This blog is for parents who want to read something original and real about parenting, not the same old same old…lots of science, lots of humour and a load of good tips that really work! And an occasional rant.
So it’s winter, it’s freezing outside, my brain has shut down to preserve its energy and I am hibernating. I am not a perfect mother right now. Luckily this week… I was directed to an article in the Daily Mail this week, reporting a mother’s concern about what her teenage daughter chose to wear to her 14th birthday party and… I have seen two representations of mums at Christmas on T.V. ads this year: the Asda mum is bright, cheery, attractive, and does all the work by herself without ever… Christmas is coming! I’ve already forewarned my children that we’re going to have a simple Christmas this year and pare things down a bit as money is a bit tight…. ‘So how’s the ‘teens traumatised by online porn’ thing going at your school then?’ I asked my teenagers as a means of encouraging some after-dinner conversation this week. ‘Oh. Um…. As we were watching the great/awful Saturday night T.V. last night, my daughter said to me ‘mummy, if I was in the final of the X Factor would you vote… A sense of humour is a great resource for parents when you can remember you possess one. We found ourselves this week going through all the phrases we have regularly used… My 15-yr-old son shaved his head last week and now looks like a Bhuddist monk. We have therefore accorded him the status Spiritual Leader of Our Family and look up… Half-term, and a 6-hour drive up to North Wales to see Grandma, with 50% of my children. Well, strictly speaking, maybe that should be 100% given that the older two… Thursday was International Girls Day and I couldn’t help but feel the irony of that this week, when the news about girls in this country has been so uniformly depressing…. My youngest child, my daughter, became a teenager the week before last, and last week my oldest son turned 21. Two very significant birthdays! My oldest and my youngest, the… In the olden days, children didn’t have emotional needs, they just had physical ones. They were fed, watered and sheltered, and that was generally thought to be enough. Job done!… Over the years I have often thought about what I would choose as my top three most important parent rules, apart from the obvious things of course, like having a… It’s that time of year again. Your child is starting nursery school, or ‘proper school’, or moving up to secondary, or going off to college or university. And you thought… Who invented the ‘parent voice’? Who was the first parent who decided on the range of voices we can use with our children, but never use on anyone else? I… I remember from my own childhood the gruelling hardship and discomfort of outdoor toilets and freezing bedrooms in the mornings, and have always felt that my children don’t get enough…
On Not Being Perfect
Teenage Girls Clothes Advice
Mums at Christmas
A Simple Christmas
Talking to Teens About Online Porn
The Importance of Honesty
A Sense of Humour
Asking Permission
The Larger Family
For Our Daughters
Your Children Will Turn Out OK
Children’s Needs
Top 3 Parent Rules
Letting Go
The ‘Parent Voice’
Misery and Hardship