Years ago, when the children were small and there were only two of them, we would talk about our best and worst parts of the day at dinnertime. Gathered around our timber dining table, a candle burning, night falling, we started a tradition that has since become a...
So here we are. My son turns 18 very soon. EIGHTEEN! It feels bitter sweet, but mostly bitter. I see him there, this child about to be thrust into adulthood. He is six foot six, broad and big boned - incontestably a total unit. Larger than life and full of unstoppable...
OMG, teen romance! It deserves an exclamation point. When my kids started having (gosh) intimate relationships it was equal parts life-affirming and terrifying. Probably more on the terrifying side of things, now that I think about it. My four offspring are all...
Parenting teens is hard. So f*cking hard. But it's also delightful. Sometimes I'm so deep in the hard times that I forget about the soft moments. That buried under the knee-deep clothes on the floor, the defiance, the backtalk and 'the face' (parents of teens will...
From getting beyond drunk at a friend’s party, to some seriously questionable outfit choices, teenagers often do things that seem outlandishly stupid. But we now know why they make such bad decisions: the areas of the brain that control decision-making don’t fully...
When my kids were little, I used to be eager to get to the 'next phase'. Next stop rolling, walking, talking, solids, potty, preschool, letters, school, sight words, reading... On and on it went. I didn't yet realise that parenting is a marathon, not a sprint. When we...
It's seriously hard to Michelle Obama it in and go high when your kid goes low, or is that just me? Nothing pushes my buttons quite like an ungrateful, privileged kid trying to tell me how the world works. Worse, an ungrateful, privileged kid who we have raised to be...
Recent Facebook research revealed that Instagram and teen body image aren't good for each other. Here's what parents can do to undo the damage. One study by Facebook of teen Instagram users in the US and UK found more than 40% of those who reported feeling...
There are thousands (millions?) of books written about parenting, and definitely millions of websites (this one is number 902,145). They want to help us parent from pre-conception to pregnancy to newborn, toddler, preschooler, school age, tweens, teens and beyond. But...
Mums of babies and younger kids seem to share their day-to-day story all the time, but after that — crickets. In an effort to hear more from mums of older kids, we’re sharing this new series called How Mothers Work. We’ve asked mums we admire to tell us how they make...
The other day I was having such a chill, easy day despite doing all of my usual work and chores and workout activities — the phrase, “Life on Easy Mode” came to me. The rest of the week, I kept the question in my mind, “What would it be like to have life on easy...
Netflix series for tweens and teens that are interesting enough for adults are actually quite hard to find. Of course, you'll have your own idea of what kind of show is suitable for your child. It might be quite different to mine. So bear that in mind as you read...
I wrote an article about different ways to get into uni without an ATAR and I've been asked by so many people how to get early entry into university in Australia other than NSW. I covered NSW in the original article because that's where we live and my son had already...
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