Gareth K. Thomas ❤️‍🩹

Ooooh... new book from Charlie Mackesy out this month. 😍

There's no parent-blaming here. My youngest chose to stay home and watch TV instead of walking the dog.

But I do worry. Where did all the kids go?

5pm, after school, on a mild September evening.

This purpose-built facility in our village is empty.

Not a child in sight here, or on the two surrounding playing fields, or in the two nearby playgrounds.

Keep school at school. Keep home at home.

For children with trauma, this is often essential.

Why do schools do this?

An email goes out asking, “Are you nervous about being back in school?” on the same day they’re putting a child into a “lunchtime lockdown” for chewing gum (a well-known regulation strategy for children with trauma).

From an interview with Peter Lamont, author of Radical Thinking.

All three of my kids were shown graphic videos of Charlie Kirk’s assassination yesterday.

They’re three different ages, in three different education settings (two of which have phone bans), across three local authorities.

One of my kids doesn’t have their own smartphone.

Would you say that's the primary driver of this increase?

UNDERSTANDING behaviour is not EXCUSING behaviour.

👉 Going below surface-level behaviour is not dismissing behaviour

👉 Being radically curious about behaviour is not accepting behaviour

👉 Accepting what drives behaviour is not endorsing behaviour

Therapeutic bath. 🛁 ❤️‍🩹

As our kids return to school, I’m thinking of all those wonderful security blankets in the form of humans who work tirelessly with our kids.

Children with trauma want a better life.

That starts with never feeling that scared again.

Is this sustainable?

From Lana Hempsall in The Spectator.

Tom Bennett: strict rules ‘dovetail perfectly’ with inclusion The DfE attendance and behaviour ambassador defends his record and tells Tes why he wants to check on teacher-training providers

www.tes.com/magazine/ne...

“A more substantial factor for me was the fact that staff and leaders said they felt safer and better trained,” [Bennett] said.

Fostering doesn’t have a recruitment crisis.

It has a retention crisis.

From Mary Wakefield in @thespectator1828.bsky.social.

We don’t have a behaviour crisis.

We have an understanding children crisis.

The job of adults isn’t just keeping children safe.

It’s helping them feel safe.

My son recently finished secondary school.

He was there for 5 years.

I never met any of his teachers.

We need an education and social care system that *knows* children.

Knows them on an individual basis. Knows their family. Knows their story.

We are moving further away from that with each passing day.

I’ve found that those times without tech (or at least communal/shared tech, such as TV) are often the best parts of my day. It feels like we’re together.

Thanks, Katie. Good to hear I’m not the only one.

Do you feel you’re in the minority amongst the families you know?

Can we normalise kids not taking mobile phones into their bedrooms?

We have this as a house rule (even when friends come over), and we’re very much in the minority.

I’m watching one of my kids thrive in part-time work.

After so many years in education, where the consequences of behaviour are illogical and unnatural, the consequences of actions in work make perfect sense. Seems a much better way of learning.

That’s so lovely to hear. It’s the book I recommend the most.

I jumped at the chance to help with writing the next one!

The original A-Z was my go-to as a foster parent.

Countless times I turned to it when I didn’t know what to do, and was given strategies and hope. It also helped me feel less alone, at points where I felt more alone than I thought was possible.

uk.jkp.com/products/th...

The news is out... following the success of the original A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting, I’m pleased to share I’ll be writing the follow-up A-Z (for teens and tweens), alongside the brilliant Sarah Naish, Sarah Dillon, and Sair Penna.

Is anyone else seeing this? Is anyone else worried?

Is this just the way the world is today (no big fuss), or should we be doing something about this?

I bump into my boys, who had gone out earlier to play cricket.

They’re both sitting on the ground, on their phones.

My youngest messages her friends, but they don’t want to go out because they’re busy with their game consoles, smartphones and VRs.

She’s not too bothered, because she’ll just watch TV instead.

The streets are quiet, aside from the odd dog walker.

I pass one child, on their own, riding their bike.

For the rest of my hour-long walk, I don’t see another child.