Episodes

Ask Rachel anything Every autumn, families start the university conversation with the same question: which one? Paul Sweeney thinks most of us skip the question that should come first: should my child go at all, and if so, why? Paul dropped out of an engineering degree he hated and ran away to a job in an airline’s lost baggage department. He later became chief strategy officer at Unite, the UK’s largest listed student accommodation provider, and now advises universities on strategy and AI. H...

Ask Rachel anything This Wonder Room starts with my own parenting fail, involving granola, a sarcastic reply about Cheerios and an argument I really should have walked away from. If you’ve ever been rage-baited by your teen, you’re not alone. I’m joined by Katharine Radice, teacher, author and mother of teenage boys, to take on the messy reality of living with teenagers. We cover: Why some teens seem to pick fights, and why a row can feel like a releaseA listener’s message about her 14-...

Ask Rachel anything What if the things we do to motivate our teenagers are doing the opposite? Most of us have done it. A tenner for a good exam result. An hour on the Xbox once the homework is done. A new phone if the grades come back right. It works, in the moment. But Dr Özgür Bolat thinks we are paying a much higher price than we realise. Özgür is an educational scientist with a master's from Harvard, a PhD from Cambridge and a visiting research post at MIT Sloan. He has advised Google, Y...

Ask Rachel anything When your child is 12 and struggling, people might rally round. When they’re 19 and stuck in their bedroom, it can feel lonelier, and often more shameful, than it should. This week in the Wonder Room, I’m joined again by teacher, author and mother of two Katharine Radice to unpick my conversation with family therapist Thomas Miller on young adults who fail to launch. We talk about why “get a good job” is a brittle value and “value hard work” is a durable one, and why that ...

Ask Rachel anything What can we do when our baby has technically reached adulthood, but they’re not working, they're drifting in and out of education, living at home with no obvious plan, or still relying on us for things we assumed they’d be managing by now? This week I’m joined by Thomas Miller, a family therapist who works with young adults and their parents on anxiety, addiction, neurodiversity and what’s often called “failure to launch.” You’ll hear: A simple test to tell the diffe...

Ask Rachel anything I've really needed a reminder of how emotional regulation works, and how to see the best in everyone, over the past three weeks. I think Dr Jody gave us the best talk on this and I loved her so much that it was a joy to have the chance to talk through her ideas with Katharine Radice. I don't know about you but it's one of my favourite topics because it comes up all of the time when we're parenting teenagers and I need regular reminders to be kind to myself just as much as ...

Ask Rachel anything This episode will change how you see “bad behaviour” and might just change how you see yourself, too. In this powerful conversation, with Dr Jody Carrington, we unpack what every parent and teacher needs to know about emotional regulation – and why you’re probably doing better than you think. It fits perfectly with the lessons I've been learning as the mother of a badly injured daughter who needs me to stay strong while she gets back on her feet. You can read all about it ...

Ask Rachel anything Who doesn't want a simple answer to their problems? In all honesty I often hope to find one, but it's not really feasible when parenting teenagers. I love talking with experts who give us terrific advice - such as Dr Naomi Fisher and Dr Dominique Thompson - but when it comes to the messy job of parenting it can feel way more complicated in day to day life than we would hope. In this conversation Katherine Radice and Rachel Richards discuss the messy realities; from s...

Ask Rachel anything Just over a week ago, my daughter was badly burned when her hot water bottle split along the seam. She needed specialist care at the Queen Victoria Hospital burns unit which became famous for Archibald McIndoe’s work treating badly burned WWII airmen. Instead of going back to university, she spent her 20th birthday recovering at home, unable to walk. In this community catch-up episode I’ll tell you what happened, what we learned about treating burns, and what I want ...

Ask Rachel anything What’s behind a teenager’s struggle to get to school—and how can parents help without turning every morning into a battle? In this episode, journalist and host Rachel Richards talks with clinical psychologist Dr. Naomi Fisher, author of The Teenagers’ Guide to Taking Control of Your Education, about school avoidance, burnout, demand avoidance, and the questions parents often have about autism and ADHD. Drawing on her own experience of struggling at school and decades of wo...

Ask Rachel anything Has your teenager come home upset because their friends have suddenly turned against them? Or have you heard that your child is part of a group chat where everyone is being urged to stop talking to someone? When a friendship conflict spreads through a whole group—and onto social media—it can be hard for parents to know what to say, when to step in, and how to help without making things worse. In this episode of Teenagers Untangled, I’m joined by Dr Dominique Thompson, a ph...

