
Colman Noctor: ‘Behaviour is always the signpost to a problem. It is very rarely the problem’
From Conversations with Parents by The Irish Times
April 21, 2026 · 50 min
About this episode
Colman Noctor discusses the challenges of parenting and the realities faced by parents despite theoretical knowledge.
Colman Noctor is a well-known child and adolescent psychotherapist, so you’d be forgiven for presuming with all this expertise at hand that he always gets it right when it comes to parenting his own three children. Not so, the father-of-three says on the latest episode, explaining his children “slam doors” and face the same “trials and tribulations” as the everyone else’s children. He shares the “sobering” moment he realised that you can read all the books and have all the theory, “but in Dundrum Shopping Centre when you’re kid kicks off, it’s a lottery. Parenting is an act of failure. It’s just not failing too much.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
People in this episode
Guest: Colman Noctor
Topics covered
- parenting
- child psychology
- family dynamics
- adolescent behavior
- personal experiences
Keywords
- parenting
- child behavior
- psychotherapy
- family
- adolescents
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The Irish Times
Places: Dundrum Shopping Centre
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