Understanding your child: The online parent handbook

Log in

Home

> About Us

> Togetherness impact stories

> All impact stories

Understanding your child: The online parent handbook

Our positive impact on helping families parent with Togetherness.

Parenting can be challenging, as much as it is rewarding; whether it’s the infancy or adolescence stage of a child’s development. Whilst there isn’t a handbook for the unique experience of parenting, The Togetherness online pathway, Understanding your child: from toddler to teenager is our guide to parenting with ‘togetherness’, helping parents and caregivers to better understand childhood development and emotional health to support their child’s journey.

Helping families navigate every stage

In today’s changing world, it offers practical guidance and expert insights to help them nurture wellbeing, resilience and emotional awareness in their children.

The pathway translates complex theory into accessible, everyday strategies that aim to help parents raise thriving individuals, in whatever developmental chapter. Exploring the key Solihull Approach model concepts of emotional containment, reciprocity, and behaviour as communication, the pathway is informed by years of experience working with babies, children, and young people.

Short, bite-sized chapters explore brain development and how it affects behaviour, emotional regulation and sleep; as well as exploring parents’ own wellbeing, and how to build stronger, more connected relationships at home.

Engaging with the pathway invites caregivers to take a step back, hear from other parents, and reflect on their own experiences. During each chapter, parents are encouraged to journal, helping them to process and apply their learning in a meaningful way that fits with their family, while also helping them to keep a personal record of their journey. This self-reflection has enabled many parents to articulate the positive impact the pathway has made on them.

The parents’ perspective: In-person parent groups

The Understanding your child: from toddler to teenager pathway is an online adaptation of our highly rated face-to-face parent group. Proven to make a difference in children’s behaviour and reduce parental stress., it’s highly rated by NESTA PaSCAL, and rated by Foundations.

For one Doncaster family, joining our highly-rated Togetherness parent group came at a time when they were quite desperately looking for support to better understand their son, strengthen their co-parenting and navigate the challenges of separation anxiety and struggles with getting him into school.

“I’ve really enjoyed the pathway and it has helped reflect on my own reactions so that I can help my son deal with his own anger better. I have already seen an improvement and I definitely think more before I react to his behaviour.”

When families need a little extra support

The course gave them the confidence to pause, listen to one another and approach parenting as a team. Through shared experiences with other parents, they realised they were not alone in facing challenges and found reassurance, encouragement and practical ideas they could use at home. The welcoming, supportive environment helped ease their own anxieties, turning what they expected to be a formal course into a community where lasting friendships were formed.

“We joined the group because we wanted to improve our parenting – try to understand our son a bit more. We’re struggling with getting him to go into school, with co-parenting, so we wanted to give anything a chance. For the past two years, he’s also had separation anxiety. When he goes to school, he’s sick. And we were just coming to the point where he’s going up to reception, we needed help, and then we were referred to this group.”

How we’re doing so far

96% found the course helpful

92% would recommend to others

95% enjoyed the course

Continuing the parenting journey

Inspired by the experience, the family has chosen to continue their parenting journey by enrolling on more Togetherness pathways. They describe the course as an opportunity not only to support their son, but to grow together as co-parents – sharing a consistent approach, building stronger relationships, greater confidence and a renewed belief in themselves.

“Our facilitator, she’s amazing. They’re not just classes – they’re parent meetings. It’s not anything to be scared of, they make you feel really welcome. We’ve learned a lot from all the other parents as well, with what they’ve gone through – you’re not on your own. They give you a lot of advice and different styles for how they cope with their children.

We’d definitely attend another group. This one inspired us to go a bit further and see if we can better ourselves, not just support our son.

We’ve taken lots from the group. We’ve improved listening to each other. We listen to each other’s thoughts and views, stop and think about things before we speak or act. You take a minute out, you step back… do a dance, if you never know what to say!”