Yet again a post in this series is purely about pointing you to someone else’s cool post. Glennon Doyle Melton writes at Momastery about the difference between feeling like saying ‘no’ to someone or something and finding the words to actually say it. Even harder for teenagers, in endless intense situations with friendship capital at stake […]
At the risk of cheating in this series by pretty much stealing everyone else’s magic word… here’s the next instalment. Six words you should say today, from Rachel Macy Stafford in the Huffington Post: Very rarely does one sentence have immediate impact on me. Very rarely does one sentence change the way I interact with […]
A million years or several months ago I started a ‘series’ (of one item so far…) on Magic Words, the brilliant and amazing phrases we use with kids that are particularly excellent at getting something or other across. I have notes of a dozen Magic Words I want to write up, but to get the […]
When my baby started moving around and exploring, I heard myself saying ‘Be careful!’ an awful lot. My husband and I are pretty relaxed about SBJ taking risks and maybe getting a bit bumped. We don’t make a fuss if he falls over (when he falls over) and mostly neither does he. Our standard has […]
There is a special kind of heartbreak a parent feels when the meal they have cooked is described as ‘yucky,’ or refused altogether. If you are struggling with the stress, sadness and discouragement of battling with picky eaters (of whatever age!), this post is here to reassure you and help you and your family relax and […]
Lucy lured me back to the land of Twitter with her genius #sexisminparadise hashtag for discussing Air New Zealand’s foray into #everydaysexism. It’s been nice to be back. I spend most of my time there caught up with politics and feminism. And books! (So here we are.) The (not really from the) BBC book challenge […]
Alex, mother of two, possessor of a doctorate in literature and an extensive music collection, and my main source of mix-tapes, is also a regular reader and commenter here. She posted last week on the cool band They Might Be Giants and is back by popular demand (and my nagging) to vent about something before […]
Do you know someone with PND/PPD? The answer is ‘yes’ Around 10-15% of women who give birth experience postnatal depression, so if you know more than eight women who are mothers, you probably know someone who has been through it – whether she knew that’s what it was or not. Here are two facts you […]
Gentle parenting? I have a love/hate relationship with labels and jargon, in any field. I don’t like being put in a labelled box – who does? – but in a vast, Googleable world, knowing what keyword fits your life situation can be really handy for finding like-minded people or tailored advice. ‘Gentle parenting‘ is a natural […]
We’re in a tricky patch, just now, at our house. The kind most parents of little kids will recognise: this is a solidarity post with all of y’all. Our three-year-old delight, SBJ, is in the middle of a pretty intense, fragile time of life, and he’s (therefore) not the only one. For the first time, I feel like […]