Over / under scheduling children's activities
The opportunities available to children today in terms of
extra-curricular activities have grown enormously in recent years.
Where we once had to wait until age 7 just to join our local brownies or
scouts, we now have music classes for babies, French for toddlers and
even circus skills for under 5’s, all within striking distance.
Understandably, this often leaves parents worrying about how to squeeze
even more into their already hectic days in order not to feel that their
children miss out socially, developmentally and often academically too.
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Parenting 'tweens' and young teenagers
As our children grow up our relationship with them changes, as does the
way we parent them. Some children move with relative ease through the
‘tween’ stage and into teenage years, others have a rockier ride. How,
as parents, can we help our children negotiate these transition years as
smoothly as possible?
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Lying in children
Lying is prolific in our culture. We all lie every day: white lies to save someone’s dignity or help them feel better are a part of adult life. Despite this, parents understandably tend to get furious or upset when
children don’t tell the truth. Despite our own “minor” lying
behaviours, we don’t want our children to lie to us, or to develop into
adults who lie beyond the “acceptable” norm. Preventatively, there are a
few things we can think about as parents:
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Does no always mean no?
When you’re feeling tired, stressed, rushed or you haven’t had time to
think something through, it can be easy to automatically say no to a
child’s request, only to realise quite quickly that it was actually a
reasonable one.
The idea of going back on a “no” can leave some
parents fearing that their child is getting one over on them. This can
lead to them sticking to it at all costs, even setting up a huge battle
over something very small, secretly wishing they had never said no in
the first place, and leaving both parent and child feeling terrible.
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