How Not to Screw Up Your Kids

If your child can spend 45 minutes sharpening pencils, rearranging their desk, or “revising” without absorbing a single thing, you are not imagining it - something is getting in the way of their concentration, and it’s not laziness or lack of effort.
In this bucket emptying episode, I’ll show you why so many children struggle to focus, even when they’re trying, and why the strategies most parents rely on - timers, bribery, removing distractions - often don’t work. Drawing on the neuroscience shared by Professor Sam Wass in Thursday’s deeper‑dive episode, I’ll walk you through three practical, evidence‑based strategies you can use this week to transform how your child focuses.
You’ll learn why stressed or anxious brains cannot concentrate, why understanding must come before focus, and why even a face‑down phone across the room can derail your child’s attention.
Most importantly, you’ll come away with three simple tools that work with your child’s brain rather than against it so homework, revision, and everyday tasks finally feel doable again.
If you’re exhausted by the battles and starting to wonder whether something is “wrong,” this episode will give you clarity, relief, and a plan that actually works.

Highlights from this episode:
01:14 - What Would Sam Do?
02:45 - STRESS
05:24 - Two Kinds of Concentration
07:07 - Give the brain something to cling to
09:05 - Understanding Before Focus
11:59 - Screens are competing for your child’s attention - don’t let them win!
14:25 - Watch out for these two things

💚 Please share with at least one friend, and let’s build our village together

💚 For all previous episodes, and to submit episode topics you want me to talk about, visit https://drmaryhan.com/podcast/

💚 For the free resource library, visit https://drmaryhan.com/library

💚 Join our campaign One Million Moments to reduce the number of children struggling with mental health challenges from 17% to 10% by 2025

💚 Brands and advertisers, email contact@drmaryhan.com

DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you’ve ever wondered why your child can spend 40 minutes talking about Minecraft but can’t concentrate for four minutes on homework, this episode explains everything.
I’m joined again by Professor Sam Wass, and if you heard his previous episodes, you’ll know why parents loved them. In today’s conversation, Sam breaks down what concentration actually is from a neuroscience perspective, why young children are wired to be easily distracted, and why some children struggle far more than others in noisy classrooms, during revision, or when faced with a blank page.
We dig into the two types of concentration every child needs, why the frontal cortex develops painfully slowly, how screens hijack attention, and why understanding something is the single biggest predictor of whether a child can focus on it.
If you’re battling procrastination, homework refusal, or a child who “just can’t sit still,” this episode will give you the clarity you’ve been missing
If you want to understand your child’s brain - and finally stop blaming them (or yourself) for something that’s biological, predictable, and fixable - you need to listen to this.

Highlights from this episode:
02:40 - Concentrating through doing
09:20 - Two ways to structure learning tasks
15:46 - My name is Sam and I am a Candy Crush addict
21:53 - Build on interests
27:24 - Stress and concentration
34:39 - Screen time
38:56 - We are prediction machines

💚 Please share with at least one friend, and let’s build our village together

💚 For all previous episodes, and to submit episode topics you want me to talk about, visit https://drmaryhan.com/podcast/

💚 For the free resource library, visit https://drmaryhan.com/library

💚 Join our campaign One Million Moments to reduce the number of children struggling with mental health challenges from 17% to 10% by 2025

💚 Brands and advertisers, email contact@drmaryhan.com

DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If your child is anxious, you already know how hard evenings can be. You sit beside them wanting desperately to help, but every time you try to reassure them, it backfires. Logic doesn’t land. Distraction doesn’t stick. And sometimes, despite your best intentions, the thing you say makes everything worse.
This episode gives you something you can use tonight.
I’ll walk you through five specific, evidence‑based questions that shift an anxious child from overwhelm into curiosity, even if they’re tired, irritable, or shutting down.
These questions work because they bypass the logical brain (which is offline during anxiety) and instead help your child observe what’s happening inside them with a little more distance and a lot more safety.
You’ll learn exactly why each question works, how to use them, and what to do when your child gives you nothing but a shrug or a grunt. By the end, you’ll have a simple, repeatable toolkit you can rely on every night - no scripts, no pressure, no perfect parenting required.
If you’ve been searching for the right words to help your worried child, this episode gives you five you can use before bedtime.

