What I Learned from Two Decades of Living Alongside Teenagers

If you live with teenagers, you’ll know this: they rarely open up when you ask them to. The truth comes late at night, just as you’re craving sleep and they’re coming alive — when their guard drops and the real conversations begin.

For more than twenty years, I’ve been part of those late-night moments — first as a teacher and boarding housemistress, then as a mother of teenage girls. In schools across the UK and Switzerland, I’ve shared quiet kitchens and tearful corridors with hundreds of teenagers. And those moments have taught me more about the teenage years — and about motherhood — than any training course ever could.

The Conversations That Changed Everything

The most meaningful lessons didn’t happen in classrooms. They came from whispered conversations behind closed doors: a girl panicking before exams, another frightened by her friend’s self-harm, another overwhelmed by trouble at home.

Later, they came from late-night talks with colleagues and wellbeing experts — all circling the same question:
How do we truly help teenage girls thrive, emotionally as well as academically?

One night in Switzerland brought the answer home. A new student confided anxiety and sleeplessness; another showed signs of self-harm. I listened and reassured, following every protocol. But when I finally sat down after midnight, exhausted, I realised that empathy alone wasn’t enough. I needed powerful tools that created genuine, lasting change.

The Turning Point

That moment changed everything.

I retrained — in Sophrology, professional coaching, hypnotherapy, and teen yoga. I immersed myself in the teenage brain, the nervous system, and evidence-based tools for calm and focus.

Slowly, the conversations changed too. We practised breathing before exams, visualisations for anxiety, and coaching questions that encouraged self-reflection instead of rescue.

And it worked. Confidence grew. Calm returned. Other students — and even colleagues and parents — began seeking advice.

But I noticed a pattern: after holidays, progress slipped. It wasn’t the girls who’d lost their footing — it was often their mothers, who were struggling to be everything to everyone and know how to best support them.

“I want to help her,” one mother told me, “but she won’t let me.”

The Hardest Shift of All

That’s the hardest shift we face as mothers — moving from fixer to guide.

When our daughters are little, we nurture and solve. Now, they need us to stand back, hold space, and stay strong. Yet no one teaches us how to do that.

We’re told to give them space but not how to stay connected when they shut us out.
We’re told to let them make mistakes but not how to cope when the stakes feel high.
We’re told to be their safe space but not how to hold that space when they’re angry, distant, or rude.

One mother I spoke with described it perfectly:

“I need to teach her it’s not okay to speak to me like that, but I also need her to know I’m her safe space. How do I do both?”

That question captures the heart of this season of motherhood — the tension between boundaries and connection, firmness and love.

Why I Created The Coaching Motherhood

After years of working with teenage girls, teachers, and mothers, I realised these closed-door conversations needed to become open ones.

The mission behind this business and podcast — and this work — exist to give mothers the calm, practical tools and coaching skills we were never taught: ways to regulate ourselves, listen deeply, and guide our daughters through the most complex chapter of their lives.

It’s for the mothers who lie awake worrying, who feel isolated, or who simply want to rebuild warmth and trust at home.

You’re not getting it wrong. You’re just in the hardest season of mothering there is.

A Small Reflection to Carry With You

This week, notice one moment when your daughter lets you glimpse her inner world — a quick smile, a passing comment, a text that feels more open than usual.

Don’t overanalyse it. Just notice it. Because those small openings are where connection grows.

If this resonates, please share this article with another mum who might need a moment of reassurance today.