My mother’s favourite expression is ‘A mother’s place is in the wrong’

 It makes me smile and it is so easy to slip into guilt around motherhood and be tempted to fix things when they’ve gone wrong.

 I has certainly felt like that for me.

 I remember my daughter Scarlett left favourite dolls china tea set right in the middle of the playroom floor and went off in search of something else to do.

 A rule in our house was that if you’ve finished playing with something, it has to be put away before you play with something else. I’m not saying I always succeeded with this one but it was a clear rule.

 Shortly after she wandered off her brothers chased each other across the playroom and trod on the plates and cups.

 She was devastated and said  ‘It wasn’t my fault mummy. Now my tea set is broken and you need to get me a new one’

 Woah – doesn’t that press some...

For mental health awareness week, I met Heather Rutherford for an instagram live Q&A. Heather runs The Parenting Partnership and is an old friend and colleague.

Heather and I have 7 children between us and have raised our children using gentle parenting with firm boundaries. We were talking about the importance of nurturing our children’s mental health from a young age 

As I always say to parents I work with, we need to think about parenting as the long game and know that laying the foundations for strong mental health and a strong self-belief is the best investment you can make for their future.

So here are the most important things we can do to nurture our kids mental health.

1. Give them ways to help them become more independent – that could be by doing things for themselves like throwing a nappy in the bin, making their beds, pouring milk, making you a cup of tea – give them a safety briefing but after that don’t hover over them.
   
   
2. Give them the...

One of the questions I get asked the most frequently is 'Why won't my child just the simple things like brushing her teeth or getting in the bath?'

Do you have these frustrations?

As many of you know, when Nico my eldest was 2 ½ we got help with our parenting as he was such a challenging child. It was suggested that we have some clearer rules around the house.

I didn’t like the idea of having rules as it felt too much like school and I wanted him to feel ‘free’ at home and for us to have some 'spontaneity' and anyway, I thought he should just know what's expected.

After all, we asked the same thing of him every day 'get dressed, eat breakfast, stay in bed at bedtime...' so shouldn't he just do it?

What I realised through the coaching we got was that we had an expectation that he would do what we asked without a fuss, and when he didn’t we’d ask 5 times or more, each time getting more and more frustrated until we’d wind up...