Mum's The Word! With Georgia Jones & Kelsey Parker

This week Georgia Jones sits down with Trish Abreu, Head of Early Years at Alleyn's Hampstead, for an honest chat about the early years: nursery, reception, and those all-important first steps into school life.

Trish gets real about what "school readiness" actually means (spoiler: it's not knowing your alphabet at two), why so much of a child's anxiety is really the parent's, and the settling-in truth nobody tells you: that there's no such thing as a perfect one, and it can take far longer than a couple of weeks.

Then it gets practical: the flashcards-versus-real-world debate, using London as your classroom, why bombarding your child with "how was your day?" makes them shut down, and the little girl who didn't speak for a whole year and what was really going on.

Plus your listener questions answered: quiet at nursery but chatty at home, tears and fussy eating at drop-off, the questions nobody thinks to ask on a nursery tour, and how the conversation goes if the school spots something you haven't.

Grab a cuppa and get comfy.

A Create Podcast

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This week Kelsey Parker sits down with two remarkable dads, Jack Taylor and Matt Whitehouse from the Lily Mae Foundation, for an honest, tender conversation about losing a baby and the life and grief that follows.

Jack takes us back to Oscar: two miscarriages before him, an enlarged bladder spotted at 20 weeks, and the Trisomy 13 diagnosis that meant he wasn't compatible with life. Jack and Ellen made the hardest decision any parent could face, to protect their son from more suffering, and Oscar was born sleeping. Ten years on this December, Jack speaks about how time both stands still and races away.

Then Matt shares Callie's story: a textbook pregnancy right up to 38 weeks, a daughter kicking away at 8am, and by 9.29 she was gone. Matt talks about the 27 minutes they had with her, the false hope, and the moment a doctor walked in with the news no parent should hear, why he says the mind simply can't compute the speed of baby loss.

Together they open up about the grief dads are so often expected to carry in silence, the space to talk about their babies, and how the Lily Mae Foundation helped them find their way through. Plus the "unhinged" challenges that keep them going, from seven marathons in seven days and 110 miles in 24 hours for Oscar's 10th birthday, to Matt running 10k every single day of 2026 (karaoke and all).

Grab a cuppa and get comfy.

A Create Podcast

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This week Georgia Jones hands the co-host chair to a very special guest: her one and only, Cooper, for his first ever appearance on the podcast.

Cooper gets into the big stuff: why he's going to be a professional golfer like Rory McIlroy, beating grown men three times his age off the tee, and the "so mathematical" reason he loves the game.

Then it's back to real life: starting Year 4, keeping his two best mates in class, the great mufti-day-versus-non-uniform-day debate, and the after-school pull of the PS5.

Plus the lighter stuff: the great orange chocolate scandal, why he only "shuts his eyes" for 50 minutes in the car (definitely not sleeping), Daddy's ill-fated mission to rescue a sunbed a mile out to sea, and Cooper's honest ranking of the most annoying things adults do.

And of course, his one rule every grown-up should follow: put the phone down and play.

Grab a cuppa and get comfy.

A Create Podcast

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This week Kelsey Parker sits down with Nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert, founder of Rhitrition, for the conversation every parent needs to hear, and one that'll probably start a few arguments.

Rhiannon doesn't hold back: why the UK now feeds kids more ultra-processed food than anywhere on earth (yes, above America), the childhood obesity stat that just jumped from 1 in 4 to 1 in 3, and why for the first time in history we're not outliving our grandparents.

Then the stuff you're not supposed to say out loud: the real truth about weight-loss jabs, why "diet" and "zero sugar" might be worse than the full-sugar version, why less than 2% of nutrition advice on TikTok is actually true, and the study proving a home-cooked meal beats the identical ready meal, calorie for calorie.

Plus the bits that'll actually make your life easier: why two eggs and a red pepper are doing more than you think, the genius "sometimes food" trick for ice cream vans and party bags, raising boys who can actually cook, and why even a nutritionist has UPFs in her cupboard.

She is also releasing her fist kid's book Ready Set Cook in the new year, to get your children having fun in the kitchen.

If you've ever felt like you can't do anything right, this one's for you.

Grab a cuppa and get comfy.

A Create Podcast

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This week Kelsey Parker sits down with Lee Parkinson MBE. Teacher, three-time Sunday Times bestselling author and one half of Two Mr Ps in a Podcast for a chat about school readiness, raising triplets and why we've all been worrying about the wrong things.

Lee gets real about becoming a stepdad at 21, the scan where the nurse went silent before revealing it was triplets, and the "bath, bottle, bed" routine that got all three sleeping through by six months.

Then it goes deeper: why 63% of children aren't ready for school, how scrapping Sure Start centres left a hole nobody filled, and why the little things like doing up their own shoes & putting on a coat actually matter far more than reading or counting before day one.

Plus the lighter stuff: the ex-pupil who bought him a pint 15 years on, getting his MBE ("the world's worst kept secret"), and the show-and-tell Tupperware box that accidentally exposed an affair.

