Inside the edition.
From the Editor This volume opens at the end of the school year, the half-term when families begin to notice the next one approaching. Endings hold a particular weight in childhood. The pages that follow are written to sit alongside you through that quieter, less-spoken-about season. The editors at Kensington Square Therapy The Parent Book · Volume I
“The hardest things in raising them are the ones nobody warns you about.” From the manifesto
The chapters your community is actually navigating.
Your school’s focus chapter
The year group, transition, or stage that matters most this year, configured per school. For a prep school it might be the 11+. For a senior school, GCSEs.
Anxiety
Worry that follows a child into the day, into bed, into the classroom. What helps, what doesn’t, and how to tell when to speak to someone.
Sleep
Bedtime, night wakings, the body’s sleep architecture as children grow. The one intervention that does more for everything else than any other.
Friendships
The social complexity of school years. When friendships shift, what to do when your child is left out, the difference between conflict and bullying.
Screens
What “just one more video” is doing to a young brain. How to think about phones, social media, gaming, and the long arc of a digital childhood.
Transitions
Starting school. Changing schools. Moving up. Moving on. Why transitions look like behaviour problems, and what calm support looks like.
Perfectionism
The patterns that begin early and consolidate later, particularly in high-achieving school cultures. How to hold a child who needs to be the best.
Regulation
Big feelings in small bodies. What co-regulation looks like at three, at seven, at eleven. And what to do when you yourself have lost it.
These are the eight chapters we start most schools with. We add and remove as the community shifts. Some schools run a smaller set, others a larger one. The shape of your library is part of the partnership conversation.
Six kinds of resource, held together.
Articles
Long-form pieces written from the counselling room. Calm, considered, the questions parents actually ask. Each article is short enough to read in five minutes, deep enough to sit with for a week.
Films & podcasts
Curated TED talks, conversations with parenting experts, episodes from the most thoughtful podcasts. Surfaced and grouped by chapter so parents don’t have to hunt.
Books
For parents and for children. Cover art, age band, one-line note on what helps. Books are filtered by your school’s ages and gender, so parents only see the titles that actually fit their family.
Activities to try at home
Small, gentle, evidence-informed things to try with a child this evening. Step-by-step, written by clinicians. The kind of thing a parent reads at 8pm and tries before bedtime.
In-school signposts
Every chapter ends with the named pastoral people in your school the parent can speak to (class teacher, pastoral lead, SENCo), and when to reach out to each. So the library doesn’t replace the school. It points back to it.
Clinical pathways
Where the school’s pastoral team isn’t enough on its own, clear and calm signposts to clinical support. Kensington Square Therapy’s own routes (parent consultation, in-school counselling, 1:1), and external charities and helplines.
From a worry, to a way through.
A parent has a question.
Something about their child has shifted. A sleep regression. A friendship rupture. A wave of anxiety before school. They open their school’s edition of The Parent Book on their phone or laptop. (Each school has its own subdomain and access code.)
They find the chapter.
The home page shows the eight chapters as a calm grid. Anxiety. Sleep. Friendships. Screens. Transitions. The chapter that matches what’s happening tonight. One click.
They read what fits.
Inside the chapter: short articles for parents who want to think it through. Quick reads for parents who have ten minutes. A film if the parent is more of a watcher. A book recommendation for the long arc. An activity to try with their child this evening.
None of it is mandatory. None of it is “the answer”. Each piece is a different door into the same room.
They know where to turn next.
Every chapter ends with two routes: the named people in school the parent can speak to (class teacher, head of year, pastoral lead, SENCo), and where it would help, clinical support from Kensington Square Therapy. So the library never leaves a parent stranded.
The library moves with the child.
Updated through the school year. New pages each half-term. The parent who arrived for the starting-school chapter four years ago will, by Year 6, find the 11+ chapter waiting. The same library, growing alongside the same child.
Editions through the year, in tandem with the school calendar.
The library shifts each half-term. Not because volume matters, but because what your community is navigating moves through the year. Exam pressure builds in the Spring terms. Sleep matters more in winter. Transitions matter most at the start of the year and the end of it. Your library moves with that rhythm.
The back-catalogue.
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I
Summer I
Transitions, endings, the next year ahead.
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II
Summer II
Long holidays, boredom, sibling life.
The Parent Book is a serialised publication. Volumes are refreshed at the start of every half-term and stay in print for the half-term that follows. Back-issues sit here for parents who want to return to a page.
Therapists, working with school communities day-to-day.
The Parent Book is written and curated by counsellors at Kensington Square Therapy, a counselling practice that sees children and parents weekly across the counselling rooms in Kensington. We sit alongside several London schools as their pastoral therapy partner, and we write from what we hear in the room.
The site is not a marketing tool. It is the working library that parents at our partner schools use through the year. We don’t sell anything from it. We don’t track who reads what. We don’t add content that the community didn’t ask for. It’s a quieter kind of resource.
Start the partnership conversation.
We partner with a small number of schools each academic year. Tell us a little about your school and we’ll come back to you within one working day.
All enquiries are handled personally by the partnerships team at Kensington Square Therapy.
We hope this volume held something for you. Tell us what to write more of.
Index by theme
- Anxiety, Anxiety · how it shows up sideways in children · p. ii
- Assessment year, 11+ & Common Entrance · holding your child through the year · p. i
- Bedtime, Sleep · what the hour before bed is for · p. iii
- Calm, performing, 11+ · why parents stop trying to · p. i
- Comparison, 11+ · the parent WhatsApp groups · p. i
- Co-parents, agreement, 11+ · what to agree on · p. i
- Friendships, Friendships · rupture, repair, the long road · p. iv
- Home, gentler than the year, 11+ · what helps · p. i
- “I can’t do it”, Anxiety · what it usually means · p. ii
- Mock results, 11+ · reframing a difficult one · p. i
- Naming feelings, Anxiety · the one sentence · p. ii
- Night fears, Sleep · what tends to settle them · p. iii
- Pastoral team, the school’s · when to use them · throughout
- Pressure, radiated, 11+ · where it comes from · p. i
- Routine, settling, Transitions · the week before school · p. vi
- Screens, Screens · what the research actually says · p. v
- Sibling life, Friendships · the first relationships · p. iv
- Sleep regression, Sleep · what to do · p. iii
- Sunday, homework-free, 11+ · the weekly activity · p. i
- Transitions, Transitions · year-end, new year, new school · p. vi
- Worry, the parent’s own, 11+ · when it’s harder than theirs · p. i
Twenty-one entries in Volume I. The index will fill out as the back-catalogue grows. Suggestions for future themes are welcome. Tell the editors.
For the families of Kensington Square Therapy’s partner schools, and for the children whose quieter feelings these pages are written to hold.
Finis