Mothers Matter

Talking about suicide does not make it more likely that someone will end their life, it really shows that you care.  Rachel, a counsellor from  Papyrus,a UK charity for the prevention of young suicide, discusses with me what may lead someone to consider ending their life and how mothers or any concerned others can help prevent it happening. Counsellors such as Rachel are available on the Hopeline 0800 086 4141.  This is a safe podc...

What does 'normal' teenage behaviour look like? Erica Komisar, psychoanalyst, parent coach and author answers this and so many other questions. How can we maintain good mental health when our teenagers tell us we are useless?  Why are teenagers attracted to risky behaviour and what can parents do about it?  Do teenagers face more pressure today than in the past?  'Chicken Little, the Sky isn't Falling: Raising Resilient Adolescents...

What does 'success' look like for girls today?  How do we help our daughters cope with pressure, both from themselves and from society?  What is holding women back in the workplace?  Jo Wimble-Groves, author of the new book, Rise of the Girl, joins me to discuss how we can raise girls who thrive.  Jo runs her own business, is a founder of the organisation We are Girls in Sport, is a frequent speaker in school and is a mum of three....

Considering how your baby or child, and therefore you, can get more sleep often dominates a parent's waking, of which there are often many, hours.  Lyndsey Hookway, an expert in infant and child sleep, joins me to explore what a normal sleep pattern looks like for infants, strategies to help children sleep,  and how and why to try to stay calm in the middle of the night when your child has woken up AGAIN.  Lyndsey is the author of ...

Being unable to have the number of children you'd hoped for is so sad but secondary infertility is hardly ever discussed openly. It is emotionally exhausting coping with the relentless nature of keeping on trying either naturally or through IVF or other methods.  My guest in this podcast and I have both experienced hoping for another child who never came along, along my guest is young enough to still have hope and I am old enough t...

Universal Credit (UC) is now the main way of accessing government support for mothers whose income is low or non-existent.  Patricia Exley, a Citizens Advice manager, runs through the type of support available through UC, how to apply for it, and what the work commitments may be for those on UC. We also cover everything else I can think of to ask about, including the Disability Living Allowance for children.  To calculate how much ...

Attachment parenting is largely about meeting the needs of the child for love, security and closeness in the early days and beyond.  It has become possibly the mainstream parenting approach, or aspiration.  In this podcast Michelle McHale, Founder and Director of Attachment Parenting UK, outlines what it does and doesn't mean to adopt an attachment parenting style.  Positive discipline is an integral part of attachment parenting wh...

£3,763 was the amount of total unsecured debt per UK adult in Jan 2021. Lone parents are the most likely group to suffer persistent poverty, and single mothers are the most likely to experience in-work poverty.  In this podcast, Fiona Lloyd, from the charity Christians Against Poverty (CAP), explains, step by step, how to become debt free.  CAP helped 2,500 adults pay off all their debts in 2020, and are helping around 8,800 client...

In just a few lines of poetry my guest, Sarra Culleno, can encapsulate the experience of being a new mother, the deep-rooted impact our own mothers still have on us as mothers, the agony of separation from our loved ones in lockdown, the fear of waiting for a medical test result, the shift in identity between couples when a baby is born or the hurly burly of daily family life.  In this podcast we discuss these themes and more, whil...

Playing with children can be great fun, but also hard work, especially at 6am.  In this podcast Dr Pat Preedy offers parents excellent examples of how to enjoy our children through play, whether they are 4 months or 14 years old.  

Dr Pat jointly led the Parents and Carers as Play Partners Project through Middlesex Uni (Dubai), which supported parents in providing their children with play experiences that enhance their development ...

Thanks in large part to Diane Danzebrink and Rachel Weiss, my guests on this podcast, the menopause is being covered more often in the media, but there is still a huge amount of ignorance as to what the symptoms are and how to cope with them.  Diane, the founder of Menopause Support and the driving force behind the #makemenopausematter campaign, shares her personal experience of the menopause with us, and runs through some of the m...

Finding work which fits around being available full time for your children is challenging.  In this podcast I chat with 3 mothers who have managed to achieve this and who are willing to share their advice.  Elizabeth is so busy she can now turn away work as she takes on micro jobs for companies such as Appen, Tamsin helps mothers to identify their niche and set up their own companies, and Sarah has set up and runs Curly Cow which s...

Celebrating 30 years of the campaign and support group, Mothers at Home Matter, I have the joy of asking the Chair, Anne Fennell, all the tricky questions I've been asked as a media contact, such as 'isn't it a luxury to have a mother at home?' (spoiler alert: yes but it shouldn't be) and 'why do single income families pay more tax?'  I also chat with Becca Woollgar about why she set up local groups for mothers and what a joy volun...

Welcome to series 2 of the Mothers Matter podcast.  I'm joined by Zoe Gilbey, Nutritional Therapist, to discuss the joys of trying to feed our children (and ourselves) food which they like and is also good for them, in the time available.  We also discuss how food affects our immune system, the impact of stress on how we digest food, how to use food to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, what that even means, and much mor...

Tosh Brittan, aka the Divorce Goddess, was a stay at home mother, working for the family company, when she got divorced.  She worked hard for a non-confrontational divorce, rooted in kindness and mindfulness.  In this podcast she recalls the challenges she faced, not least in her own attitude, to achieve this, and how she came to set up Divorce Goddess to help couples transform the divorce and separation experience through the use ...