Parenting

After two little boys who had been fairly easy to teach about using the toilet - boys can have so much fun peeing on rocks and trees in the garden as they learn how their bodies function - my daughter simply didn't give a damn about peeing in the toilet. Until today.

“Help! I’m ‘home-schooling’, how did you do it?” asked my son’s friend whose kids’ school has been shut down due to the current health crisis. I home-schooled for ten years, four kids at home together ...

It can be so difficult as a parent to sift through a minefield of conflicting advice, can’t it? Who do you trust? Which advice is ‘right’? Where is this advice coming from? Almost as soon as you baby bump begins to show, it seems that everyone is an expert about YOUR baby! Whenever you hear advice that doesn’t feel quite right to you or if you…

Congratulations on your new baby. Taking care of your newborn is a learning curve for you and your partner. The thing is, supporting your lady can be almost as challenging as working out what your baby needs. If you are feeling as though you are opening your mouth and putting your great big foot in it, here is a quick lesson of things to avoid…

“I feel like such a failure.” I hear this every single day from mothers. The saddest thing is that every time I hear these words, the mother is doing a wonderful job: she is intelligent and responsive with a beautiful connection to her baby. Her baby is proof that she can’t be a failure – alert, animated and engaging. So why is her confidence so…

Dr. Elise Bialylew, is bestselling author of, The Happiness Planand founder of Mindful in May, the world’s largest online global mindfulness campaign that teaches thousands of people to meditate, while raising funds to build clean water projects in the developing world. She shares 6 ways to bring mindfulness into your busy day.

While it is awful watching a friend suffer with depression, especially if she seems to be pushing you away, there are ways to show your support. Here are some suggestions from mums who have been there. Consider which steps you can take, start small and please don’t take it personally if your efforts don’t seem appreciated right now. Remember,…

“I was incredibly stressed and I knew something was very wrong but I thought, I am a mum, I should be able to cope,” says Sandy, a Melbourne mother of two who was diagnosed with postnatal depression when her first baby (now three) was three months old. Sandy’s bubble of pretence burst when, after a few days in a mother baby unit, she was told it…

It is all too easy to feel overwhelmed by pressure to make this time special for everybody around you, often at the expense of your own well-being. After all, just because it’s ‘that time of year’, you don’t have any more hours in each day. The ‘silly season’ can be enough to try the patience of the most well-intentioned super-mummy and instead of…

Parent preference is a normal stage of development for babies, toddlers and preschoolers and it isn’t just about exerting control. At this stage, the frontal cortex is not yet fully developed and they can only manage to focus on one relationship at a time.