Send us Fan Mail

The most baffling relational pattern I see in high-risk adolescents is also one of the most human: things start to go well, and that’s exactly when they pull the plug. A young person shows up, connects, even seems to trust us and then suddenly becomes withdrawn, provocative, or disappears. From the outside it can look like non-compliance or “failed to engage.” From the inside, it often feels like survival. 

I walk through how trauma, sexualization, and early attachment experiences can wire closeness to danger. Drawing on John Bowlby’s attachment theory, I unpack the internal belief that quietly runs the show: nothing good lasts. When that belief is in charge, hope doesn’t soothe, it alarms. Connection sparks anxiety, anxiety sparks self-sabotage, and the collapse “proves” the story again. I also bring in psychodynamic thinking on internal object relations to explain why these patterns persist long after childhood, because early relationships aren’t just remembered, they’re carried. 

From Winnicott’s “holding environment” to Peter Fonagy’s mentalization and mind-mindedness, we get practical about what helps: consistency, predictability, tolerating rupture, and what I still think is the best word for it, stickability. I also zoom out to the multi-agency reality of CAMHS, schools, social care, and policing, where misunderstanding this pattern can fragment care and escalate risk. 

If you’ve ever wondered why a child ends things first, why progress can trigger panic, or how repair rebuilds trust, this conversation gives a clear map and a steady stance. Subscribe for more, share this with a colleague or parent who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the work.

Send us Fan Mail

A teenager walks into my room and her body tells a story before she says a word: painfully thin, tense, avoiding eye contact, braced for danger. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I share a carefully told clinical case from my sexualization trauma series that shows how trauma can hide in plain sight as selective mutism, social anxiety, and rigid control around food, movement, and closeness. When we only treat “behavior,” we risk missing the lived context that shaped it.

Rachel seemed fine until age eight, then suddenly stopped going to school and stopped speaking. Her world narrowed to safety rituals and dependence, while her parents coped in opposite ways, one intensely anxious and protective, the other blunt and emotionally limited. As we piece the timeline together, a trusted family friend who babysat begins to come into view, and we sit with how disclosure of child sexual abuse often arrives in fragments, not clean sentences.

I also unpack a reality many listeners never hear about: the clinical and legal tightrope. Trauma-informed therapy requires slow pacing to avoid re-traumatization, and legal constraints mean we cannot name an offense before a patient does without risking future testimony. If you care about mental health, safeguarding, confidentiality, and what real recovery can look like, this conversation will stay with you. Subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the support they deserve.

Risk-taking teens are often treated like problems to be managed, not people to be understood. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I’m starting a three-part thread on trauma, sexualization, and adolescent risk because I keep seeing the same pattern: urgent fear about the behavior, rapid involvement of services, and not enough curiosity about how these forces combine inside one young person’s life.

We talk about what “sexualized behavior” can actually mean, including coercion and exposure, and why it’s a mistake to jump straight to labels like promiscuity. We also look at how risk shows up in real-world ways: going missing, skipping school, falling in with older peers, ending up in unsafe spaces, and using alcohol or drugs in ways that shift from occasional coping to dependency. Safety and containment matter, but I argue that stopping at the surface leaves the engine untouched.

From a psychodynamic, trauma-informed view, behavior that looks chaotic is often organized around something internal that feels unbearable. I share a case of a girl known to police and multiple agencies who was widely described as “out of control,” then explain why the phrase “bad choices” can be lazy thinking when a young person’s actual options are narrow. Risk can become a way to regulate emotions, escape feelings that can’t yet be spoken, and self-medicate when there’s no other relief.

If this resonates, listen, share it with someone who works with adolescents, and leave a review. What language have you heard that helps teens feel understood, and what language makes things worse?

Send us Fan Mail

Send us Fan Mail

A child’s anger can fill the whole room. It can make families feel trapped in the same fight every day, and it can leave teachers and caregivers convinced the child is simply oppositional. I take a different view: rage is often protection. When we treat anger as the problem, we risk missing the fear, shame, hurt, and overwhelm that are driving the behavior in the first place.

