The segment on Mornings on Channel 9 raised the question - do we parent boys differently to the way we parent girls? Are there fundamental differences in boys and girls which mean it is easier to parent boys or girls? Do we need to be careful not to be influenced by our children's gender when we're communicating with them? Read full article
This time last year I was in a quandary. I was trying to decide whether or not to send our then-four-year-old son to school this year. My initial feeling was that he would be ready to go – he had a large vocabulary for his age, and was very curious and eager to learn. He was also very tall for his age, got along well with older peers, and had good fine motor skills. His preschool teachers agreed that he would be fine ... I started to do some research about readiness for school. Read full article
It’s only recently that I’ve realised how content I am just having boys. They suit me. I happily call myself a feminist but when I was pregnant with my first child I surprised myself by wanting a son. I was smug when I had him too; the first boy on either side of the family after five girls. With my second son I had an unspoken preference for a girl, but he was such a beautiful baby, a competition winner no less. With my third ... Read full article
"No darling, stiffies aren't a type of dog." Wednesday is much like any other day around our house, except that Mr 8 has soccer training. So picture me, if you will, perched on the lounge with Mr 8 trying to squeeze his feet into the always-too-tight soccer socks, shove his shin pads in, boots on and get to the ground by 5pm. Then picture me 10 seconds later when Mr 8 asked, "Mummy, do you know what a stiffy is?" Read full article
For the last three weeks Mr 9 has had something on his mind. He wants a licence. Not a driver's licence, nor the pilot's licence that one of his big brothers is craving, but a 'pen licence'. At his primary school, a "pen licence" is permission from the teacher to use a pen in his school books; this sought-after privilege is granted to children who've been using pencil for three or four years but have developed their handwriting skills to the level required by their classroom teacher. Read full article
When baby boys are born, they usually look close to perfect - their parents gaze at them with the rose-coloured glasses that are issued to all new mums and dads. And apart from snotty noses, muddy knees and bruised shins, those little boys remain cherub-like in the eyes of their parents until their early teen years. By then, teenage boys are starting to define and compare themselves with others and will be making efforts to show how different they are from their doting parents. Enter the influence of the media, the movies, peers and reality television, and all of a sudden a teenage boy notices that his muscles are not as bulked up as his favourite television show character, and his hair is not as straight and cool as the popular boys in his year. Read full article
Boys are under increasing pressure to look good. How is this impacting on boys' healthy body image? Yvette Vignando appears on The Morning Show Channel 7 and discusses briefly what parents can do to promote a healthy body image in their teenage sons and protect them from developing eating disorders. Also appearing, Danni Rowlands from the Butterfly Foundation and Loveena Guilford from Styed with Love. Read full article
When my boys were little, I lived in an environment where the men went to work during the day, and came home at night to sit on the couch while the women waited on them. True. This happened regardless of whether the women worked outside the house all day too. Needless to say it never bode well with me and I promised myself that my boys would never expect this of their wives. One of the most important things I could teach them is how to be a good husband. Read full article
My eldest son was born seventeen years ago. In the time-honoured principle of new mothers, I thought him the most attractive, charming and gifted baby in the entire world. When it came to the last of these I may have had more claim than most. On his first birthday I took M to the early childhood centre for a developmental check. The nurse handed him a shape sorter with four different shaped blocks, which he promptly slotted into their respective slots without faltering: one, two, three, four. Read full article
On 13 April 2011 Yvette Vignando commented on articles criticising a J. Crew designer for painting her young son's toenails pink. Yvette explained that it is common for little boys to enjoy this kind of play and that on its own, this is not harmful for a child. Yvette also pointed out that she is not a psychologist and Larry Emdur revealed that he is not an astronaut. Read full article
