This series has been focussed on exploring the importance of emotional development and how we can as parents be supporting our children’s mental health from the very early years of life so that they are able to manage the stresses we are seeing them face as they go through into adolescence and young adulthood.

We hear over and over again how the NHS is being brought to its knees because of the mental health epidemic in this country, its similar in other countries too so not indigenous to us, but if we want to see this ship turned around, its important that we come at it from all angles and one of the fundamentally crucial building blocks to mental health, we know, is the development and experience through childhood and the adolescent years

So coming full circle with this our final episode in the series, we are joined by perhaps one of the most influential people in the world when it comes to parenting and understanding the needs of our children. I was absolutely delighted when retired child psychologist, family therapist and author of the world’s best-selling book on raising boys, as well as other books that millions of parents have bought worldwide, Steve Biddulph, said he would join us on The Parenting Podcast.

We cover the importance of listening and being comfortable with feelings, putting boundaries down, how life has changed and what the impact has been on mental health and how we function, we cover how to understand gender and what our individual child’s needs might be, we pack loads in!

The sound isn’t perfect as we were half way across the world from each other so at times it sounds like one of us is furiously clicking a mouse or stirring a cup of tea – I promise you neither of us were, it was just the isms of the connection so apologies for that but you can hear what is said loud and clear. Enjoy!

Steve Biddulph's books:

• Complete Secrets of Happy Children
• Raising Boys in the 21st Century
• Raising Girls in the 21st Century
• 10 Things Girls Need Most To Grow Up Strong and Free
• Manhood 

And the other book that Steve referred to was Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne