The practiceWho is behind this
Kensington Square Therapy.
A small London therapy practice for children, young people, and the parents around them, and the editorial home of The Parent Book.
Kensington Square Therapy was founded in 2025 by Sam McManus, a therapist who has worked with children, adolescents and their parents since 2010, mostly within London independent schools and online. The clinical territory the practice knows best is the one this library is written into: families navigating high-expectation environments, accelerated developmental pressures, and the gap that can open between a child’s outward functioning and her inner experience.
The approach is humanistic and integrative. The position the practice works from is that children are not problems to be fixed but individuals whose inner worlds deserve careful, respectful understanding, and that parents are the people best placed to support that work when they have the right company around them.
The registrationTraceable, not decorative
The clinical foundation.
Sam McManus is a Registered Member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy MBACP and an Accredited Member of the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society NCPS Acc., holding a BA in Counselling and an MA in Humanistic Counselling Practice, both from the University of Nottingham, and has been in continuous practice since 2010.
The Parent Book is the practice’s editorial arm, founded in 2026. It is written by qualified therapists registered with the BACP and the NCPS, anchored to NHS guidance, the Anna Freud Centre, and the BACP and NCPS ethical frameworks, and it points generously to the wider network of services an honest single practice sits alongside.
A letterFrom the practice
Let us start by saying what The Parent Book is not. It is not the definitive book on parenting; there is no such book. Every parent we have ever worked with has come to us looking for one and left having learned something more useful: that the answer is not in any single resource, but in the careful, particular work of seeing the child you have in front of you.
What you will find here is a shared library, drawn from more than a decade of counselling work with children, adolescents and the parents around them. The chapters are not how-to guides, and they are not lists of five things to try tonight. They are written more like letters: long enough to make a thing land, short enough to read in a sitting, practical where something practical will help, and honest about the longer view. We try to write the way we talk with parents in the therapy room, which is to say plainly, with respect for the fact that you know your child better than anyone.
The library grows through the year and nothing is taken away. If there is something you would like written about, tell us at hello@theparentbook.com; many chapters started life as a single email from a parent telling us what they wished someone would write down. Our job is not to be the authority on your child. It is to think alongside the parent who is.
In plain detailThe institution
Kensington Square Therapy Ltd is a private limited company registered in England and Wales, Company No. 16707111, working within partner schools and online from London. The practice is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under registration ZC022097 and complies with UK GDPR. Sam McManus is the sole director and clinical lead.
Clinical lead: Sam McManus, MBACP, Accredited Member NCPS, MA Humanistic Counselling Practice.