Our family was camping on the NSW South Coast last week, which is always a great time to do very little apart from swimming, fishing and eating, and reading – especially those books you’ve wanted to read for ages and haven’t had the time. One afternoon, just back from the beach, I looked across at the rest of the family, and they were all reading books they had been given for Christmas ... What struck me was that the books our kids were reading were ones they hadn’t read before, which was pretty unusual – even for our 14-year-old ... For our kids, repetitive reading was at its height when they were first starting to talk. Read full article
I am writing this post a day before my eldest son’s Higher School Certificate results are released. I’m still living in blissful ignorance but we’re expecting results in the disappointing to disastrous range. That’s okay. Yes really okay. My son and I sat down the other day and worked out a contingency plan in case we’re faced with the disaster scenario. He, however, is dreading telling others his results, and now wishes he’d worked harder. That’s a lesson he had to learn. What have I learned this year? Here are a few random thoughts. Read full article
Ann Dunham (Soetoro) Sutoro’s life is changing the course of history, yet most people have never heard of this remarkable woman. When I first met Ann in Jakarta in March 1981, I had no idea how great an impact she would have on world history and politics ... We had an immediate rapport. Ann saw me as a young person who shared her idealism and passion for solving the problems of poverty in Indonesia. Perhaps I reminded her of her son Barry, born in Hawaii in 1961, a few years younger than me, and then studying and working in the United States. Read full article
While the shift towards shared parenting is real, a recent study found “seventy-five percent of men worry that their jobs prevent them from having the time to be the kind of dads they want to be.” And when asked what single change would make the greatest difference in their ability to juggle work and family life, fathers named workplace flexibility as their top demand. The research shows that fathers are right to want to spend more time with their children. Read full article
According to current popular discourse, modern day parents fall into one of two distinct categories: relaxed free-ranger or over involved and controlling helicopter. And while much fun can be had satirising the extremes of either parenting style, missing from the discussion has been a deeper analysis of the larger context in which everyday parenting decisions are made ... When I examine my own parenting I find myself veering wildly between the two extremes, the parenting equivalent of the hybrid car. Read full article
Dr Jeffrey Pfeifer, a forensic psychologist from Swinburne University of Technology, was asked about some research he’d conducted into sixty American sports stars. Thirty of these stars were ‘models of professional behaviour’; the other thirty had been in trouble with the law. He found that:
": the group of individuals who had found themselves in trouble with the law were less likely to have experience in their lives with making choices whereas the ones who had not gotten into any trouble seemed to have a lot of experience in their lives from childhood up, making choices. Read full article
A few years back I had the privilege of teaching a literacy class in front of Mr John Prescott, the Acting Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. I was co-ordinating the running of a summer literacy camp for children who were deemed as 'struggling'. Having the camp swarming with various staff from Downing Street for days in advance, you can imagine what a high pressure occasion it was ... And one child asked a question I won’t ever forget the answer to ... Read full article
This parenting business can make you feel all manner of insecure. I worry about my kids being safe, about them being healthy, having friends at school and trying to do their best in class. I get worried when the boys fight and squabble, and I used to often wonder, “Is this normal?” ... But this week, an unexpected and wonderful thing happened. So wonderful I even had a little cry. 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
This is a parenting biography with a difference - 6 months in the lives of a family with three teenagers who somehow survived unplugged from technology, just. For any parent who's ever sent a text to their child at the dinner table - or yanked the modem from its socket in a show of primal parental rage - this account of one family's self-imposed exile from the Information Age will leave you ROFLing with recognition. But it may also challenge you to take stock of your own family connections, to create a media ecology that encourages kids - and parents - to thrive. Read full article
