As the minutes tick down to school pick up time I start to steady myself for the onslaught. School pick up time is busy, isn’t it? The kids launch themselves, their school bags, their instruments, notes, lunch bags and other random paraphernalia at me, excitedly chattering about what’s for afternoon tea, what are we doing…
Make some paddlepop dress up dolls
I remember a couple of years ago I dummied up a craft tutorial on my blog to much merriment. How times have changed. I haven’t published many of them over here, but I made crafty stuff for Kidspot on a weekly basis and I thought I’d like to repub the especially cute ones over here…
10 cool apps for creative kids
There are so many apps out there that, quite literally at times, bring our kids’ imaginations to life. For me, screen time isn’t the big bad monster. It’s a fact of the times we live in and just as my eyes didn’t turn square from watching Play School as a kid, I’m pretty sure my…
How to keep kids busy in the garden
Getting outside is really good for us. That just feels like common sense, but Harvard Health has backed us up, saying that being outdoors is good for: Making sure we get enough Vitamin D – important for growth and development Getting more exercise – we move more when we’re outside Being happy – more light outside means a…
How to foster your child’s friendships
Ask any parent what they worry most about their child and, depending on circumstances, the majority will come back with some type of variation on making friends, being friends and keeping friends. It’s not necessarily about popularity, rather we are all obsessed with ensuring that our kids are never lonely. This used to be my…
13 really nice (mostly free) days out with the kids
These school holidays really brought it home to me: you don’t have to spend a lot of money to go somewhere nice with the kids. Zoo visits and theme parks and movies and tennis camps and play centres are wonderful things, but completely unnecessary for a good time. In fact, when it comes to things…
Raising a gracious loser
When we talk about ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ and teaching our kids how to be good at either, we are generally talking about sports, right? I’m not talking about sports. In fact, I try not to talk about sports very much at all. I particularly try very hard to avoid using sporting analogies for life because…
Don’t be scared of being scared
I used to have an irrational fear of my children feeling fear. See, I told you it was irrational. I’m scared of a lot of things. I’m scared of parties, politics and the weird elongated men that hide under my bed and try to grab my ankles if I don’t leap into bed from at…
Help your child march to their own beat
I have always loved that expression “march to the beat of your own drum”. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful way to raise our children – to be inward thinking rather than concerning themselves with what ‘others think’ all the time. Ah, the magic of freeing them from our own burdens!The trouble is, in order to march to…
I am a serial over-praiser
Apparently praising your kids too much is a bad thing. It demotivates them, tunes them out and probably has them saying my favourite ‘whatever’ quicker than you can say ‘good girl!’. Now, I am pretty sure I praised my seven year old daughter with great enthusiasm yesterday for going to the toilet to do a…