Ask Rachel anything Parenting tweens and teens is challenging enough, but when someone in the family becomes seriously ill or dies, it can feel overwhelmingly difficult. In all honesty, we Westerners are terrible at talking about death, often avoiding it, so when it comes to talking with teenagers about the subject most of us don't feel equipped. Many who have suffered a loss, or are suffering a serious illness will tell you that friends often fall away just at the time when they are mo…
Click here for my blog and summary of the key skills:
https://teenagersuntangled.substack.com/p/the-antidote-to-a-world-of-algorithms
Our teenagers are growing up in a world saturated with information, outrage, and algorithms designed to keep them scrolling. As parents, it can feel overwhelming: How do we help our kids navigate AI, social media, fake news, and online manipulation—without either over-controlling them or throwing up our hands? In this episode, I talk to Dr Maree Dav…
Ask Rachel anything “My husband is highly critical of the teenagers, gets angry over little things and yells, so I’m having to make up for his behavior, and I often avoid involving him in parenting decisions." This message came into my Substack. It was a plaintiff request for support and a plea to know how others deal with the problem. When I posted it (with her permission), a flood of parents said, “This is my life too.” If you're dealing with high conflict in your home, whether w…
Ask Rachel anything “Is my son secretly being taught to hate women?” If you’ve ever heard your boy casually repeat a line from Andrew Tate… seen him disappear into his room with his phone… or wondered what on earth he’s absorbing on TikTok and YouTube, this episode is for you. The manosphere is grooming boys to believe women are the enemy—and most parents don’t even realise it’s happening. In this conversation, I’m joined by teacher and author of Unmasking the Manosphere, Matt Pin...
Ask Rachel anything It's exam season and so important to keep a steady ship with all of the stress in the house. I thought it would be a great time to interrupt my youngest, Amelia, for an honest chat about what she sees as both good and bad strategies for supporting teenagers through exams, and homework; particularly those with dyslexia and ADHD. We wanted to give parents hope, an honest insight into how bumpy the road can become, and how long it can take to figure out what the b...
Ask Rachel anything When taking phones at night turns into a power struggle One of the hardest things about parenting teenagers is that the battles that matter most often happen at exactly the moment we have the least capacity to deal with them. A mum wrote to me about the nightly struggle over handing in her 13-year-old daughter’s phone. She’s exhausted by bedtime. Her daughter pushes back, calls her dad, and suddenly what should be a simple boundary becomes a negotiation, then a row. We’ve…
Ask Rachel anything So many parents of teens quietly worry that they’re “failing” — not doing enough, not staying calm enough, not getting the outcomes they hoped for. This episode is an invitation to step off that perfectionist treadmill. Instead of parenting for perfect grades, perfect behavior, or perfect choices, we explore how to parent for connection: building daily rituals of togetherness, modeling honest self-care, and using compassionate self-talk so your teen can develop a kin...
Ask Rachel anything When parenting teens through their first experience of love and attraction it can bring up a lot of feelings we thought we'd neatly packed away; the intensity of that first crush, the humiliation of not being chosen, the heartbreak that felt like it would swallow us whole. As a parent trying to support our kids through it can be tricky because our teens’ first love stories can collide with our own unfinished ones. In this episode of Teenagers Untangled, I’m joined by…
Ask Rachel anything A listener parenting a teen son wrote to say both of them felt pretty stunned when he was rejected from the university he'd set his heart on. She asked for the best way to help our teenagers cope with this sort of disappointment. I thought it was a great question and a good opportunity to also look at how we parents can best navigate when our teen has worked for years toward a dream - a top university place, exam results, a team, a part - and it doesn’t happen. The d…
Ask Rachel anything Knowing your values helps in parenting tweens and teens because our communication with our teenagers is based on a solid foundation. If we know why we think something matters we have clearer discussions about their behaviour and why we emphasise certain things. We're also less fragile when our teens push back and want to challenge our ideas. Often they have the same values but are coming at them from a different angle. Knowing our values helps us to find compro...
