Going Back to School After Covid-19 Lockdown needs handling sensitively and mindfully. These tips will help your child return to school stress free. Both my ‘almost grown-up’ children are preparing to go back to university after an extended spell of living back at home with me during the Coronavirus induced…

“Letting your children enter the big wide world should be about them and their welfare. It should not be about you!” — Keep Your Children Close by Letting Go When my children left home to go to university I suffered excesses of empty nest syndrome. Whilst I knew that my girls needed the freedom and space to be themselves, make mistakes and live their own lives, I struggled to allow it. At the time it felt like I was…

“If we teach our children to be nice are we putting them at a disadvantage in life?” I was having a chat with one of my much younger friends the other day and asked her how her four year old daughter, Jodie was getting on. She explained to me, with tears in her eyes, how Jodie was contented and outgoing at home, but when at playgroup, or…

It is hard to pin-point the exact moment that the dynamic between my father and I changed so that I became, in part, responsible for him rather than visa-versa. …

These five simple rules about running a meeting, will go a long way towards guaranteeing a productive outcome and a happy team. — My daughter has spent this summer completing an online internship for an environmental company. She seems to have quite a lot of responsibility for an undergraduate and quite frequently banishes us to a different part of the house whilst she runs and attends meetings. It makes me smile to hear…

As an ex-teacher, I know from school university counsellors that admissions officers are open to listening to and accepting students who have narrowly missed out on their offer. Encourage your child to phone their first-choice universities and be persuasive. — It is always a stressful time when your child gets their exam results. The big question is whether they will receive the grades they require to be accepted at the university of their choice or onto other vocational courses they have applied to. This year is exceptionally difficult. …

My daughter recently brought her boyfriend to stay for the first time. It would be fair to say that I made a few parenting errors! Like so many of us, my family is just starting to get out and about a little bit again and extending our ‘corona bubble’ to…

This morning I wrote my first two freelance articles for which I was paid a set amount of money. It felt good, but as I pressed submit I wondered if they may have got a wider readership on Medium. Could they have been ‘the ones’ to make me successful? Should I hold out for Medium Success? — I love writing on Medium. I know that it isn’t a get rich quick scheme, but it is a lot of fun to write for a public audience. I even once personified Medium and presented the platform as my lover! …

Being distributed and accruing readers is a challenge on medium. How do I make the most from being curated on the medium? — Looking for advice on getting readers for my articles after I’ve been curated. I’ve been on medium for quite a while now. I have something of an unhealthy love affair going on with it, where I can’t quite leave it alone. I have a writing spree and then ignore it for a while, but follow this with another writing spree. …