Perhaps “How was school?” is less about our child’s day and more about our need to know they’re all right.

I’ve been thinking about what we ask of children when they’ve barely made it through the door and we expect them to sum up six hours of social, emotional and sensory life. Sometimes they don’t need questions yet. They need toast, the cat, something familiar and a little time before their words arrive.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

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What if all our helpfulness is telling our children that we don’t think they can cope?

I’ve been wondering when helping stops being love and starts depriving a young person of the chance to discover, “I can manage this.” Stepping back can feel like neglect, especially when we can see the forgotten bag, missed bus or awkward mistake coming. But perhaps becoming slightly less useful is part of preparing them, and ourselves, for what comes next.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

Perhaps your child’s sudden panic doesn’t mean they’ve made the wrong choice.

I’ve been thinking about the strange mixture of excitement and dread that can arrive before secondary school, sixth form, university or a first job. We’re often quick to reassure, advise or start packing another box. But every beginning contains an ending, and sometimes our children need us to stand beside them at the edge of change, without trying to pull them across.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

Your child may be watching for one result before they even open theirs - the result on your face.

I’ve been thinking about how easily a handful of grades can begin to feel like a verdict, not only on our children, but on us as parents. In this Parent Pause, I ask what our children might need from us in those first revealing moments.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

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I don’t think it’s only because we’re watching our children suffer. It’s possible because we’re remembering our own pain as well.

Watching a child standing on the edge of a friendship group has a way of waking up the child we once were. The one who wasn’t invited. The one who didn’t quite fit in. The one who wondered what was wrong with them.

In this Parent Pause, I’m thinking about why exclusion can feel so painful for parents, why our children’s stories are not the same as our own, and why resisting the urge to rush in and fix things can sometimes be the hardest and most loving thing we do.

Because perhaps what our children need most is not for us to remove every obstacle, but for us to trust that they will find their people and their place.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

Here’s some friendship advice I think we should ignore. Teach your child to be nice.

Of course we want our children to be kind. But over the years, I’ve started to wonder whether our determination to raise children who are agreeable, accommodating and well liked sometimes comes at a cost.

Because what happens when being a good friend means ignoring the uneasy feeling in your stomach? What happens when fitting in matters more than being yourself?

In this Parent Pause, I’m thinking about the difference between belonging and conforming, why children sometimes abandon parts of themselves in order to be accepted, and why the people we trust most are not always the nicest people in the room.

Perhaps our children don’t need the courage to be liked quite so much but they need the courage to be known.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

What if we’ve become a little too interested in how many friends our children have?

I hear parents say this all the time: “I’m worried because she only has one good friend.”Only one.As though one close friendship could somehow be considered a failure.

In this Parent Pause, I’m thinking about the difference between popularity and belonging, why being alone isn’t the same as being lonely, and why some children move through the world collecting friends while others choose them very carefully.

When we become so busy counting friendships we forget to ask a more important question: Are they good ones?

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

It might be us.

Every summer seems to bring with it a strange kind of pressure. Pressure to make memories. Pressure to be grateful. Pressure to make the most of every moment. And, of course, pressure not to compare our family life with everybody else’s carefully edited version of theirs.

In this Parent Pause, I’m wondering whether summer has a way of exposing all sorts of things in us - our guilt, our exhaustion, our need to be productive and our fear that we’re somehow getting it wrong.

Family life was never supposed to be efficient.

And children don’t need us to create the perfect summer, they simply need us to stop trying so hard to have one.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

Does anyone else feel as though they’ve become the activities manager of a very demanding holiday resort?

Every summer, I hear parents worrying that they aren’t doing enough. Not enough days out, not enough adventures, not enough magical memories. We seem to have acquired the strange idea that a good parent is an endlessly available source of entertainment.

But I wonder whether children need something rather different.

In this Parent Pause, I’m thinking about the surprising thing one of my grown-up children said to me recently, why I no longer believe parents need to become cruise directors, and how we may have underestimated our children’s extraordinary capacity for imagination, resourcefulness and play.

Perhaps our children don’t need us to create their summer.

Perhaps they simply need us to let them live it.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe

The summer your child remembers may not be the one you’re trying to create.

Every summer, I think many of us carry two versions of family life in our heads. There’s the one we imagined, full of picnics, adventures and magical memories. And then there’s the one we’re actually living, full of washing, work, hungry children and everybody asking what’s for supper.

But what if our children remember something entirely different?

In this Parent Pause, I’m thinking about the summers I remember from my own childhood, why children remember feelings more than activities, and how the moments that seem most ordinary to us can become extraordinary in hindsight.

Perhaps a good summer isn’t one we’ve carefully curated. Perhaps it’s simply one we’ve truly lived.

Thank you for pausing with me. Take care.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe