self Image. It’s a big theme right now, especially for mums – women whose bodies show the signs of what they have produced and nurtured. (Watch this video from my friend for a hilarious take on a serious message). And I’m wholeheartedly behind that. But what concerns me most at the moment is the message our teens are getting; …
Life: How Today’s Teenagers will Change the World (paid partnership with NCS)
How today’s teenagers will change the world for the better with NCS The radio is always on when I get in the car with my kids. And right now, I can’t seem to do a car journey without hearing about yet another stabbing of a young person in London. The kids get worried. Of course they do – they’re at an age where they’re getting some independence, going off into town, or to the park with their friends, and for all their confidence, they’re aware of risk. And that’s a good thing. But it’s not really enough, is it? …
Motherhood: Getting Kids Outdoors Over the Holidays
It’s the Easter holidays. Vast quantities of chocolate have been eaten. A lot of time has been spent on the sofa – a LOT! The children have seen more of their various screens than they have of their family, and it’s starting to show. That’s when – whatever the weather says – it’s time in my book to get outdoors. I know it really hasn’t been the best climate to frolic in the long grass – when is it ever in the UK?! – but there are ways, and with a puppy arriving here tomorrow (I KNOW!!!!) my kids …
Parenting: What Defines a Mother?
I don’t have any photos of my boy on the walls of my house. There are 32 of my firstborn, as I’m frequently reminded by my son, who is a second child. I’ve been meaning to do it for 10 years – I’ve just been too busy. Being a mother. It’s not that I don’t feel guilty – believe me, I do. There just always seems to be something more urgent to take care of. I even bought a frame, just like the one I did for my daughter, but it’s gathering dust under my bed, where it’s been since …
Laugh: Leaving your kids at home with your partner
Last weekend I went away, leaving my children to be looked after by their father. When I say I went away, I mean properly, out of contact, of no use at all, don’t even bother to call me, I won’t answer away. I was on a press trip in Lanzarote – yes, I actually left the country, so whatever happened, my family were totally, and utterly on their own, for the first time in forever. It should be doable, right? Except, once you’re a mum, it’s really hard to let go. The first time my friend Kathleen went away and left …
Why I Used a Sleep Positioner for my Baby
The news today tells me that baby sleep positioners have been declared unsafe by the FDA, and have consequently been withdrawn from sale by most trusted retailers, John Lewis being one. It’s no longer relevant to me, as a mother of two older children, but I’m going to tell you why I think it’s not a simple decision to make for so many parents. My baby was three weeks old when she nearly died. She was asleep in her rocker, one of those which lie flat – we’d taken all the advice about keeping a newborn safe, to the …
Diabetes Anniversary: Not Drowning But Waving
A diabetes anniversary is always a time for reflection. If you’d asked me three years ago how I felt about diabetes, I would probably would have burst into tears before I’d managed to utter more than a sentence. But here’s why I’m glad, 3 years on, for the lessons it has taught us…
Thorpe Park – the Right Age for Kids to do a Theme Park alone?
Hold old should kids be before you let them go to Thorpe Park on their own?
The Bug: now you are 10
I don’t often do these posts. Marking an age never seems to be any more poignant than the other things I want to write about our lives, and I’d rather write when the mood takes me. But this week the mood does take me, and I can’t let your birthday pass without comment. Because you’re amazing. You know that, right? Do I tell you enough? I try to, because although I laugh about it, it bothers me that you know that there are 32 photos of your sister, and only 23 of you. It’s that classic parent thing of being …
Why teenagers need you more, not less as they grow up
When you’re in the thick of looking after your young child, and someone tells you teenagers need you more than toddlers, you laugh. But here’s why it’s true…
What’s all the Fuss about 13 Reasons Why?
Everyone is talking about 13 Reasons Why. Have you seen it? Have you deliberately avoided it, not wanting to go to that place where your child is 17 and no longer tells you anything? Has your 12 year old seen it? Did you ban her from watching it? 13 Reasons Why – the take-home message for parents If you don’t know what I’m talking about here, chances are you don’t have a child somewhere between the ages of 11 and 18. 13 Reasons is the Netflix drama about a girl who commits suicide, and the 13 tapes she records to …
Surviving Secondary School For Mums
Tips for parents on getting through their child’s first term at secondary school.
#TeenTalk: How to Talk Puberty with your Child
My best friend once confided in me that she’d recently asked her mum to get her some sanitary pads while she was at the supermarket. “The ones with wings please Mum.” she’d requested. Her mum was aghast. “They have wings??!” We collapsed in giggles at the thought of what was going through her poor mother’s mind at the thought of a flying period aid, and reminisced at buried memories of finding strange elastic belts and loops in our parent’s bathroom cabinets, next to the castor oil, and something called setting lotion. Though we laughed, it made us realise just how far women’s …
Creating Confident Women through Football
Fancy one of those goosebump moments? You know, those posts you read that make your eyes leak, in a good way; or the films you watch that make you feel full of hope, excited for your children’s future. This is one of those. Watch this short video, then read on to find out why I’m sharing it: How playing football creates confident girls My daughter doesn’t play football. She used to, in primary school, when it was the only girls’ club that was really cool. And it was so cool. Those girls got together in all kinds of weather. I’ve …