When my son was in reception class at school, he was labelled a “consistent work avoider”, as he, at the age of 4, would choose the mud kitchen over structured activities, within the free flow education they had in place. He wasn’t refusing anything, he just didn’t choose to hang out with his teacher. She concluded, (and I’m not making this up!) “He is not taking responsibility for his education.” She also called him “socially immature”. (Again, he was four at the time), but he had only one...

Central Park, Plovdiv, Bulgaria, August 2025 This week, I had four unique and separate conversations in completely different settings and within totally different contexts. One was about a challenging work dynamic in a team of highly over- and annoyingly under-achieving individuals, one was about some worrying behaviour of a child that has been spiralling for a while, one was about a relationship breakdown over a historical disagreement both partners simply couldn’t resolve, and one was about...

image ®Shutterstock My friend Katy and I were chatting this morning about this and that and I went into a little moan about my mum. ‘She doesn’t listen, she makes everything about her, she can’t accept how things are changing with age and then she complains when things get too much, she always wants attention but doesn’t give any to me’, you get the idea. My mum is 83 and actually in really good shape. It is just that things are getting a little harder and more tiresome, which she loves...