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I raised five children. They all have different personalities. All of them have different issues, different levels of success. That was a learning experience for me.

I'm afraid the parenting advice to come out of developmental psychology is very boring: pay attention to your kids and love them.

Having kids has proven to be this amazing - for me, this amazing source of ideas of anecdotes, of examples, I can test my own kids without human subject permission, so they pilot - I pilot my ideas on them. And so it is a tremendous advantage to have kids if you're going to be a developmental psychologist.

I started my career in parent education with the idea that we needed to let our kids go. I believed that parents were suffocating for their children. There was no room for individuality and personhood.

I was a problem child, and problem children do the seemingly insane because they are trying to find out how to fit into the scheme of things.

I was a loner as a child and happiest at home, launching toy rockets and aeroplanes. When I started causing trouble in my third year at grammar school, Mum was really surprised. My parents sent me to a child psychologist, who suggested I might have Asperger's syndrome.

Working with children has done well for me. I don't find them intolerable or frustrating. They're just fun, full of energy, and happy to be there.

When you have kids, for me, it really changed me. I was always empathetic to other children, but now I'm so much more sensitive to children that aren't my own.

I had a very complex childhood, and when I met my wife, because she has a master's in psychology, she promoted me into getting help. It really has helped. I'm not healed yet, but I'm working on some issues I had as a child.

I guess some kids around me had to grow up quickly, had all those problems. But I wasn't one of those kids, or around those kids, not at all.