For Parents & Carers
Most parents who find their way here are somewhere in the middle of something. A new diagnosis, a school that's not coping, a child who seems to be struggling in ways that are hard to name. (Some of you have been in the middle of it for a while.) We've put these sheets together to give you something useful to read when the questions start stacking up. Not everything will land, but something might.
Homework Without the War
If homework is the worst thirty minutes of your day, you are not alone. It is often the moment when school demands, family time, tired bodies, and parental anxiety all collide at the same dining table.
Homework can be done without a daily battle. The key is usually keeping it small, predictable, and as free as possible from the leftover stress of the school day.
Mealtime Battles
Few household battles run as deep, or escalate as quickly, as the dinner table. The encouraging news is that most mealtime difficulties respond better to taking the temperature down than to turning the pressure up.
Some children are cautious eaters by temperament. Others have sensory profiles that make certain foods genuinely difficult to tolerate. A smaller group are working through something bigger. Working out which of these you are dealing with is often the most useful first step.
Surviving the After-School Slump
If your child is described as ‘lovely’ and ‘so well-behaved’ by their teacher, and you are picking them up off the kitchen floor by 3:45pm, you are not imagining it. This pattern is common enough to have its own name: after-school restraint collapse.
Sleep, Screens and Morning Routines: Changes That Can Make Family Life Easier
Sleep, screens, and mornings are closely connected. When one of these areas becomes difficult, the others often become harder too. When they are working reasonably well together, many daily challenges become easier to manage.
This is not about creating the perfect routine. It is about making small changes that help your child start and finish the day feeling more rested, regulated, and ready to cope.