Ask Rachel anything Parenting teen boys wrote three years ago asking us to discuss how we can talk to boys about influential online figures like Andrew Tate. The 'bros' act both as an inspiration to achieve great things, and a lightning rod for disgruntled men who blame feminism for their ills and cheer on his particular form of aggressive misogyny. Now that Louis Theroux has shone a light on the Manosphere in his latest Netflix documentary I thought it important to dust off this o…
Ask Rachel anything Listen to past Big Hug Cafe Community Catch-Ups: https://teenagersuntangled.substack.com Send me your questions: teenagersuntangled@gmail.com Support the show Please hit the follow button if you like the podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message. Please don't hesitate to seek the advice of a specialis...<…
Ask Rachel anything If you’ve ever lain awake at night wondering whether you’re getting this parenting thing horribly wrong, you need to hear this conversation with surgeon and author Gabriel Weston. Gabriel is a mother of four – including tween twins – a prize‑winning writer and a working surgeon. She talks with disarming honesty about: How she parents without pretending to be endlessly patient or perfectWhy it’s okay to have limits to how much joy you get from parentingThe very real ways s…
Ask Rachel anything Thank you, thank you, thank you, Wirohugo for your incredible donation. You are so kind! My fifteen year old boy seems to show no curiousity about the world. Does not know countries, capitals, does not read (except when incentived). Today, he didn't recognise the neighbouring village which we drive through many times. He is middling at school but good at some subjects. So, not a dunce! Is it digital distraction? Is it common? I searched your shows and could not find …
Ask Rachel anything There's been a dramatic increase in reports of grooming, sextortion and AI generated child sexual abuse material in recent years, and most parents believe politicans and technology companies aren't doing enough to protect kids. The UK government recently announced that makers of AI chatbots that put children at risk will face massive fines or even see their services blocked in the UK under law changes. And the French offices of Elon Musk's X were recently r…
Ask Rachel anything My kids went through a series of friendship bust-ups when they were young teens; it's inevitable. It's an amazing time of learning about themselves, discovering where their values lie, and learning that everyone makes mistakes. My kids have told me that one of the best things I've done is to show them my own mistakes, and apologise wholeheartedly when I do mess up. They say it's made them feel much better about their struggles because it's allowed…
Ask Rachel anything Beneath all of the noise when it comes to parenting teens comes mattering; the deep human need to feel valued beyond achievements. It's something we all need, but are we getting it? The new book by Jennifer Breheney-Wallace focuses on "Mattering," discussing how societal pressures, particularly on teenagers, exacerbate this need. She emphasizes the importance of adults feeling valued at work to better support their children. Wallace suggests practical strat…
Ask Rachel anything Camilla asked if I could do a short recap of the things we’ve talked about on the podcast that will help us help our kids most. So here it is! Now, tell me what you want for next week. Click this link for a list of the top tips: https://open.substack.com/pub/teenagersuntangled/p/helping-our-kids-with-their-exam?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web Support the show Please hit the follow button if you like the podcast, and share it with anyone who might .…
Ask Rachel anything When Brooklyn Beckham publicly announced he didn't want to reconcile with his parents he was joining a painful catalogue of family stories that have gone wrong. Estrangement is reportedly on the rise in Western societies but what's behind it? Dr Joshua Coleman spends his life working with estranged parents so he sees, first hand, the main factors that can lead to it. He highlights that while emotional abuse is often cited as a cause, it's often a matter of …
Ask Rachel anything For all of the tips click here: https://teenagersuntangled.substack.com/p/how-to-talk-to-your-teen-about-body https://open.substack.com/pub/teenagersuntangled/p/how-to-get-your-kids-to-do-their?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer A healthy body image: Feeling happy and satisfied with your body and what it can do. An unhealthy body image: Highly self-critical, comparing their body to others and obsessing about some aspect of it. Beauty ...
Ask Rachel anything For the full explanation click this link to my Substack: https://substack.com/@teenagersuntangled/note/p-187427201?r=2u24i0&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web Old episodes on manners: https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/empty-nest-how-to-cope-when-your-teen-moves-out-also-manners-what-are-they-and-what-should-we-te/ https://www.teenagersuntangled.com/manners-parenting-to-help-teens-succeed-in-life-by-teaching-the-importance-of-good-manners/ Suppor…
Ask Rachel anything 'Early adolescence is a friendship meat grinder, and your kid will eventually find their people,' according to Megan Saxelby of Wild Feelings. But oh boy it's tough! Megan wants parents to know that using words like “dramatic” to describe genuine social pain can accidentally give us permission to dismiss their emotional reality and teach our kids that their experiences doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously. In today’s episode we explore why it hurts so much…
Ask Rachel anything We want our kids to do as well as possible, so when they mess up, do dumb things, or seem to be failing, it's easy to focus on their mistakes and what they should do instead. Naomi Glover, a leading applied neuroscientist and brain health specialist, says we'd get the best out of our kids by doing the opposite; focusing on their strengths. Coming from a neurodivergent family, she truly understands the challenges faced by ADHD, dyslexia, and other neurotypes and.…
Ask Rachel anything While counseling sex offenders, Anna Sonoda, LCSW learned firsthand that grooming, the prelude to child sexual abuse, is intentional, gradual, and observable. Her message to us is, we're not bad parents, we just have a skills gap and she wants to fill it. I grew up in an era of stranger danger, but the truth is the vast majority of abuse happens inside our homes, online and offline, with people our kids know. So how can we spot the signs that a predator is moving in …
