Does this school remind you of somewhere rather close to home?! In fact, it’s Cheadle Hulme School, the secondary school that I attended. Back in the day, I was on a free place, funded by Stockport Council because it was a ‘direct grant’ school.
‘You’re not LISTENING!’
How many times have we heard that frustrated cry?
Shortly before the end of last term, I took a day off work. The reason? A bad cold. I probably could have staggered into work and pretended I was doing a decent job, but the truth is, each counselling session takes fifty minutes of intense concentration and the fug of a cold really interferes with the process.
Losing a parent when you are young is, inevitably, sad and difficult. Sad but not inevitable is feeling that our parents are absent when they are actually still with us.
"Let me share something personal with you: I live in two different places!"
I had a proud mother moment at the weekend. I went to Oslo to the launch of the Oslo Triennale Architecture Festival, which my oldest son is co-curating with three other young architects. This is the son of whom I nearly despaired when he was a teenager – he was not sure of what he wanted, and we often found it hard to communicate. So, if you are having a trying time with your teenager – take heart…It can get better!
As with dogs, so with boys and ourselves!
… is my evasive answer to the pervasive question: “what will you do in your retirement?”. It enables me to avoid telling all my plans to all and sundry, but it is not at all false.
Several years ago, I worked with a boy who was having some very difficult friendship issues.
You had a really good week, but there was one event that spoiled it – and that is the only thing you can think about.
‘You’ve made your bed so you’ll have to lie in it.’ ‘Life isn’t a bed of roses’.
Not just another medical term, but a phrase coined by Richard Louv to describe the fact that people, and particularly children, are spending less and less time in direct contact with the natural world.
