Parents

looking after our own needs

 Families, Parents  No Responses »
Jun 142013
 
looking after our own needs

Last week I took myself off for a wild and windy weekend’s camping. I’d reached the point where all those plates I was spinning in the air felt like they were about to come crashing down so I did what I needed to do to forget all about them for a while, and I’m lucky that I have older children who were very willing to do what was necessary so that I could get my break. I came back refreshed and weather-beaten to find that those plates don’t seem to be in pieces on the floor. They never are after I [...]

frustration

 Behaviour, Parents, Toddlers  No Responses »
Jun 092013
 
frustration

I was listening to a wonderful grandmother speaking on a radio phone-in this week, she was talking about how much she loved looking after her grandchildren. I think they let her speak for ages because she was so warm and sensible and laid-back about how she managed their behaviour and she was compelling to listen to. Her experience shone through and I was thinking how nice it would be to have a bit of that the first time round, when you’re the parent of small children. I know what I’d have done differently if I’d known then what I know now. [...]

britain’s got talent

 Parents, Teenagers  2 Responses »
Jun 022013
 
britain's got talent

So going on from last week’s blog, Facebook capitulated and agreed to implement all the recommendations made by the women’s groups, and a nice man from Nationwide went on the BBC News and spoke about how they’d withdrawn their ads from Facebook because everyone had to take a stand against misogyny. And this happened because three women got together with their mates and challenged a multi-billion dollar business. Or as I relayed it to my children: ‘David beat Goliath!’ I love a good David and Goliath story. Then on Monday another group of women got together with their mates and some [...]

messages from our culture

 Parents, Teenagers, Toddlers  3 Responses »
May 262013
 
messages from our culture

Welcome back everyone who had to make a bit of effort to resubscribe to this blog, and welcome new subscribers! Those who’ve been here for a while know that I write about my real life with my real children, with added tips for parents. The usual subtext is ‘Chill! The kids will be fine!’ Occasionally I get angry about something and go on about it, just so you don’t get bored with chilling. That’s what I’m going to do now. This week I’d like to talk about what society is communicating to our kids (with added tips for parents..). So [...]

things I do with my children (and things I don’t)

 Families, Parents, Toddlers  No Responses »
May 192013
 
things I do with my children (and things I don't)

 Call me a tiger mother, but I used to MAKE my children sit down to watch ‘Top of the Pops’ with me every Thursday evening. It was important, how else was I going to get my kids off  ’Wheels on the Bus’ and into a more sophisticated appreciation of music? (I know, I know). It worked though, the Ronan Keating phase didn’t last long, and we were soon finding the nuggets amongst the trash and setting off on a voyage of discovery of new music which continues to this day. It was all for me, not for them. By the time [...]

new technology

 Families, Parents  No Responses »
May 122013
 
new technology

Me’n’thekids had a chat about the Olden Days this week. We were all trying to remember a time before the internet, and I was having more difficulty than them in believing there was a time when I couldn’t do a google search. It started after I’d made a simple statement and it suddenly hit me that even a few years ago my sentence would have been indecipherable nonsense. What I said was ‘Oooh, someone’s retweeted my tweet’. We went on to make a list of all the other things we now say which would have been gobbledygook a few years [...]

punishment and reward

 Behaviour, Parents  1 Response »
Apr 282013
 
punishment and reward

Recently I have been getting Behaviour Recommendation reports for my daughter from school into my inbox at an alarming rate and it’s making me nervous. It’s not that I’ve never had these before for my sons, just that there’s been a healthy balance between these and the ones that say things like ‘failed to complete coursework’ and ‘was a bit too high-spirited in class today’. They all have collections of Congratulations postcards sent home when they’ve done something Really Good (‘Keep them!’ I’ve said ‘They may be good for job interviews!’) but they’ve tended to fall away after Year 7 [...]

how not to lecture

 Language, Parents, Teenagers  No Responses »
Apr 212013
 
how not to lecture

Here’s a little scenario from my family this week. Third Son was across the room on the sofa, Daughter was sitting at the table facing me. Third Son to Daughter: ‘It was really stupid of you to do that ‘rating people out of ten’ thing you and your friends did today’. Daughter, looking flushed and upset, angrily: ‘Alright!’ Third Son: ‘No but I mean you should listen to me, it made you look stupid. You shouldn’t join in with stuff like that’. Daughter, tears welling, still angrily: ‘Ok, ok, you didn’t have to look at it’. Third Son, triumphantly: ‘Well [...]

how we do car journeys

 Families, Parents, Teenagers, Toddlers  2 Responses »
Apr 062013
 
how we do car journeys

  We do long car journeys well now, me’n’thekids. We’re used to the 6 hour trip to North Wales to see Grandma, we know the rules and it all runs smoothly, except on the M25 of course where so often things don’t run at all. ‘Me’n’thekids’ this time meant three of them (it’s quite exciting never knowing what number it’ll be!) and it was the usual fizzy chewy sweets and salty savoury snacks junk-fest, and I bought them all magazines as a ‘holiday treat’ as I always have done. Or ‘mazalines’ as they still insist on calling them, like they [...]

family traditions

 Families, Parents  No Responses »
Mar 312013
 
family traditions

Easter Day, and the family tradition of  What we Do on Easter Day kicks in. My sister comes round with her two children (‘The Cousins’) and we play Music Scrabble whilst eating chocolate. Exactly the same as our Boxing Day tradition to be honest. ‘Music Scrabble’ was invented  way back in the mists of time and has developed over the years into a  game that works. On many levels. Every word put down has to be the name of a band or singer, part of an album title, or  justified by the singing of the song lyric in which it appears. [...]

the ‘odd’ child

 Behaviour, Families, Parents, Teenagers, Toddlers  2 Responses »
Mar 242013
 
the 'odd' child

Do you have an ‘odd’ child in your family? I’m only asking because I used to have one. He was odd right up to about the third year of secondary school and then he got a big circle of friends who I think normalised him. I’m saying ‘normal’ but he’s not really, he didn’t lose his uniqueness, he just got social skills. Some children take longer than others don’t they? I wonder about the social skills thing, because it often looks like abnormality or an underlying character defect whereas in fact it’s just not quite getting how to do the [...]

the problem with teenage girls?

