Day 1 rearranged my head. I had been treating his attitude as a behaviour problem — rudeness, ingratitude, the whole lot. Nine minutes into the first video and I understood I was watching a scared kid, not a rude one. That single reframe changed how I speak to him. I stopped correcting the tone and started asking what happened before the tone. He's a different kid in the mornings. Four kids, no time, still finished the whole thing. That tells you something about how it's put together.

My husband and I both watched it, separately, then argued about it, then agreed. We were both rescuing. Different styles — I smooth things over, he goes in hard at the school — same effect. She'd stopped telling us anything because everything she told us turned into an intervention. We've done nothing for a fortnight except witness. That's it. She's started reporting things again. Small things. But she's talking, which is the whole point, and I don't think we'd have got there by ourselves

My daughter is the kid teachers love. Organised, polite, top of everything. So I assumed she was fine. Day 4 has three signs that 'I'm fine' isn't fine, and she had all three. All three. I read them twice and then went and sat on the end of her bed. Turns out she'd been eating lunch in the library since week two so she wouldn't have to work out where to sit. Six weeks. I had absolutely no idea,

The thing I want to praise is small and specific: you told me where to have the conversation, not just what to say. Side by side. No eye contact. Doing something with our hands. I'd been doing it across the kitchen table like an interview, which explains twelve months of one-word answers. We washed the car. He told me about a group chat he'd been left out of and then told me he didn't want me to do anything about it, he just wanted me to know. I nearly fell over. That single reframe changed how I speak to him. I stopped correcting the tone and started asking what happened before the tone. He's a different kid in the mornings. Four kids, no time, still finished the whole thing. That tells you something about how it's put together.

The Alex story did it. My boy went completely still watching it and then said 'that's what it feels like.' He's never had words for it before. He's not a talker. But he had words for it after that, and he's used them twice since — once about a teacher and once about a kid on the bus. The conversation cards changed the dynamic in our house and I'm not exaggerating. She picks a card, she asks the question, and the rule is the adult answers first. As a stepmum that order matters enormously — I'm not interrogating her, I'm going first and being honest, and then she chooses how much to give back. We've done them at dinner four times now and the younger ones want in. That's not what you designed them for but it's what's happening

The conversation cards changed the dynamic in our house and I'm not exaggerating. She picks a card, she asks the question, and the rule is the adult answers first. As a stepmum that order matters enormously — I'm not interrogating her, I'm going first and being honest, and then she chooses how much to give back. We've done them at dinner four times now and the younger ones want in. That's not what you designed them for but it's what's happening.