On Saturday 14 October, we held our first Parent Partnership talk of the new academic year, welcoming Alicia Drummond from The Wellbeing Hub into school. A well-known expert in parenting and education circles, Alicia is a BACP accredited psychotherapist, parent coach, sought-after keynote speaker, member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for a Fit and Healthy Childhood, author, blogger and a mother of two, and regularly sought after for her expert opinion by the media.
Alicia gave a talk entitled ‘Why Every Teenager Needs a Parrot’, based on her book of the same name, the parrot being a metaphor for an inner voice of wisdom for teenagers to draw upon in tricky situations.
Alicia’s talk aimed to help parents find the right balance between letting teenagers go and grow and keeping them safe as they negotiate the choices and decisions that are a part of growing up in the 21st century.
The session, held in the Quarry Theatre, was attended by over 100 parents of boys from all year groups in the Upper School. During the talk, Alicia provided evidence-based advice drawing on the latest research from psychotherapy, psychology and neuroscience, along with her experience of working as an adolescent therapist, to help parents to be proactive in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their sons.
Parents attending engaged with Alicia’s presentation, which prompted questions, discussion and sharing of personal experience throughout.
Parents commented afterwards:
“The Parent Partnership Programme is a fantastic resource to enable us to share information – as there is so much out there. This is a fantastic opportunity to get extra information and discuss as a big group, sharing questions and contributing to discussions. Today’s talk gave me another new tool, a new way of thinking and other views to think about.”
“The Parent Partnership Programme as a whole is just fantastic – very informative and I’m always learning new things. Today I learned to keep talking to my child regardless of their age, so they understand what the boundaries are.”
The school’s Parent Partnership Programme is now in its third year, and during this time we have welcomed a range of experts into school, including Dick Moore, Dr Kathy Weston, Fiona Spargo-Mabbs to talk about many of the different challenges along the teenage journey. In addition, we have held two Parent Partnership Wellbeing Conferences designed to equip parents with the tools to raise happy, confident and emotionally intelligent teenagers. 
With financial support from the Parent’s Guild, Mrs Fiona Whiteman, who leads the Parent Partnership Programme, explained, “It seemed that when our children are younger, we had far more contact with other parents and more support, but the changes that occur during the teenage years can sometimes be hard, bewildering and worrying, and emotionally we can find ourselves quite alone and worried.
“I was therefore keen to set up the Parent Partnership Programme, as I found in my Housemaster role that I was having many similar conversations with parents about the challenges we all encounter in parenting an adolescent son. What we have created hopefully provides a way to help us all to work together in supporting the boys as they grow.”
Thank you to the Parent’s Guild for their ongoing support of this programme.