That gap between loving them in a protective cocoon and letting them experience the struggles and hardships of life is so hard for parents. Even a butterfly has to leave that protective cocoon and fly. Parents are often told they are overprotective. It’s not good. Do different. There’s a lot of fear around what might happen to our children… View Post
Welcome to part two of a series about encouraging independence in school-aged children. Parents know they should, but in an age of overprotective parenting, it’s just easier, quicker, safer- insert your word here too if we control it all. I hope we can take a fresh perspective to our ideas about independence during the school years. I’d welcome your feedback…. View Post
Welcome to a series about encouraging independence in school-aged children. Parents know they should, but in an age of overprotective parenting, it’s just easier, quicker, safer- insert your word here too if we control it all. I hope we can take a fresh perspective to our ideas about independence during the school years. I’d welcome your feedback The journey from… View Post
As children move through the grade levels they start to have more tests and quizzes. Since the results are in numbers they are quickly translated into the letter grades. I’m a big fan of summative assessment at the end of work that sums up what’s been learnt in a few sentences and one thing to work on. This is where… View Post
Routines and Rhythms become more important as our lifestyles change. In the early years there were a lot individual milestones like walking, reading first words, blowing bubbles, staying and playing with something for longer and longer times. As we move on into the school years we need many more whole family systems. Systems where we all have to work… View Post
Everyone has a slightly different laundry system. In most families, it falls to one person to push through the days or weeks laundry. Whether you have a large family or not children can learn how to do laundry. It’s just a system. Being able to do your own laundry is an anticipated family rite of passage. Children love the responsibility of… View Post
We know about Early Childhood, Tweens and Teens but what is that time between Early Childhood and Tweens all about? We discuss that school aged time I call Midhood that starts at aged 5 and goes through to about 12. Today I want to talk about the importance of the school age years and how this overlooked time really… View Post
Without all the go go go of the holiday season you could be really enjoying the season. Have you noticed your calendar getting full? That time comes from somewhere. We found in our family that it was our downtime. It was our connecting time over meals. It was our unscheduled evening. This tilt from stillness towards busy happened slowly and… View Post
Are there gateway ages or specific markers in your family when special things happen? Examples might be doing laundry by themselves, collecting for a charity via shoebox or a mission trip or a special trip with a parent/grandparent? Usually when we talk about rites of passage we think of birthdays, weddings or graduations. These are usually grand ceremonies that take months… View Post
If you’ve not seen,Raising a digital kid without having been one by Galit Breen of theselittlewaves.net you are missing out. It’s a really good TED talk. Galit is our guest today and is author of the book Kindness Wins. In an age of grit, perseverance and growth mindset some of the other skills like kindness have taken a… View Post
If you are a parent of a school aged child and you’re out of the breastfeeding, baby led weaning stage it can be hard to find your people online. Each stage of parenthood is just a big ball of lots of questions and like everyone else I loved going to forums and Facebook groups to get real answers and share… View Post
Today we’re continuing the theme of Life Skills but not the practical hands on life skills of mowing the lawn or following a system like learning how to use a washing machine. We’re going to look at 10 social life skills. Social life skills are trickier to pin down. Just like life skills over time practice makes it easier but… View Post