 Parents, Teenagers  No Responses »
Mar 172013
 
the problem with teenage girls?

‘Aren’t you glad you’ve got a ‘parenting expert’ for a mum?’ I asked my kids after seeing the description of myself in the Mail’s You magazine this morning. Roars of laughter. They found it hilarious, always have done. I have to admit to a little discomfort about that title, because I think there’s far too much conflicting ‘expert’ advice out there already which can create too much pressure for parents. And too much guilt and blame. And fear. Ho hum. So rather than adding to all that, I’d like to take some away, which brings me back to the Mail [...]

other people’s treatment of your child

 Families, Language, Parents, Toddlers  2 Responses »
Mar 102013
 

We try to bring our children up according to our values, but other people may treat them in a completely different way, a way we really disagree with! People outside the family give them messages we don’t want them to get! Well-intentioned people may say things to our child which make them feel sad or bad, and we don’t want that. We want our messages to be reinforced wherever they go. They won’t be though. Even close members of the family like grandparents or aunts and uncles may treat our child in ways we disagree with. What do we do? [...]

explaining things to your children

 Behaviour, Language, Parents, Toddlers  2 Responses »
Mar 022013
 

I know that explaining things to your children is supposed to be a part of good parenting but I’m not sure about it, I’ve so often seen it done in a ‘this is why I’m smacking you’ kind of way. Although it obviously has its place in conversation, over-explaining a rule or an instruction to little children can just confuse them. Especially if you’re explaining why you’ve just said ‘no’. In the eyes of a child, every explanation you give weakens your argument. Every new reason suggests that the last one wasn’t good enough by itself, which is confusing for [...]

oh Lego

 Families, Parents  5 Responses »
Feb 242013
 
oh Lego

Oh Lego, Lego, Lego, my favourite toy when I was a child – EVERY child’s favourite toy, or all the ones I knew anyway. Oh Lego what’s happened? Why don’t you like girls anymore? Oops… sorry everyone, I went to write my blog and found myself writing to Lego instead! Sorry, I’ll go on with this week’s post. So, half-term and I found myself in Brighton, which is a place I only ever seem to go in school holidays when it’s packed, and I was there to do one of my favourite things, shopping for books. Just doing my bit [...]

feminism and values

 Families, Parents, Teenagers, Toddlers  No Responses »
Feb 172013
 
feminism and values

I am becoming a real feminist, I know this because my 16-yr-old son rolls his eyes and says ‘Honestly mum, you’re becoming a real feminist’ whenever I make a reasonable comment about wimmin’s issues. ‘Oh no’ I say ‘that must mean I’m old, ugly, boring and a prude with no sense of humour’. Ha ha. Because obviously I am none of these things. And this week when a man came to the door and asked if my landlord would be interested in something or other and I replied ‘My LANDLADY is in Hong Kong, so no I don’t think so’, [...]

birthdays

 Families, Parents, Teenagers, Toddlers  No Responses »
Feb 102013
 

Birthday season has just ended in our family. We have two clusters of birthdays a year, and this time it’s my second son’s birthday followed two weeks later by my third son’s. My birthday (or payback time as I like to call it) falls right in the middle.  When my children were little, birthday celebrations took such a lot of time and energy I was tempted to forget mine, thus tapping in to that rich vein of martyrdom I usually try to suppress. I was tempted to say ‘oh don’t worry about me. I’m ok. I don’t need anything. Really’, but as [...]

screen time

 Behaviour, Families, Language, Parents, Teenagers, Toddlers  4 Responses »
Feb 032013
 

There are lots of different screens, and when it comes to modern parenting they get lumped together as one thing: ‘screen time’ about which we have to have a ‘policy’. Different screens serve different functions though, so I thought I’d separate them: T.V. watching is a passive activity and not very beneficial for the under-fives, no matter how ‘educational’ the programme is, little children really need to be engaging with the real world, people and objects and real stuff. Too much ‘baby-sitting t.v.’ will be counter-productive for the parent seeking a rest, because behaviour at other times will likely be [...]

the archetypal mother

 Families, Language, Parents  No Responses »
Jan 272013
 

If you watch the t.v. or flick through a magazine you’ll see clearly how ‘mothers’ are supposed to be. Fairly attractive, slim, cheerful, caring, compassionate, and always smiling.  It’s as if all these different, interesting, unique people melt down to become one homogenised mass once they give birth. Like ‘motorists’ who wear tweed and spend all their time driving through beautiful landscapes. And ‘homeowners’ who are all respectable couples who read the Daily Mail and have one daughter and one son. In myth – and the tabloids –  the mother is either the nurturing caring ideal or one of those [...]

on not being perfect

 Parents, Teenagers  No Responses »
Jan 202013
 

So it’s winter, it’s freezing outside, my brain has shut down to preserve its energy and I am hibernating. And luckily this week I had an obliging child who got a coldy fluey thing just when I needed an excuse to get back on the sofa, cuddle up and hunker down. She wasn’t really feeling that bad, but you can’t take a risk can you? Best to look after a headache and a few snuffles so it doesn’t develop into anything worse. And it’s not like she’s got any exams or anything coming up. I thought we could spend the [...]

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