Highlights from this episode:
00:59 - What you get from this episode
03:34 - The 5 questions
06:53 - Give the worry a form
09:25 - A brutal inner demon
11:22 - Two red flags

💚 Please share with at least one friend, and let’s build our village together

💚 For all previous episodes, and to submit episode topics you want me to talk about, visit https://drmaryhan.com/podcast/

💚 For the free resource library, visit https://drmaryhan.com/library

💚 Join our campaign One Million Moments to reduce the number of children struggling with mental health challenges from 17% to 10% by 2025

💚 Brands and advertisers, email contact@drmaryhan.com

DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If your child is melting down over homework, asking endless “what if” questions, getting mysterious tummy aches, refusing school, withdrawing from activities, or exploding the moment they walk through the door, you need this episode.

I work with anxious and dysregulated children every single day, and what I want you to know is this: most of the behaviours parents struggle with aren’t actually behaviour problems - they’re anxiety in disguise.

Spoiler alert: the more you reassure, explain, distract or accommodate, the worse the anxiety quietly becomes.

In this episode, I’ll walk you through what childhood anxiety really is (and what it absolutely isn’t), why your child’s nervous system is behaving like a smoke alarm, and why logic and reassurance never stick.

You’ll learn the skills‑gap model that changes everything about how we approach anxiety, and the first practical steps you can take today to help your child feel safer, calmer, and more capable.

If you’ve ever felt helpless, confused, or guilty in the face of your child’s worry, this episode will give you clarity, direction, and a framework that finally makes sense.

Mentioned in this episode:
The Take 10 Technique - https://drmaryhan.com/episode/breathing-techniques-for-anxious-children/

Highlights from this episode:
00:52 - Saying “it’s fine” doesn’t work!
03:05 - It’s not your fault
08:24 - Children should feel anxious
12:25 - How to recognise anxiety
15:56 -You’re probably making it worse
18:18 - This will change everything
23:10 - When to seek additional help

💚 Please share with at least one friend, and let’s build our village together

💚 For all previous episodes, and to submit episode topics you want me to talk about, visit https://drmaryhan.com/podcast/

💚 For the free resource library, visit https://drmaryhan.com/library

💚 Join our campaign One Million Moments to reduce the number of children struggling with mental health challenges from 17% to 10% by 2025

💚 Brands and advertisers, email contact@drmaryhan.com

DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you’re raising a boy, you already know this: you can believe in him with your whole heart, and still watch him struggle to believe in himself.
You tell him he’s brilliant and he shrugs it off.
You encourage him and he brushes it away.
You try to have a meaningful conversation and suddenly his phone becomes the most fascinating object on earth.
Meanwhile, you can see the gap widening - the gap between how you see him and how he sees himself. And nothing you say seems to close it.
This episode gives you one simple, evidence‑based daily habit that will.
One question that teaches your son to look inward, recognise his own effort, and build confidence from the inside out - not from praise, not from performance, not from comparison.
I’ll show you exactly how to use it at every age, what to do when he rolls his eyes or gives you nothing, and how this tiny daily ritual slowly rewires the way he sees himself.
If you want a practical, realistic way to strengthen your son’s confidence - one that actually sticks - this is the episode you cannot afford to skip.

Highlights from this episode:
02:15 - Let’s talk about the bucket
04:17 - The only daily question you need to ask
06:56 - Every age is different
10:44 - Two flags!

💚 Please share with at least one friend, and let’s build our village together

💚 For all previous episodes, and to submit episode topics you want me to talk about, visit https://drmaryhan.com/podcast/

💚 For the free resource library, visit https://drmaryhan.com/library

💚 Join our campaign One Million Moments to reduce the number of children struggling with mental health challenges from 17% to 10% by 2025

💚 Brands and advertisers, email contact@drmaryhan.com

DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.