Episodes

Ask Rachel anything What we see on TikTok often starts on message boards in fringe groups then spills over into the mainstream. This is true of the Looksmaxxing social media trend that's been gaining more and more currency among teen boys. The goal of looksmaxxing is to meet a set of criteria for physical attractiveness, with a focus on the eyes, jawline, and physique and the ultimate currency is SMV, or Sexual Market Value. There are some really positive elements to the trend, but its or...

Ask Rachel anything Boundaries exist, regardless of whether we're conscious of them or not. The first place we experience them is in our own home, and the way they are created, managed and enforced can set us up for a lifetime of healthy relationships, or difficulty coping with other humans. In this episode Susie and I discuss what a boundary is, how we uncover our own boundaries and create and uphold healthy ones within our own families. It's a fascinating area for us parents who were ra...

Ask Rachel anything 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. According to David Yeager, author of 10-25: The Science of How to Motivate Young People, a societal belief that teens and young adults are lazy and incompetent causes us to misunderstand the power of this motivator. When parents, teachers and employers get it wro...

Ask Rachel anything Over the last decade, parents have been consistently more likely to report experiencing high levels of stress compared to other adults, according to a report issued by the US Surgeon General, Dr Vivek Murthy. According to the advisory, 'When stress is severe or prolonged, it can have a harmful effect on the mental health of parents and caregivers, which in turn also affects the well- being of the children they raise. Children of parents with mental health conditions...

Ask Rachel anything How to parent kids who struggle with ADHD, anxiety and life Nobody wants their child to struggle, but it's inevitable at some point. Many of the problems our kids face will be part of a well-worn path through the teenage years. But some kids have more complex needs. Parenting them can be far more challenging, and require a far great draw on our own resources, which is why I've been looking out for advice that will help those of us who find ourselves in that situation. Ha...

Ask Rachel anything A recent Tweet focused my mind on something I've only really glimpsed with a side-eye. We hear so much about the challenges of the early teen years that it's easy to forget young adults have their own issues. As the Tweeter said, when our kids are 18-22 they're dealing with adult emotions, disappointing experiences and us parents have zero control; making it terrible to witness. The response to the remark was a variety of parents agreeing entirely, or begging for better ...

Ask Rachel anything When an anonymous listener posted this question we thought it would be a great topic to discuss; one that many of our listeners could be wondering about. The listener said, Hello, I absolutely love your podcast. And here’s the question. Do you think all teens should go to therapy, just so they have a space to talk that isn’t a parent, family member or friend. I’ve been pondering this lately and trying to equip my kids with all the tools I feel they will need in life...

Ask Rachel anything 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 or hindering the learning of our children. In my interview with Josh Eyler, author of Failing Our Future: How Grades Harm Students, and What We Can Do about It we discuss the negative impact of grades on students. Eyler argues that the focus on grade...

Ask Rachel anything As your child turns from a tween to a teen it's obvious to everyone that their body and mind are undergoing massive changes. It's destablising for our kids and can be very uncomfortable for us parents watching as the changes take place. Some of our discomfort can come from our own fears about how to guide them through the changes and what sort of person will come out the other side of the transformation. Some of it will be down to our own memories of the prob...

Ask Rachel anything Music festivals are a rite of passage for many teens. Whilst some love the music, the lack of restriction and opportunities to mingle in a way that they could have only dreamt of during Covid, others decide to give them a miss or go and positively hate the experience. I was never a festival kid growing up. I didn't have the money, or the opportunity. As an adult, I've found them to be joyous events, but will always refuse to stay the night. My girls have now ...

Ask Rachel anything 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 interest and entrench social divisions? These are the sort of questions that perplex many of us who are parenting teenagers. It’s coming to the end of summer in the UK which means there’s been a wave of exam results and the beautifully timed release of ...

Ask Rachel anything Whether your teen is currently learning to drive, or those days are in the future, it helps to prepare ahead. Both Rachel and Susie have teens learning, so it's a great time for Rachel to go through all of the tips and data to help us all think ahead about what is involved and how to make their life behind the wheel as safe and smooth as possible. The free RISK ANTICIPATION driving course: https://www.teendrive365inschool.com/safe-driving-resources/teens NEW DRIVER AGR...

