Practical advice, tested techniques and real stories about what helps

Parenting and caring for a child who is struggling to cope can be painful and stressful, and can make it very hard to enjoy life yourself. Feelings of blame, guilt, sorrow, despair, fear and frustration may be swirling around alongside a desperate desire to cure their pain.

Although parenting a child who is experiencing difficulties is a common problem, we can feel desperately alone when it is happening to us. When someone we love is struggling - for whatever reason - we may become unhappy too. For countless parents and children there are problems with no easy solutions. However, that's where this book comes in. It aims to help understand for ourselves what we can and cannot do; to help us to accept any distress, worry, anxiety, sadness or loss of control in our situations; to see that we can tolerate these things; and to know that there are ways to move forward.

This book is packed with stories from real parents, combined with information from psychological research. It will show you how you can manage to obtain comfort from knowing you are not alone, get help from resources and techniques that really work, and find hope that things can and do change for the better.

Roz Shafran is a clinical psychologist and professor of translational psychology at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. She has written several self-help books including Overcoming Perfectionism and The CBT Handbook. She met Ursula Saunders at University, where Ursula was studying English. She is a fundraiser and has worked with bereavement and parenting organisations. Her current role is with an environmental charity. They invited their friend Alice Welham, another clinical psychologist with a special interest in intellectual disability and complex needs working at Leicester University, to join them in writing this book. Between them they have seven children, and live in Hertfordshire, Oxford and Birmingham respectively.