In this episode, Clare talks to expert guest, Dr Sheila Redfern about parenting teenagers and taking a relational approach to emotional regulation support.

They talk about the concepts of ‘reflective parenting’ and ‘mentalisation’, and how these help us to regulate effectively and connect with other people. Sheila shares the analogy of parenting being ‘like a lighthouse’ and the challenges that parents and carers can face when trying to balance separation and connection with their teenager.

Dr Sheila Redfern PhD is Director of Redfern Psychology Ltd and Head of Family Trauma at Anna Freud, the world-leading mental health charity for children and families. She is a consultant clinical child and adolescent psychologist and
the author of two books: 'Reflective Parenting' and 'How Do You Hug A Cactus?'

She has been in practice for over 30 years, and previously worked in the NHS as a consultant in CAMHS services, supporting children, young people and their families with various mental health difficulties.

You can find out more about Dr Redfern’s work at Redfern
Psychology.

She also shares three tips in the episode:

• Try to be curious at all times, reflecting on your own behaviour, as well as that of your teenager.


• Being able to regulate your own emotions and understand your own relationships can go a long way to helping your teenager understand how to do this for themselves.


• Try to remember that, up until the age of 25, the brain is constantly growing, changing and developing, and this can impact teenagers’ behaviour, thoughts and feelings.

A little more about Dr Redfern:

Dr Redfern works within an evidence-based framework of assessment and intervention. She has extensive experience of supporting the mental health needs of children and young people from a wide range of backgrounds and with different abilities. She has a specialist interest and expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of autistic children and young people, and in working with attachment difficulties.

Her work includes supporting parents and carers in bringing about a closer connection with their child where there are difficulties in the attachment relationship. She specialises in working with fostering and adoptive families and has developed a model of mentalisation-based parenting (reflective parenting) and mentalisation-based fostering (reflective fostering), both of which she delivers as interventions, as well as training other professionals and teams to deliver.

The My Family Coach podcast covers every aspect of children’s behaviour, all in handy 15-minute (ish) bite-sized chunks. Each episode features a new guest chatting about a different aspect of behaviour and leaves you with three handy tips to use at home.