Food and your child's mood: the gut-brain connection with Tina Lond-Caulk

You think your teenager is being deliberately difficult, but what looks like "attitude" is a brain still wiring up and an identity working itself out by pushing against yours. I'm joined by ⁠Dr Jon Goldin⁠, FRCPsych, consultant in child and adolescent psychiatry, to talk about the still-developing teen brain and what changes about parenting through the adolescent years. Jon recently retired from ⁠Great Ormond Street Hospital⁠ after 21 years as a consultant, and was joint training programme director for the GOSH and Royal London Higher Training Scheme in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for 10 years. He was vice chair of the ⁠Royal College of Psychiatrists⁠' Child and Adolescent Psychiatry faculty from 2017 to 2021, and was awarded RCPsych Psychiatric Communicator of the Year in 2022. We talk about why the prefrontal cortex is still under construction well into the twenties, what Jon calls rubber tyre boundaries that flex without breaking, and the quiet reframe he offers parents: when children are behaving in difficult ways, they're often having a difficult time. We also get into: A one-line reframe Jon offers parents when their child seems "deliberately difficult", which changes the question without changing the boundary Why phones charging in the kitchen overnight are worth the argument, and why parents have to model it first A short listening exercise that takes the heat out of screen-time arguments without either side backing down Being your child's parent and not their friend, and what makes that easier to hold Why Jon doesn't use the word "projection" with teenagers, even when that may be what's happening

Sometimes your child shows you what they can't yet say through a drawing, a game, or a story they keep coming back to. I'm joined by ⁠Professor Dominik Havsteen-Franklin⁠, art therapist and Vice President of the ⁠European Federation of Art Therapy⁠, to talk about play as the language children use before words, and what changes when a parent picks up a pen and joins in. Dominik is Professor of Practice (Arts Therapies) at Brunel University London, where he leads research on the role of the arts in wellbeing and resilience, including a large-scale NIHR-funded trial on arts therapies. He continues to practise as an art psychotherapist and clinical supervisor in the NHS. We talk about the line game, a drawing exercise Dominik uses with his own children, Edward Tronick's still face research on how parents and infants find each other, and what happens when a child's play becomes the way they make sense of what's hard to say. We also get into: Drawing each other's portraits: what eye contact does that small talk can't Why a child's play often returns to the moment just before something difficult Bessel van der Kolk on feelings that get stuck, and where Dominik thinks they go next Dominik on the unconscious as a language we don't yet speak fluently Why drawing "in your own way" matters more than drawing it 'right'

"We're not born knowing how to parent well," says Professor Mick Cooper. "It's things we need to learn, like anything else." I'm joined by ⁠Professor Mick Cooper⁠, chartered psychologist and father of four, to talk about the space between being too soft and too strict, and why landing there is harder than anyone lets on. Mick is Professor of Counselling Psychology at the ⁠University of Roehampton⁠, a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, and an internationally recognised author whose books include "Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy". Much of what he shares, he says, comes as much from raising his own children as from the research. We talk about the three parenting styles and the authoritative-like middle, warm and loving while still holding boundaries; why unconditional acceptance doesn't mean no boundaries; and the difference between judging what a child does and judging who a child is. We also get into: Bowlby's secure base, and why conveying love comes before everything else The quiet cost of casting one child as "the clever one" and another as "the fun one" The emotional work of accepting a path you didn't hope your child would take Thought traps, and why your child might take it from a therapist but not from you Emotional literacy as a life skill, and how early you can start

Therapy is one hour a week. That leaves 167 hours where most people don't get support. I'm joined by ⁠Lara Gregorio⁠, licensed clinical social worker with over 25 years in behavioural health and founder of ⁠4C Mental Health⁠, to talk about why community might be the missing piece in emotional wellbeing and how we teach our children to sit with their feelings rather than rush to fix them. Lara shares how becoming a parent reshaped her understanding of support, and why a quote from a high school English teacher has guided her parenting more than her clinical training. We talk about the difference between allowing emotions and managing them, why children can't process boundaries when they're emotionally flooded, and the simple neurobiological tools that can help the whole family regulate. We also get into: Why your child might have only heard you once, even though you've said it a hundred times The 90-second truth about every emotion, and what keeps it alive after that Connection before correction: why timing changes everything Quick regulation tools from DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) that any parent can use "Be the stick": a whitewater rafting metaphor for riding out emotional storms Go Deeper: Attune IN® delivers connection science education for busy parents. The Attune IN program provides self-paced guidance by a psychiatrist turned educator and mum of 3. If you are a parent/practitioner looking for the science of connection, or an employer wanting to support working parents in your organisation, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠attunein.co.uk⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more info. Originally published on Spotify.

Under stress, most of us don't parent the way we want to. We parent the way we were parented. I'm joined by ⁠Dr Florian Ruths⁠, consultant psychiatrist and medical psychotherapist, to talk about schema therapy and what parents actually carry from their own childhoods into the moments that test them. Florian is clinical lead of the ⁠Maudsley Medical Psychotherapy Service⁠ and co-leads the Maudsley Schema Therapy Service, where he is an accredited trainer, supervisor and practitioner in schema therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy. He was London principal investigator on the international multicentre trial of group schema therapy published in ⁠JAMA Psychiatry in 2022⁠. We talk about why parenting is an act of courage, the trap of unrelenting standards (what he calls "mission impossible"), and the simple reframe of kind limit setting: treating our children with the respect we'd extend to a neighbour. We also get into: Why our default parenting mode shows up under stress, and how to notice it before it leads Why parenting is one thread in a child's story, not the whole story Unrelenting standards at work plus unrelenting standards at home How tone of voice and facial expression shape the inner voice a child carries Seeing our children as individuals, not extensions of us