Grab a cuppa and get comfy.

A Create Podcast

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Georgia & Kelsey get right into it this week.

Kelsey's partner Will's about to become a dad for the first time: and he's walking into it the hard way.

Kelsey raised Bodhi's baby years almost entirely alone, so this time feels completely different: parenting as a two. But she reckons Will's had it tough: plonked in at the deep end with a five and seven-year-old, made to "man up" fast, and now rewinding all the way back to a newborn he's never experienced. She's bracing for the arguments, the emotions, and Bodhi already insisting he's still the baby.

Then there's Cooper's big school shake-up. New class, new year, friends split up and reshuffled. Cooper came skipping out (mostly because the kid who wasn't nice to him got moved), and the mum group chat descended into chaos when Danny accidentally added himself to the wrong one.

Plus, this week's Mum's The Word Top Fives: the things your own mum and dad do that wind you up.

• The "he ate all his potatoes" fib no grandparent will ever admit to
• Insisting you were the perfect baby while your kid is apparently impossible
• Retired parents somehow being busier than you'll ever be

Grab a cuppa. This one's close to home.

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This week Kelsey Parker sits down with Shaughna Phillips for an honest chat about motherhood, grief and the beautiful chaos of raising two little girls.

Shaughna gets real about the jump from one to two, why baby Sofia has just had to "slot in", and why she's chosen to keep three-year-old Lucia home instead of sending her to nursery, five years full-time is all she gets, and she's determined to be selfish with it.

Then it goes deeper: losing her dad to pancreatic cancer at 22, the promise she made to keep his diagnosis from her mum, looking after him through his final months, and how grieving him as a daughter became something else entirely once she became a mum herself.

Plus the lighter stuff: Love Island auditions and every green light going her way, a pension committee job with 900 applicants after she left, and the psychic who told her Lucia "came out the sunroof."

Grab a cuppa and get comfy.

A Create Podcast

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Georgia & Kelsey aren't holding back this week. Gentle parenting? A generation of "snowflakes"?

Kelsey thinks we're raising kids who can't sit a driving test or face a job interview, and she's got the receipts. When Bodhi begged not to go to his gymnastics competition, she made him go anyway. He came home with a medal.

Georgia, the reformed shy kid, shares a story about her own dad refusing to let her quit a beauty pageant.

Inside this episode:

• Why saying "no" makes your child feel safer, not sadder
• The one parenting label that could be quietly damaging your kid
• The gentle-parenting "trauma" myth and what actually causes it

Plus: a homeopathy kit vs. a full Boots haul, feral camping toddlers, and the Skye Newman lyric no mum wants blasting from the back seat.

Top five holiday-packing regrets included, starting with the first aid kit Kelsey flat-out refuses to bring.

Grab a cuppa. This one gets spicy.

A Create Podcast

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This week Georgia Jones sits down with comedian and mum-of-three Hannah East for a chat that goes so far off-piste they have to remind themselves they're actually recording a podcast.

Turns out these two go way back: Georgia handed Hannah her prize at Miss Scarborough nearly two decades ago, and they've somehow retraced almost the exact same path from pageants and presenting to parenting content ever since.

Hannah gets real about building a following of hundreds of thousands from filming herself in wigs in her bedroom, the lactating video that changed everything after nobody cared about her fitness content, and going from five-people-and-a-bottle-of-red comedy gigs to a sold-out theatre tour her dad genuinely thought was a trip to the pub.

Plus all the good stuff: why Center Parcs is basically contraception parks, dressing your kids in high-vis so you don't lose them, the mental load nobody warns you about, husbands and their paddle elbow, and exactly what to do (and never do) in a school WhatsApp group.

Oh, and one of them may have fallen into a bush.

Grab a cuppa and get comfy.

A Create Podcast

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This week Georgia Jones and Kelsey Parker are joined by Tom Le Tissier, Head of Alleyn's Regent's Park, for a chat about school choices, screens and what actually makes children thrive, and yes, it's his very first podcast.

Tom explains the 11+ properly (Georgia had to Google it that morning), why more families are looking for a route around it, and how quickly children soak up their parents' panic.

Then it goes deeper: the difference between screen time and screen use, why an iPad should just be "an extension of the pencil case," and how we've got more protective in the real world at exactly the moment we should be loosening the reins. Plus teaching children to fail well, why the best athletes and musicians specialise late, and his top five things he wishes parents understood about school.

Kelsey opens up about how her daughter Aurelia was held after losing Phoenix, Georgia shares the maths teacher who put her off numbers for life, and Tom confesses to sprinting flat out in an inflatable shark costume while every other teacher was just having a laugh.

Grab a cuppa and get comfy.

Alleyn's Regent's Park is a co-educational preparatory school for children aged 3 to 11, offering an inspiring and joyful education in the heart of North London.

Set moments from Regent's Park and London Zoo, we combine 400 years of educational tradition with the creativity and forward-thinking approach children need to thrive.

https://www.alleyns-regentspark.org.uk/

A Create Podcast

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.