everymum

Hi everyone, welcome back to Everymum the podcast, I'm Aisling Keenan. If you’ve ever looked at your child and thought, I just want to make life a little easier for you, then this episode is for you – but it might not be the episode you think. My guest today is Dr David Coleman, one of Ireland’s best-known clinical psychologists. David has been working with children, teenagers and families for more than three decades, and many of you will know him from his television work, his weekly Irish Independent column, his regular appearances on radio, or from his books. His area of expertise is something I think every parent will be interested in: how we help our children deal with the inevitable difficulties of life. Because however much we might want to protect them from disappointment, worry, friendship problems, failure and all the other things that come with growing up, we obviously can’t do that forever. David is actually about to take this conversation on the road with his nationwide 'Ready for Anything: Building Emotional Resilience in Children and Teenagers' tour, which gets underway this October. The focus is very much on practical ways we can help children develop the skills to cope with life’s ups and downs, rather than trying to remove every difficult experience from their path. So today we’re talking about what resilience actually means, whether some children are naturally more resilient than others, and that very tricky parenting question: when should we step in and help, and when should we let our children struggle a little? We’ll also talk about disappointment, anxiety, the phrase “don’t worry”, our own mistakes as parents, the importance of boredom, and how we teach children to cope when things don’t go their way. And, crucially, we’ll finish with one very simple question: what is the one thing every parent could start doing tomorrow to help their child become more emotionally resilient? This episode contains so many nuggets of wisdom, clever language changes and suggestions to reassess how your parenting might be impacting your child, and I know so many of you will find it very valuable indeed. Enjoy this episode with Dr Coleman, and I'll be back next week with more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, welcome back everyone to Everymum the podcast, I’m Aisling Keenan. Today’s guest is Dr Garth Graham, a doctor and public health expert who is the Global Head of Health at YouTube, where he leads the platform’s work around health information, wellbeing and making sure people can find credible, useful information online. He’s also a dad of four, which is particularly relevant to today’s conversation because we’re talking about one of the biggest challenges facing parents right now: how do we raise healthy, happy children in a world where screens and the internet are simply part of everyday life?

We talked about the rise of health influencers and the problem of misinformation online, including what happens when a health myth or conspiracy suddenly takes off, and how YouTube responds. We got into the responsibility that comes with running a platform used by billions of people, particularly when it comes to children and teenagers, and where that responsibility ends and the responsibility of parents begins. But we also brought it right back to family life. Garth talked about the rules he has around technology in his own home, whether his children challenge them, and whether being a dad has actually changed the way he thinks about children, technology and wellbeing professionally. We talked about parental hypocrisy… because how can we tell our children to get off their screens when we're permanently attached to ours?, and the enormous amount of guilt parents can feel around screen time, particularly when a screen is sometimes the only thing standing between you and getting dinner made or having five minutes of peace.

And we got into what healthy screen use actually looks like, whether all screen time is equal, and perhaps most importantly, whether instead of simply trying to ban things, we should be teaching our children how to navigate the digital world for themselves. It’s a really practical conversation about screens, safety, parenting, technology and finding a version of “good enough” that actually works in real family life. Here’s my chat with Dr Graham, I’ll be back next week with more.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Everymum the podcast with me, Aisling Keenan. Today I’m joined by Emma O’Leary, a paediatric speech and language therapist, mum of three boys and the woman behind the hugely popular parenting platform Life With Tiny Humans. Emma has been sharing the realities of family life online for years, combining her professional experience with the much less polished reality of raising children. And, as she puts it, trying to keep the chaos at bay. Emma’s boys are now 11, 9 and 7, so she’s right in the thick of that particularly interesting stage of parenting where your children are becoming increasingly independent, but still very much need you. In this conversation, we talk a lot about life online and what it means to raise children in a world where screens are simply part of everyday life. We talk about screen time, the repercussions of too much of it, how you actually go about limiting it without losing your mind, and the alternatives that can help children switch off and engage with other things. We also get into the other side of being online as a mother - the comparison, the pressure, the feeling that everyone else is somehow doing it better, and the negativity that can come with putting your family and your parenting out there. But Emma also talks about the other side of that coin: the incredible support, connection and sense of community that can come from finding other parents who understand exactly what you're going through. We talk about what motherhood has taught both of us, how your children can be completely different people who require completely different parenting, and how much of parenting is actually about figuring out what works for this particular child, rather than following some universal rule. So whether you have tiny humans, slightly bigger humans, or are simply trying to work out how on earth everyone else seems to be managing it, you'll definitely take something from my chat with Emma. I'll be back next week with another great episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to Everymum the podcast, I'm your host Aisling Keenan. My guest this week is Sarah Maria Griffin, a successful novelist whose work explores identity, family, fear and the complicated business of being human. She’s the author of Eat the Ones You Love, and her latest release, Strange is the Light. In this episode, I wanted to help you get to know the person behind the books, and particularly Sarah’s experience of becoming a mother for the first time. We talked about her childhood, what she was like growing up, and the route she took into becoming a writer. But most of our conversation centred on pregnancy, labour and those first moments of motherhood. Sarah talks very openly about what pregnancy was actually like for her, what she remembers about giving birth, and the things that surprised her about becoming a mother. We talk about the physical experience of delivering her little girl, the reality of those first few days, and how different the reality of having a baby can be from what you imagine beforehand. It’s a really honest conversation about becoming a mother for the first time. Not just the lovely bits, but the uncertainty, the physicality and the sheer strangeness of suddenly becoming responsible for another person. This is my conversation with Sarah Maria Griffin. I'll be back next week with more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone and welcome back to Everymum the podcast, I'm Aisling Keenan. My guest this week is Bronagh Starrs. Bronagh is a psychotherapist, expert in contemporary adolescent mental health. She’s also an author and she has spent decades working with young people and their families. Her new book, I Can’t Go In, is about something that an increasing number of parents are finding themselves dealing with: school anxiety, and what happens when a child becomes so anxious that they simply cannot get through the school gates. So I wanted to talk to Bronagh about what school anxiety actually looks like, how you can tell the difference between a child who doesn’t want to go to school and a child who genuinely can’t face it, and why some of the things we instinctively do as parents: reassuring them, encouraging them, bargaining with them or putting pressure on them, which don’t necessarily help. We talked about what parents should do when the school run becomes a daily battle, the role schools can play, why some children are particularly vulnerable to school anxiety, and whether things like neurodiversity and parenting styles can play a part. And, importantly, we talked about what schools can do to help. Because understanding that your child is anxious is one thing, knowing how to help them through it is another. This is my conversation with Bronagh Starrs – enjoy and I'll be back next week with more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.