The thought of our children or our young people going through emotional pain and hurt is horrible.  As parents or carers, we want them to have this perfect, stress-free, pain-free life. But of course, that's not possible for anyone. And sometimes that pain and hurt can lead to them having thoughts of self-harm, thoughts of suicide. Kerry McLean talks to Connor McCafferty of Zest NI - Healing the Hurt, on how our own emotional literacy can help us provide the right kind of support to our children.  http://www.zestni.org ..read more

In this episode, Pam Nugent, co-founder of The Laurence Trust, tells her story about the loss of her son, Laurence, to an eating disorder. For #eatingdisorderawarenessweek2023, there is a focus on men, and how eating disorders, contrary to popular belief, affect men as well as women. Pam shares the heartbreaking story of Laurence's eating disorder,  and her motivation for founding The Laurence Trust; a safe and compassionate space for men and their loved ones to find support, so that tragedies like this one can be avoided. https://www.thelaurencetrust.co.uk/ Freddie Flintoff: Living w ..read more

In this episode we were delighted to have Rebecca from Eden Consultancy  back with us to chat more about autism. Kerry and Rebecca chat about next steps after diagnosis, as well as discussing stigmas and dated views. Rebecca gives some excellent tried and tested techniques as well as advice for parents and carers to try involving the whole family in using a consistent approach for their children. They also chat about normalising a diagnosis - it does not change your child and is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.  If you would like to talk one of our Parentline NI support officers ..read more

Lisa and Kerry chat about the impact of childhood trauma on the person we become, and in turn our own parenting styles. They discuss the vocabulary we need to talk about trauma and it's impact on our mental health. They also discuss self care, and how empathy and compassion can make such a positive difference to those carrying the weight of trauma. Lisa discusses how having those conversations about the legacy of trauma, don't always make things better, but that addressing things can lead to valuable learnings and realisations. Lisa Cherry is an author, researcher and leading international tr ..read more

Patrick McIlwee, from New Ways NI - Tailored Mindset Coaching, chats to Kerry McLean about ways to use mindfulness in our parenting, both for ourselves and for our children.  Resources: https://5lovelanguages.com/ https://www.facebook.com/NewWaysNI ..read more

Ed Sipler, a Health Development Specialist in the South Eastern Health & Social Care Trust, talks to Kerry McLean about building resilience in ourselves and our children. It's been a tough few years for us all, and with the current cost of living challenges, we have all had a lot to cope with and try to overcome. Ed talks about resilience in this episode, and how it's more effective to build our own resilience first, before modelling it to our children. Ed talks about his own family, and his twin granddaughters, giving us an insight on the challenges we all face, and how to work through t ..read more

This episode, Kerry chats to Wayne Denner, an online reputation and safety expert,  who has spent decades in the digital space teaching people of all ages to protect themselves online, take control of technology and maximise the opportunities it can offer. They discuss safeguarding in the online world; something that is becoming increasingly prevalent in our lives. As parents we know the world is a very different place to the one we grew up in, and our heads can sometimes be filled with questions, worries or fears about how we can keep our children safe online. Wayne and Kerry talk thro ..read more

Following our popular workshop delivered together with Elaine McCrisken from Strive NI, Elaine joins us on the podcast to chat about Anxiety Based School Avoidance.   Listen in as Kerry chats to Elaine and explores reasons why a child or young person may be finding it difficult to attend school. As well as discussing practical strategies for parents/carers to support children to return more willingly to the school environment. We hope you enjoy the conversation, share with friends and family and let us know what you think. Remember Parentline are here on 0808 8020 400 to listen, offer sup ..read more

Following our recent workshop series delivered together with Rebecca McCullough from Eden Consultancy, Rebecca is back to talk to us again about ADHD. ADHD is one of the most common, yet most misunderstood conditions amongst children and young people. In this podcast we will look into what ADHD actually is, talk about the myths surrounding ADHD, the challenges of ADHD and how to support a child or young person with ADHD through various strategies.  We hope you enjoy the conversation, share with friends and family and let us know what you think. Remember Parentline are here on 0808 8020 4 ..read more

Parenting/caring for children is both a joy and a challenge and can often have big impact on our relationships with those around us.  Life is full of ups and downs and conflict is normal within all relationships, it is how conflict is handled which can impact our children most both now and long term.  Listen in as Kerry chats to Kellie from Relate NI all about their new programme, ‘Sustaining Healthy Relationships’. These sessions look at developing skills and tools to manage the rough & tumble that can appear in any relationship; including couples & family relationships, fri ..read more