When I started teaching, I was taught that behaviour was about attention seeking and boundaries. We were told if children couldn't manage their behaviour, they should be asked to sit out until they could. The approach was one of firm adult control.

One warm summer day, I wandered into a bookshop in Hampstead, North London. Margot Sunderland’s book “The Science of Parenting” leapt out at me. I picked it up, started to learn about the brain, and didn't look back. I had found an approach that connected intuitively with how I wanted to work with children.

Since then I have learned about regulation and co-regulation; about how communication affects children; about sensory needs, the importance of movement in regulation; attachment; and how to talk with children about feelings.

I have also been diagnosed as autistic and I have become a mother to a neurodivergent child. I now teach others ways of supporting children that are nurturing, respectful, trauma-informed and neuroaffirming.

Changing our approach to behaviour and neurodivergence is the foundation of effective teaching and learning. It is also the key to making professional working lives rewarding as we reignite the passion and commitment that first brought us to working with children.

Parenting can be emotive, joyful and exhausting. It can be both rewarding and triggering, as we find ourselves reflecting on our own childhoods, our values and our hopes during the inevitable highs and lows it brings. The good news is that there are ways we can not only manage, but actually thrive as parents.