As a mom it’s very important to me, my kids are well mannered. So if somebody says something, and they didn’t quite catch it, I don’t want them saying: ‘Huh?’ The correct answer is… To teach them this, for every ‘Huh’, I offer the correct response: ‘What did you say?’ Unfortunately this parenting method turned…
My husband’s parenting powers lack a certain shall we say, prowess? When he shouts: ‘Okay kids, time for bed!’ they pay him no heed. And when he orders them to clean up their room, they vanish into thin air. Mom Power: use it sparingly I usually pretend I don’t see. Because how else is he…
Image source: Shutterstock As a modern day mom I’ve read all the dire warnings about the dangers of the internet. Especially for children. I often tell them: ‘You may think you’re chatting with a 14 year old girl, but it may very well be a dirty old man!’ I’m going virtual! So to keep an…
Panting with admiration I watched a documentary featuring a father of 12. He stayed so cool, even though havoc surrounded him! So that’s how to do it! I sat on the edge of my couch when he told the audience how he maintained his cool under the pressure of such a big family. His precise…
Source image: Shutterstock ‘I don’t want you looking at my timeline!’ It sounds like a line from a futuristic science fiction movie, but I swear it’s straight from my daily life as a mom in the year 2016. Kind of eavesdropping Last Friday I was busy in the kitchen, having my cake and eating it…
I went to pick up my two youngest sons from a playdate, and there on the dining roomtable, lay the remnants of a game of Monopoly. Four players There’d obviously been four players, and judging from the different piles of money one of them was rich enough to buy the White House, and the second…
My son Piet (6) was bobbing up and down in the bath tub, his older brother Ot (9) sitting at his feet. Whatcha doin’? Ot was moving his hands in the air above Piets body, and I was very much intrigued. Was my son perhaps the next Harry Potter?! So I asked curiously: ‘Whatcha doing,…
My sons Pete is very loud. He shouts a lot. I think all that shouting means he’s got a surplus of energy. So, if I make sure his energy level goes down, he should shout less! I put my thinking cap on and came up with this brilliant mathematical equation: Pete has got to much…
Motherhood has made me vulnerable. And since I’ve got five children my vulnerability is multiplied by 5. So whenever I hear the sound of an ambulance, or the phone rings at an odd time, I worry. And when teacher call me and ask: ‘Are you sitting down? I would like to talk to you for…
Now that my youngest son has reached the impressive age of 9, playdates have become so much easier! No longer do I have to watch them like a hawk, and hover around them like a helicopter-parent. They can just go and play. How blissfull this peace of mind has been, I realized last Friday. Because…