Ask Rachel anything It’s one thing hearing what experts think, but I’m always left wondering how their advice translates into the real life of a parent. If you’re wondering too then you’re going to love this chat between Katharine Radice and me. In it, we discuss what was said in my interviews with Dr Leonard Sax and Dr Tara Porter. Basically we cover the reality of setting healthy boundaries around gaming and phones, talking with teens about online risks, choosing supportive schools, m...

Ask Rachel anything If your son seems apathetic, glued to gaming, or strangely unbothered by school, you are not alone, and you are not imagining it. I decided to create this discussion because I have been contacted by so many parents about the lacklustre attitudes they are seeing in their sons, looking for advice on what to do. Around the world, boys are falling behind academically, drifting socially, and retreating into screens. Meanwhile, girls are outstripping boys at school and universit...

Ask Rachel anything Are you trying so hard to be a good parent that you might be doing too much for your tween or teen, and accidentally making life harder for both of you? In this episode of Parenting Teenagers Untangled, Rachel Richards talks with clinical psychologist and author Dr. Tara Porter about her new book "Good Enough" and why good enough parenting is actually the best kind of parenting. Drawing on more than 25 years working in adolescent mental health, Tara explains how so many te...

Ask Rachel anything We’re living through an age where it can feel like our teenagers’ entire lives are happening behind a screen we can’t see. Meanwhile mental health problems in teens are a rising problem that is being blamed on their devices. The instinctive response for many of us is to clamp down: ban certain apps, monitor every move, or take away devices altogether. But as Professor Candice Odgers put it so powerfully: “You can’t ban your way out of a mental health crisis. Yo...

Ask Rachel anything Are smartphones and social media really damaging our teenagers’ mental health – or are we looking in the wrong place? In this episode, Rachel Richards talks with Professor Candice Odgers, a leading expert on adolescent mental health in the digital age, to unpack what decades of research actually show about teens, tech and wellbeing. We explore why today’s teenagers are doing better than many headlines suggest, the real size of the link between phones, social media, anxiety...

Ask Rachel anything As a teenager, I grew up in a home with almost no routines. No one talked about what needed to happen when, and I remember constantly thinking, “What am I supposed to do now?” Life felt like reinventing the wheel every day. I didn’t feel safe, and I felt a lot of energy went into trying to cope in the chaos. Now, as a parent and host of Teenagers Untangled, I’ve come to see routines not as dreary box‑ticking exercises, but as powerful tools for connection, calm, and joy. I...

Ask Rachel anything If your teenage daughter says, “I have anxiety,” “my ADHD was out of control today,” or calls a friend “toxic,” it can feel both strangely sophisticated and oddly shallow at the same time. She has language. She has labels. But somehow, you’re still not sure what’s really going on inside her. In this episode with psychiatrist Dr Suzanne Garfinkel-Crowell, author of Girlhood Translated: Understanding Girls in the Age of Therapy Speak and Self-Diagnosis, we pulled back the cu...

Ask Rachel anything Thank you, thank you, thank you, Wirohugo for your incredible donation. You are so kind! Here’s the question posed by one of our community using the Ask Rachel Anything button: 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 d...

Ask Rachel anything They're the oldest in their primary and suddenly our babies have to cope with being the youngest in their senior school. It's a big leap, and it comes just at the point when our kids are becoming much more aware of themselves and others with a big dollop of puberty-driven insecurity. It's easy to worry about them making friends, coping with their newfound indepenence; complicated timetables, different classrooms, homework, buses and remembering their passwords. Here ...

Ask Rachel anything Welcome to the Wonder Room where Richards, and Katharine Radice, wonder about three huge areas in our teens’ lives right now: Exam results and school pressure – how to respond to GCSE grades in a way that protects motivation and self-worth, rather than letting national headlines define your child.Schools and teachers – why constant school-bashing can damage our teenagers’ relationship with education, and how to talk about school in a way that keeps teachers as allies, not ...

Ask Rachel anything So many parents come to me saying 'My teen has no friends. What should I do?' and I can't help wondering if we are missing one of the most important ways to help them. Being good at friendships ourselves. Think about it. If we're not good at making and maintaining friends ourselves, who will our babies learn their friendship skills from? In this episode of Teenagers Untangled, I’m joined by author, broadcaster, and founder of The Friendship Lab, Sheridan Voysey, to unpack ...

Ask Rachel anything In this episode of Teenagers Untangled, we’re talking about what happens when the children we’ve poured our hearts, time, and energy into finally leave home. If you’re facing the prospect of a child heading off to university or moving out—and feeling anything from pride and excitement to grief, anxiety, or a loss of identity—this episode is for you. First, I revisit a powerful conversation with mindfulness coach Susie Asli, where we unpack empty nest syndrome: why feelings...

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...