Ask Rachel anything It doesn't matter how much we know, and how much we work at it, we'll all struggle to parent well at times; it's just part of being human. To mark the 100th episode of the podcast I decided to give you a top ten of the best lessons I've learned, and continue to mess up. In case you can't be bothered to listen, you're bored by me waffling, or you just want the list, here goes: Connection over correction.It's not personal, and it's not about you.Kick the bullies out of you...

Ask Rachel anything 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 who've performed poorly in their final high school exams, and who don't seem to be interested in finding work, we thought it would be a really interesting topic to unpack. Her step-sons aren't alone. There is growing concern about the ...

Ask Rachel anything Extreme misogyny, and the resulting violence against women and girls, has recently been described in the UK as a national emergency. According to the National Police Chiefs Council, online influencers like Andrew Tate are radicalising boys in and a way that is 'quite terrifying'. Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth said officers who focused on violence against women and girls are now working with counter-terrorism teams to look at the risk of young men being r...

Ask Rachel anything We'd all love our kids to have self-belief, and the confidence to make friends easily. The problem is that it's not something we can simply give to them. Seeing our teen struggle in social settings, or suffer with crippling shyness, can be really challenging for us; particularly if it's a feeling we experienced as a teen and seeing our kid go through it brings our own discomfort flooding back. Today's episode is designed to help our listener whose daughter's...

Ask Rachel anything When a lone mother came onto our Facebook group to look for support with her teenage son who's done very little with his summer holiday other than sleep in late I thought it was a great time to revisit this topic, and talk about the severe level of sleep deprivation our society deems acceptable, and how important sleep is for teens. They're not lazy; there are some important developmental things happening when they sleep. That said, there are also some concrete thin...

Ask Rachel anything Living with a teenager can make us feel queezy at times because we keep losing our bearings. They're changing rapidly, and bringing new challenges into our home, while we're just trying to do our best. For many, the start of a romantic relationship can feel particularly difficult. You're not just negotiating new territory, but having to do it with another person in the equation. One listener has contacted me to for support over her teen daughter snuggling with her n...

Ask Rachel anything 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 tweens to give us some great, actionable tips. JoAnn Schauf, who founded Your Tween and You, and is the author of Loving the Alien: How to Parent Your Tween, emphasizes the importance of focusing on fostering autonomy and confidence in children. In this episod...

Ask Rachel anything If you're a bit confused about how much you should be wading in on your young adolescent's screen time then you're not alone. The truth is, there's been very little clear data to prove what we should and shouldn't be doing. Jonathan Haidt's book Anxiety Generation has turned the dial up on the whole subject and he's pushing hard for a ban on social media for younger teens because of the impact he says it has on them. Meanwhile, Natasha Devon is more keen on getting us pare...

Ask Rachel anything The amount of holiday teens get varies enormously around the world. For some, it's a much needed break from routine, for others it's a real chance to flip the script of their life and focus their attention on things that aren't part of the rigid educational agenda. In this episode we talk about ways in which we can help our teens use their summer to grow in ways that genuinely interest them. Lots of skills get little time for development whilst they're at school, so it's...

Ask Rachel anything It's incredibly frustrating to parent a teen who seems smart but is constantly late, can't set effective goals, can't keep going after their initial burst of enthusiasm, who's messy, doesn't start projects on time, or can't seem to control their impulses. Are they being lazy or is it that they lack a key skill which is holding them back? The latest book I read makes it clear that problems with any of these tasks isn't necessarily lack of interest or laziness, but ca...

Ask Rachel anything Hermes was a Greek god able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine, helped by his winged sandals. We mere mortals, on the other hand, are stuck here on Earth, and more likely to associate the word, Hermes with expensive handbags. When a listener wrote a beautiful email talking about her struggles with a young daughter who has been begging for one of these extremely expensive Hermes bags for her birthday I thought it would be a great to...

Ask Rachel anything I scan the newspapers daily to keep an eye on what's going on that might be relevant to us parents. I usually share it on my Instagram and Facebook feeds, but it's also good to sit down with another, equally interested but unpolitical, parent, to simply chat about the state of the world that our kids are growing up in. None of it is scientific, or based on deep fact, but sometimes it's nice to chew the cud and hear other parents talking freely about the issues that ...