Emotions
Toddler Aggression: Biting, Hitting, and What It Means Developmentally
Few toddler behaviours cause more parental distress than biting or hitting — partly because of the harm caused to others, partly because of the embarr...
3 min read
Emotions
Understanding and managing your child's emotional world.
Emotions
Talking to Teenagers About Mental Health
The statistics on adolescent mental health in the UK are sobering. 1 in 5 young people aged 8-25 had a probable mental health disorder in 2023, compar...
5 min read
Emotions
Social Media and Children's Mental Health: What the Evidence Shows
Social media and adolescent mental health has become one of the most contested empirical questions of the decade. The public narrative -- that smartph...
5 min read
Emotions
Shy Children: Understanding Temperament and Supporting Social Confidence
The child who clings at the nursery gate, who hides behind a parent's legs when a friendly adult says hello, who refuses to join in activities that ot...
5 min read
Emotions
Teaching Toddlers to Share: What Works, What Doesn't, and What Is Developmentally Realistic
The request to "share that toy" from a parent or early years educator, followed by a toddler's emphatic refusal and sometimes a meltdown, is one of th...
4 min read
Emotions
Separation Anxiety in Babies and Toddlers: What It Is and What Helps
The moment a baby who was happy in anyone's arms suddenly screams when passed to another person, or when their parent leaves the room — often arriving...
4 min read
Emotions
Self-Regulation in Early Childhood: How It Develops and How to Support It
Self-regulation is one of those terms that has moved from academic psychology into parenting discussions with a speed that has not always been matched...
5 min read
Emotions
School Refusal: When Anxiety Makes the School Run a Battle
School refusal sits in uncomfortable territory between health and education, and families often spend weeks or months being passed between GP, school,...
5 min read
Emotions
Building Resilience in Young Children: What It Is and How It Develops
Resilience is one of the most discussed and least well-understood concepts in contemporary parenting. It appears in school prospectuses, parenting boo...
5 min read
Emotions
Building Resilience: How Children Develop Positive Self-Talk
Children's inner voices form largely unseen by parents. The child who, after making a mistake, says to themselves "I'm so stupid, I always get things...
5 min read
Emotions
Peer Pressure: How to Help Children Navigate It
Conversations about peer pressure tend to focus on resistance: teaching children to say no, to walk away, to choose better friends. This isn't wrong,...
5 min read
Emotions
Peer Conflict in Toddlers: Why Children Fight Over Toys and What Adults Should Do
Two toddlers and one attractive toy is a reliably predictable situation: one will take the toy, the other will object, escalation will follow. Adults...
4 min read
Emotions
Why Children Lie: Development, Intent, and When to Be Concerned
A 3-year-old with chocolate around their mouth confidently denies eating the biscuit. It is one of the most predictable moments in early parenting — a...
5 min read
Emotions
Grief and Loss in Young Children: How to Support Them Through Bereavement
When a family experiences bereavement — a grandparent, parent, sibling, or pet dies — the question of how to explain death to young children and how t...
4 min read
Emotions
Exam Stress in Teenagers: Understanding It and Supporting Them Through It
The run-up to GCSEs or A-levels produces some of the most concentrated stress that many teenagers will experience, and parents often feel unsure wheth...
6 min read
Emotions
How Empathy Develops in Young Children
Empathy is often discussed as though it either exists or it doesn't — a fixed trait that some children are born with and others aren't. The developmen...
6 min read
Emotions
Eating Disorders in Young People: Early Signs and How to Help
Eating disorders rarely arrive with an announcement. The changes are usually slow enough that parents notice something is wrong before they can put a...
6 min read
Emotions
Teaching Children to Win and Lose: Why Sportsmanship Starts at the Kitchen Table
You're playing snakes and ladders with a four-year-old. Things are going their way until they slide down the long snake on square 87. Suddenly the rul...
8 min read
Emotions
Fears and Worries in Toddlers and Young Children
A toddler suddenly afraid of the bath drain. A four-year-old who needs the door open and the landing light on. A baby who screams at every uncle who c...
8 min read
Emotions
Depression in Children: Recognising It in Under-12s
The depressed child often does not look depressed. They look angry. They have stomach aches every Sunday night. They have stopped doing the things the...
9 min read