I walk through how a child’s nervous system can learn to live near a threat response, especially when their world has felt inconsistent or emotionally unsafe. In that state, tiny changes can land like danger, and escalation happens in seconds. Using examples from clinical work, I describe what “containment” looks like in real time: staying present, not reacting with punishment, and offering a holding environment where the child can feel the storm without losing the relationship. We also explore perfectionism and mistakes, and why helping kids name inner states (mentalization) can turn raw sensation into something they can think about and tolerate.

For parents, this becomes practical and personal. I share ways to stay regulated, name what you see gently, hold boundaries without escalation, and stay emotionally available even when it’s hard. If you’re trying to understand child anger, tantrums, aggression, or “anger management” that never seems to stick, this conversation offers a clearer map of what’s underneath and what actually helps. If it resonates, subscribe, share it with a parent who needs it, and leave a review. What do you think your child’s anger is protecting?

Send us Fan Mail

The kids who shout get noticed. The kids who stay polite, helpful, and “mature for their age” can disappear in plain sight and that’s where things can quietly go wrong. I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and I’m opening a new series by focusing on the child who seems fine but isn’t.

I unpack why “no trouble at all” can be a warning sign, not a reassurance. Through a psychodynamic lens, I explore Donald Winnicott’s idea of the false self and how a child can adapt to what feels expected while losing touch with what they actually feel. From an attachment perspective, I talk about John Bowlby’s internal working model and how repeated emotional responses from caregivers teach a child whether their inner world matters. I also draw on Wilfred Bion’s concept of emotional containment, the process that helps children learn to tolerate, name, and think about feelings rather than shut down from them.

We also look at real-life family pressures that shape the quiet child: parents who are stretched thin, households managing aggression, chronic illness, or end-of-life care, and the sibling who becomes compliant just to keep the system steady. I share practical ways to invite a child’s emotional voice without demanding performance, and why naming parental struggle with the right boundaries helps prevent parentification.

If you know a child who “copes” too well, listen and share this with someone who supports families, then subscribe and leave a review so more people can find the series. 

Send us Fan Mail

Most families don’t come to therapy because they’re “doing it wrong.” They come because something has started to hurt, spiral, or break down, and they need a way to understand what’s happening without being blamed. I’m Kim Lee,  a Child & adolescent psychotherapist, and this is the start of From Inside the Consulting Room, a series designed to be both a window into clinical work and a practical guide to child development, parenting, and the realities families face.

I keep coming back to one foundation: relationship. Many of the children I meet have experienced real damage in relationships, so the work starts with creating a different kind of experience in the room. I also talk about why parents often arrive feeling like failures and expecting judgment. Therapy works best when we drop the “expert fixer” myth, treat guilt and self-blame as understandable, and help parents discover the skills and strengths they already have.

You’ll hear how I think about children’s behavior as communication and why it’s often a signal of pressure in the wider family system, not proof that a child is “the problem.” I also explain the psychodynamic and psychoanalytic approach I’m trained in, why history and attachment matter, and what it looks like to do joined-up pediatric mental health work with safeguarding, schools, GPs, courts, and other agencies. I’ll also point you to my books, my website (thechildren's consultancy.com), and a free parenting guide compendium you can download.

If this speaks to you, subscribe so you don’t miss what comes next, share the series with someone who could use it, and leave a review so more parents and professionals can find it.

Send us Fan Mail

Screens can look like the problem when a child won’t put the device down, but we’ve found that the real story usually lives underneath the behavior. We talk through a calmer, more practical way to respond when screen time turns into stand-offs, shutdowns, or daily battles, especially for parents who feel stuck between “I need limits” and “I don’t want constant conflict.” 

We explore why children attach to screens in the first place and how that use often serves a job: emotional regulation, connection, escape, or identity. Drawing on Winnicott and Bowlby, we frame screen habits through attachment and the need for a secure base, then make the case for a principle many families miss: build before you remove. If a device is helping your child cope, pulling it away without building support can amplify dysregulation and isolation, not reduce it. 

