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Education Episodes

Nov. 25, 2025

ADHD: Executive Function and What Parents Really Need to Know

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=family-adventures Struggling with homework battles, school stress, or understanding ADHD in your teen? In this episode I was joined by executive skills coach Sean Geraghty—author of “I’ll Do It Later”—to unpack the real challenges (and hidden strengths)…

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Oct. 21, 2025

Drugs: Half of 15 year olds have been exposed. How to talk with your kids about drugs now.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=family-adventures To lose a child is one of the worst things any of us an imagine. To lose him at 16 to a recreational drug is an unbearable pain. That's what happened to Fiona Spargo-Mabbs OBE, but she has turned her pain into an incredible quest …

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Sept. 30, 2025

Stop pushing your kids: The science of success, resilience, and reduced stress.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=family-adventures Is your kid stressed or lacking motivation? What if the antidote was pushing them less and giving them more of a sense of control over their lives? It doesn't mean giving up your authority as a parent. As elite teen coach, Ned Joh…

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May 13, 2025

Why school exam systems need to change and how to support our own kids now.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=family-adventures The intense, content-heavy exam system in the UK kicks off at this time of year with GCSEs and A levels; high-stakes exams that can feel like a make-or-break moment for teenagers. I've already discussed with Susie how we can suppo…

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April 29, 2025

Respect, artifical intelligence and toxic femininity - the teenage view.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=family-adventures When I asked listeners for their questions one stood out as a worthy of almost an entire episode: 'What does it take to respect people around you, especially your parents?' There's so much that could be said on this topi…

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April 22, 2025

Secondary school, friendship groups, and those awkward talks about porn and sexting.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=family-adventures In this episode my teens, Phoebe and Amelia, joined me in the studio to help answer some questions emailed in by listeners, and sent to me on social media. We kick off by chatting about exploring their identity and what they think i...…

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April 1, 2025

Inheritocracy: Are education and hard work less important now than parents?

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=family-adventures I grew up believing in a meritocracy; with hard work - and government funding of my university education - I eventually escaped a difficult home and poor schooling to succeed in journalism. But times have moved on, and the reality ...<…

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April 1, 2025

Adolescence: Help for parents with the core themes.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=family-adventures The mini-series, Adolescence, is a global hit, topping Netflix charts in 71 countries and amassing 24.3 million views in its first four days. It's sparked a global conversation about parenting, masculinity, and the impact of socia…

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Feb. 4, 2025

Life skills: How to supercharge them with a working holiday.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=family-adventures Sponsored by JENZA Positively life changing is how I would sum up the time I spent working abroad during my gap year. I met people with a completely different world view, different language, and learnt to navigate many challenges alone…

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Jan. 28, 2025

Using facts to be a good parent to teenagers: The evidence.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=family-adventures It's one thing to get advice on how to parent, it's another to have independent studies that give real evidence on how well one approach works rather than another. Faced with raising two young kids in a COVID lockdown, social…

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Jan. 14, 2025

How to motivate our teens to love learning and why parents are the missing piece of the puzzle.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=family-adventures We parents are deluding ourselves about how much our kids enjoy school, according to research for the book The Disengaged Teen. In survey responses 65% of parents thought their 10th grade kid loved school, whilst only 26% of 10th grade…

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Nov. 19, 2024

Friendships, frenemies and banter. What to expect and why.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=family-adventures Friendships, and fitting, in are everything to teenagers. You could argue that understanding the dynamics, and supporting our kids through the turmoil of the teen years, is one of the best things we parents can do. Former Headteac...

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Oct. 22, 2024

Motivation: How to motivate your teenager. With eminent Psychologist David Yeager.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=family-adventures When kids hit puberty they become driven by a core motivation that many of us adults don't fully appreciate. It's not simply fun, or sex; they're looking for experiences that give them social status and respect. Accordin…

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Sept. 17, 2024

How grades harm kids and what we parents can do about it.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=family-adventures Grades are used in education the world over, but why? With the growing mental health crisis in teenagers I've been exploring how experts are asking whether perhaps it's time we looked again at the role grades play in helping …

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Aug. 27, 2024

Grades. Our obsession with them fails everyone.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=family-adventures What is school for, and are exam grades a good measure of a human? Does someone's grades tell us what we should know, or are we being misled? Do grades help children grow and engage with learning, or do they simply destroy interes…

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Aug. 6, 2024

Boys who're failing exams them and seem apathetic.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=family-adventures In the West, we tend to see success for late teens as passing exams, getting into further education or getting a job, and moving on with life. So when we received an email from a mother, concerned for the welfare of her two step-sons w…

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July 2, 2024

Switching parental gears for their new school year.

Ask Rachel anything Explore Worldwide Holidays - Click here for an adventure your child will never forget: 👇🏻 https://www.explore.co.uk/experiences/family-holidays?utm_source=teenagers-untangled&amp;utm_medium=podcast&amp;utm_campaign=family-adventures The holidays are a great time to begin preparing our kids for the next year, but there's so much we could be doing it's hard to know where to start. I've turned to and someone who specialises in helping parents with twee…

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