I’m Dr Davin Tan.

I’m a child and forensic psychiatrist, and I’m also a parent.

Those two roles do not always fit together as neatly as people might imagine.

I still remember a morning when my daughter did not want to go to school.

I had an important meeting. She was upset. I was stressed. She was picking up on that stress.

I made a decision I regretted.

I drove away while she was crying.

I still remember looking in the rear-view mirror and seeing her hand reaching out towards me.

I lasted about three minutes before turning the car around.

The meeting was cancelled.

My daughter went into class.

But I knew something important had happened.

For someone who spends his working life helping families understand emotions, it was a humbling reminder.

Knowing what to do and being able to do it in the moment are different things.

Parenting happens under pressure.

We are all capable of responding in ways we later wish we had handled differently.

That experience changed how I thought about parenting.

Over time, I became less interested in collecting more parenting strategies. I became more interested in the ideas underneath them.

How do we understand what a child is experiencing?

How do we respond when emotions are high?

How do we build relationships that help children develop?

These questions sit at the centre of Huddle Wisdom.

I share ideas from my work with children and families, and from my own experience as a parent.

The aim is not perfect parenting.

That does not exist.

It is about understanding children more clearly, responding with more steadiness, and repairing things when we get it wrong.