The Parent Book
Supporting you
as you support your child.
Parenting does not come with a script. Even in thoughtful, caring families, there are moments when things feel uncertain. You are not expected to navigate this alone.
Building a team around your child
Children thrive when the adults around them feel confident and aligned. Our work with parents is grounded in the belief that lasting change often begins not with fixing a child, but with strengthening the system around them.
Parent consultations offer a professionally governed space to think carefully about family dynamics, understand emotional patterns, and consider how the pressures in your child’s world are landing at home.
These are not quick-solution conversations. They are thoughtful ones. We help you think clearly, so that you can act with greater confidence and steadiness.
Parent consultations are available
Whether or not your child is attending therapy with KST
Independently of any school referral or professional recommendation
You may find a consultation helpful if…
Parenting in independent school environments brings particular pressures around performance, comparison and expectations. These moments do not always require clinical intervention. They often require the right conversation.
Your child is showing signs of anxiety or emotional difficulty
Withdrawing, becoming distressed, struggling to manage feelings, or responding to school pressure in ways that concern you.
You are unsure whether your child needs therapy
A parent consultation is often the most appropriate first step. It helps establish whether individual sessions are right, and at what point.
School pressure is affecting life at home
Academic expectations, friendship difficulties or the 11+ are creating tension that you want to understand and respond to more effectively.
You want to reflect on patterns within your family
Communication, boundaries, expectations or dynamics between family members that you want to think through with a professional.
Your child is in therapy and you want to support the work
Understanding how counselling works, what themes are emerging, and how to create the right conditions at home.
You are navigating a period of family change or difficulty
Separation, transition, loss, or a shift in family dynamics that is affecting your child and your sense of how to respond.
Structured, adult-focused, professionally governed
Each session is 50 minutes and led by an experienced child and family therapist. There is no fixed commitment. Some families attend once and leave with clarity and direction. Others return at key moments of development or transition.
These consultations are independent, adult-focused, and entirely separate from your child’s therapy. You do not need your child to be in counselling to book one.
50 minutes
Online, by phone, or in person at our centre, 23 Kensington Square, W8
One or both parents or carers are welcome
An experienced therapist, or another specialist within our multidisciplinary network, matched to your family’s individual needs
No fixed number of sessions. Single consultations and short series are both available
One complimentary consultation, included as standard
When your child begins counselling with KST, one parent consultation is offered at the outset at no additional charge. This is not an optional add-on. It is part of how we work.
The session provides space to understand how counselling works, reflect on themes at home, clarify confidentiality boundaries, and ask questions.
Further consultations can be arranged at the standard fee, and are often beneficial at key moments during the therapeutic process.
Counsellors do not share detailed session content with parents. They can discuss general themes, areas of focus, and supportive strategies for home.
Parent consultations are confidential in their own right. What you discuss is not automatically shared with your child’s therapist, or vice versa.
Information is only shared where you provide consent, where there is a safeguarding concern, or where there is a risk of serious harm. This is discussed clearly at the outset.
All KST therapists are DBS checked, insured, professionally supervised, and work within recognised ethical frameworks.
Fees
Fees are discussed individually at enquiry. The right structure depends on what your child needs — sometimes a single conversation gives a family the clarity they were after; sometimes ongoing work over a term or longer is the right shape. We agree the structure and the cost together at the start.
Reduced-rate slots are reserved each term for families where cost is the obstacle.
Make an EnquiryWondering what a first session is actually like? We have set out the steps plainly on what to expect →
Coherence, not overexposure
Where appropriate, we support joined-up communication between home and school. The aim is to ensure your child is surrounded by adults who understand each other and are pulling in the same direction.
Working alongside pastoral and safeguarding teams
We work constructively with pastoral leads, SENCOs and safeguarding teams across the schools we partner with, as well as in other schools where a family may need support. The goal is for everyone around your child to feel informed, aligned and confident.
Supporting you in advocating for your child
We can help you understand what adjustments or considerations may be appropriate to request from a school, and how to communicate these effectively within the school’s pastoral structure.
Multidisciplinary thinking when complexity arises
Where appropriate, we draw on our professional network including Speech and Language Therapists, Educational Psychologists, Psychiatrists and other specialist practitioners. Not every difficulty requires a clinical pathway, and we are careful not to over-medicalise ordinary developmental challenges. Families are not left navigating complex systems alone.
Resources we have made for you
Parent consultations sit at the centre of how we support you. Around them, we have built two further resources, each free in its own way, for the daily realities of parenting.
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The Parent Book.
A therapist-written parenting library, refreshed each half-term, available through your school as a partner or by individual subscription at £99 a year. Short considered chapters on sleep, friendship, the assessment year, transitions, low mood, and the questions that arrive most often in the counselling room.
Two ways in -
Wellbeing Tips
A small family of free at-home tools for breath, regulation, sleep and the daily small moments. Built by KST for any parent who needs them. One tap, always free.
wellbeing.tips
Reading, for the questions parents bring us most
Three short pieces from the current library, written by the therapists at KST. The full library lives at The Parent Book, available through partner schools or by direct subscription.
On night wakings and night fears
A calm short chapter for the worry that will not leave at 3am. Practical, considered. For parents trying to settle a child after a long week.
Read on The Parent Book → The assessment year · The Parent Book.Holding your child through 11+
Five minutes of reading on exam pressure, the gap between effort and outcome, and what to say after a hard mock. Linkable for pastoral staff.
Read on The Parent Book → A library that moves with them · The Parent Book.Inside the current edition
What is currently in print, the chapters and conversations open this half-term, refreshed for what parents are actually carrying right now.
See the current edition →Frequently asked
Is this therapy for me, as a parent?
Parent consultations are therapeutic in character but are not the same as ongoing adult therapy. They focus on your role as a parent and the dynamics around your child. If you are seeking personal therapeutic support for yourself, we can discuss referral to an appropriate specialist within or outside KST.
Can I book a consultation if my child is not in counselling?
Yes. You do not need your child to be attending therapy. A parent consultation is often the right first step, particularly when you are uncertain whether your child needs individual support, or simply want to think through what you are seeing at home.
Will you share what we discuss with my child or their therapist?
Not automatically. Parent consultations are confidential within standard professional and safeguarding boundaries. Information is only shared where you consent, or where there is a safeguarding concern or risk of harm. What your child discusses in their own sessions is similarly protected.
Can both parents attend?
Yes. Sessions are available to one parent or to both together. Where parents are separated, individual consultations can be arranged. We are flexible and will always follow whatever arrangement is most appropriate for your family.
Not sure where to start? That is exactly where we begin
All enquiries are handled personally and with care. We aim to respond within one working day. Fees are discussed during the initial conversation, so we can shape the right arrangement for your family's situation.
Get in Touch