A teen birthday can feel like a total letdown when you’re a parent. Celebrating birthdays used to mean booking venues, choosing themes, organising cakes and getting revved up with maximum amounts of excitement. But when your children get older, they suddenly don’t want want all the fanfare. The good news is, there are still plenty …
Early teen
In many, many ways, my kids are spoiled rotten. They lead the kind of childhood that I hope they are proud of when they are old and tired like their mama. But, to me, there is a difference between being spoiled by experience and circumstance and being spoiled because the grown ups in your life …
Max’s amazing Pokemon party had some big make-it-easy Pokemon party ideas: like a storyline. From the very beginning of the party, the kids were all Pokemon trainers, charged with catching, training and battling a Pokemon. We had such fun coming up with some fantastic Pokemon party ideas that weren’t your average party games. Like all good …
The Pomodoro Technique for school homework is your basic game changer. A friend shared the idea when I asked for her tips to get the school homework done. I tried it out on my three kids the very next day and… we are converts. To use the Pomodoro Technique for homework, all you need are …
My kids walk home from school each day, plodding a well-worn path out the back of the school, down a track past the scout hall, across a local oval and playground and down our long, winding street by the bush. It’s about a 15-20 minute walk, depending on enthusiasm. Max, my eldest, begged me to …
My eldest son Max says he’s ready for high school. “We’re forming a gang, Mum,” he tells me. “It’s gonna have all the boys from my class who are going to our high school in it. We might ask other boys on the first day too. There’s gonna be 20, maybe even 100 year 7 …