When my eldest son Nico was 9 we made the decision to move him from his cosy primary school to an all boy’s school that we felt would suit him better academically.

He was the kind of child who sucked up information like a sponge.

He would inform us of the most amazing facts.

He poured over books

He stayed up late into the night aged 7 to read a book about the Rubik’s cube and figured it out by the morning.

‘Let’s move him to somewhere that will stretch him more academically’ we thought.

All done in the best intentions of course – as are all our parenting decisions like that.

Except it was a really bad idea. 

He was very cheerful, self-contained child, who hardly complained.

It turned out that the new school was a cold environment, he was subtly bullied and he didn’t make any friends there.

When he had more bouts of misbehaviour I started to connect it with what was going on at school, and I'm grateful that I had the tools to help him...