From there, we get concrete about what helps: co-regulation, calm presence, and boundaries that contain rather than rupture. With ideas that connect Bion, Stephen Porges, and Daniel Siegel, we show why “turn it off now” often backfires and how smoother transitions protect the relationship, which is the real lever for change. If you want practical parenting strategies for screen time, child behavior, and adolescent mental health in a digital world, this gives you an orientation you can use immediately. 

If this helps, subscribe, share it with a parent who’s struggling, and leave a review so more families can find it.

Send us Fan Mail

Your child is sitting right next to you, but somehow they feel miles away. When screens take over, it’s tempting to clamp down with tighter rules, stricter limits, and a last-resort device ban. We take a different path: we look at what the screen is doing for your child and what it might be helping them avoid, manage, or soothe. Because the hardest truth for many parents is also the most helpful one: the screen is rarely the real problem. 

We talk about how screen use can slowly replace real life, not overnight, but through a gradual drift where conversation fades, emotions flatten, and effort starts to feel optional. We unpack why the digital world can feel predictable and safe compared with school pressure, social uncertainty, anxiety, or tension at home. We also share a clinical story that reframes “we’ve lost him” into a clearer question: what is your child returning to when they put the device down, and why doesn’t that feel workable? 

Then we get practical. We explain how to get on the same side of the screen by rebuilding connection first: calm presence, gentle interest, and low-pressure invitations that are not surveillance. From there, limits make more sense and conflict eases because your child feels understood rather than controlled. If you’re searching for digital parenting help, screen time boundaries that work, and ways to reconnect with a withdrawn child, this conversation offers a hopeful roadmap. Subscribe, share with a parent who needs it, and leave a review with the biggest screen-time struggle you want us to tackle next.

Send us Fan Mail

Turning off a screen can look like a simple request, but for many kids it lands like a shock to the nervous system. We unpack why that switch from “fine” to furious happens so fast, and why it often has less to do with defiance and more to do with dopamine design. When apps and platforms are built on unpredictability, reward, and repetition, children get pulled into an anticipation loop that is hard to exit on command. Interrupting that loop can feel to a child like losing comfort, control, and regulation all at once. 

We also question the tidy screen time rules many parents are handed, like the familiar one-hour guideline for young children. We talk about what the research actually shows, why so much of it points to association rather than clear cause and effect, and how “screens” get treated as one category even though video calls, passive viewing, fast-cut clips, gaming, and learning tools affect kids differently. That gap between confident advice and messy evidence leaves parents carrying guilt instead of clarity. 

From there, we move to what you can do in real family life: slow transitions, give warnings, create predictable endings, stay alongside your child, and offer alternatives that meet the same underlying need. We zoom out to the bigger theme of parenting in a digital world, including the mixed messages teens receive when they are told to avoid screens while also being expected to study and socialize through them. If you want calmer boundaries, better connection, and more confident decisions about kids and screen use, subscribe, share this with a parent friend, and leave a review so more families can find the conversation.

Send us Fan Mail

A child can be bright, polite, and high-functioning while feeling unreal inside. That quiet distance is easy to miss, especially when there are no obvious behavior problems, but it can shape everything from mood swings to shutdown to the familiar “I don’t care.” We explore what I call the disconnected self: not the absence of self, but a self that has learned to divide, adapt, or go offline in order to cope. 

Drawing on core ideas from psychoanalysis and attachment theory, we walk through how splitting and lack of integration can leave feelings unlinked, why Winnicott’s false self can look like “being good,” and how consistent emotional holding helps a child build a steadier sense of who they are. We also look at Bion’s view that children learn to think about feelings through being understood, and Fonagy’s idea that numbness often signals a developmental gap rather than true emptiness. When stress or trauma is significant, we discuss how self-states can fragment, creating a child who seems like a different person in different settings. 

From a parenting perspective, the biggest change is the question we ask. We stop focusing on what is wrong with the child and start asking what the child had to do to manage their inner world. I share a practical stance you can use immediately: consistency over perfection, naming emotions without panic, staying calm, and resisting the urge to fix what may not be fixable in the moment. We also connect this back to childhood in a digital world by asking how screens can become escape or self-soothing, and what that might reveal about disconnection from self and others. If this resonates, listen, share it with someone raising a child, and subscribe and leave a review so more parents can find the support they need.