If you only teach your son one thing, let it be this.
Consent was the topic for one of the segments on Season Three of Parental Guidance, the hit TV show on Channel 9 that puts Australia’s…
Tag: Parenting Teenagers
Helping Our Kids Build a Healthy Body Image
Body image is a growing concern for many children—girls and boys alike—and it’s showing up earlier than ever. Research shows that a third of five-year-old…
When Online Harassment and Sexual Threats Enter Our Children’s Lives
In recent weeks my social media pages have been overflowing with stories about the alarming rise of sexual threats and harassment among school-aged children. The…
Dysregulated & Dangerous
Parenting defiant teens can be a challenging experience for families, often leaving parents feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and alone. As teens seek independence, behaviours like rebellion and…
Enough: Overcoming Anxiety, Perfectionism, & Self Loathing
The Growing Crisis of Anxiety and Perfectionism Comparison. Competition. The perpetual feeling that “I’m not enough”. Something is happening to many of our kids. It’s…
3 Things Parents Need to Know About Schoolies
Your Grade 12 school-leaver might be hassling you right now. Schoolies Week is coming up later this year. Bookings need to be made. Commitments need…
Understanding Teen Entitlement: How to Encourage Responsibility in Your Teen
Inside the Brain of Your Teenage Boy Teen entitlement can be a significant challenge for parents. Kate, a mother of a capable 16-year-old boy, reached…
Helping Your Child Navigate Friendship Challenges
Being on the Outer Friendships during adolescence can be challenging, especially when your child feels left out within a social group. In this article, I…
Capping: How the Bad Guys Get to Your Kids Online
Online predators use increasingly deceptive tactics to reach children. One alarming trend is “capping,” a form of predation where kids are tricked into sharing explicit…
Understanding Children’s Perceptions of Fairness
“It’s not fair!” Navigating a child’s sense of fairness can be a challenging aspect of parenting. Children have a keen awareness of what their peers…
I Missed Out on Seeing Taylor Swift
Coping disappointment is hard, especially for teens. Here’s how to help your child through tough moments with empathy and understanding. My week has been a…
Parenting Teens When Life Sucks For Them
One of the hardest things about raising teens is that we know what the answers are. We know that if they just change their “stinking…
Five Things Your Tween Wants You To Know
Written by Michelle Mitchell 567 tweens participated in my 2020 anonymous survey, and chose to answer the optional question, what is one thing you wished…
Helping Your Teen Through Their First Big Breakup
Teen heartbreak, especially a first big breakup, can be incredibly intense for teenagers, and as parents, supporting them through this painful process can feel just…
The Teenage Brain
Today it is common knowledge that teenage brains are neurologically immature. Essentially everyone recognises and accepts that the teen brain is “under construction”, “lacks brakes”,…
Why Advice About Alcohol Falls on Deaf Teen Ears (and What You Can Do About It)
In late 2019, shortly before COVID-19 began to do its damage, I was in a coastal NSW high school talking to students in Grades 9…