Something funny happened at our house last week. At least I thought it was funny…
My daughter, Rebekah was in my bedroom chatting to me, then she went back to her room. I suddenly thought of something important that I could add to the conversation so I called out to her “bla bla bla”. I have forgotten the exact words that I said but that’s not important. What is important is what Becky said in reply.
She called back to me and said , “Mum, if you want to talk to m Read more
Lately I have had many parents asking me how they can better understand their children. So I wanted to take a few minutes to explain about the five love languages. I guess you either know about them or you don’t…
There is a famous author called Gary Chapman, who has written a book called “The Five Love Languages of Children”. In this book he talks about what we as parents can do to make our children feel loved. Now these things are not just related to children; they can be used with spou Read more
Ever wondered why some people are good at child discipline and others aren’t? Just like everything in life, there are strategies you need to follow in order to have a good outcome with your children. Allow me to share a recent incident in our family:
My 10 year old daughter Becky left a book at school. Not just any book. It was a library book that we had borrowed together form the public library. It wasn’t our property. That meant if she lost it someone would have to pay to replace it. And w Read more
Should we punish our kids? If so, how often and what for? Firstly, let me explain a difference to you. I discipline for three things: disobedience, disrespect and defiance. Anything else just doesn’t count as far as I am concerned. We need to concentrate on the major issues in life instead of focussing on the little things that don’t really matter that much.
Let me tell you a funny story: my 17 year old son recently got suspended from school for 20 days for doing a back somersault off Read more
Should I negotiate with my children? That’s a question I hear many parents asking. That’s a very good question. And to answer it, let’s look at how the world operates.
You want a day off work. You go to your boss and say “please can I take Friday off work as a flex day? If you let me, I will have such and such done on time and I will meet all my deadlines, I promise”. Your boss has two choices. He can say “OK, that’s fine, I will allow that to happen”. Or he could say “no, I r Read more
I’m sure I am not the only mum in the world who has to deal with nagging from my child. It is quite normal to have kids that nag. However it’s what we do with the nagging that is important.
I was chatting to a mother just this week who was telling me that her daughter wanted to go to a fancy dress party as Tinkerbell. The mother didn’t have anything in her house remotely appropriate for the occasion. But the daughter wasn’t happy with that outcome and proceeded to do a song and dance Read more
Anyone else have problems with the television and getting ready for school in the mornings? Should we make a rule that there is no television before school each week day, or should we just leave it up to our kids to figure out how to organise themselves?
This is a question that many parents struggle with. So what is the answer? It will be different for each individual family. I have a sister with three kids, ranging in ages from 14 years down to 9 years. She has the television on all morning whi Read more
Every family should have family meetings, no matter how small a family you have. If there is just one parent and one child, that counts as a family and you can have a family meeting.
The whole idea behind having a particular time to get together is all about letting kids know that they will be heard. Often, when my kids are annoyed about something I say to them “save it for the family meeting”. This way we can make sure that only the really important things hang around until family meeting d Read more
Did you know that when we are communicating well with our kids, there is not nearly as much discipline needed? My thought today is that when we get our quality time sorted out with our kids, the discipline won’t be nearly as necessary.
Do you spend quality time talking to each of your kids a few times a week? Or does life get away on you and do you spend more time coming down on them for the things that they do wrong? I know how hard it can be; I have been there. So I am not pointing the Read more
How do I get good kids you say? Well, there are various methods that you can use. I just want to tell about one specific method that I use with my children, especially my younger ones.
Last week, when my daughter went off to bed I went in and played her favourite CD while she was dozing off to sleep. Then I went to bed as I usually do, leaving the CD player running. Beck woke up the next morning, and seeing that the CD player was still running, got quite annoyed. I was in the kitchen preparing b Read more
