4 Ways to Teach Your Kids or Teens a Passion for Learning

Mostly, my kids are exceptional learners. People ask Julie and I what we as parents have done to help them achieve like they have. Honestly, we haven’t done much. Except this—we have passed onto them a hunger for learning and a confidence that they can. Here’s four tips to help you do the same for…

Tag: a–passion–for–learning, brain-development, kids-and-books, motivation-in-kids

Help Your Child Find Their Motivation

Yesterday evening I was on a boat with a friend who told me that when he was 12 his father asked him why, though he was as smart as his brother, he didn’t apply himself as much at school. He answered his dad: “I could do as well as my older brother, but I would…

Tag: motivation-in-kids

How To Help Your Teen Boy Become A Young Man

How To Help Your Teen Boy Become A Young Man One recent afternoon, I took my teen boy up a mountain for a rite of passage, then descended the next morning with a young man. If you’re curious what I did and said, or have a preteen son and you want to do something similar,…

Tag: rite-of-passage, teen-son

Happy Father’s Day—Here’s Sage Advice For Parents On Groundhog Day

Happy Father’s Day—here’s sage advice for parents on Groundhog Day. The parenting task on any given day can be so repetitive and mundane—like the tedious day in the movie Groundhog Day—that we lose our wonder and alertness in it all. (Relief! You may have thought I was going to compare a father to a groundhog.)…

Tag: family-habits, mundanity-of-parenting

Men We Need To Talk

An open letter to our brothers, fathers, and sons. (As I gear up to be a panelist on the “Expresso Morning Show” on Monday 20 June on the subject of mental health in fathers, I thought I’d repost this article, which I recently wrote for www.manbox.co.za.) Whilst our world is facing immense challenges on every…

Tag: acknowledge-feelings

Happy Mother’s Day, Julie—Enjoy The Next Weeks In A French Mt. Chalet On Your Own

Happy Mother’s Day, Julie—Enjoy the next weeks in a French Mt. chalet on your own. Talk about the 11th hour! Julie managed to get her Visa at 1:50pm yesterday. An hour later she was at Cape Town International—in fulfillment of a dream born a decade before, when she’d said to me, “When I turn 40,…

Tag: mothers

Unmasking Big Emotions in Little (and Grown-up) People

This article is by my co-blogger Julie, with whom I have at least five things (humans, actually) in common. While the global pandemic isn’t officially over yet, most of us (and our kids) have had to launch out of lockdown and hit the ground running again – this time, with masks on. While these masks…

Tag: acknowledge-feelings, listening

What’s Going On Inside Your Teen’s Brain?

Do you have a teen? If so, and they’ve driven you up the wall and back again – perhaps it’s time to take a closer look inside your teen’s brain… If you ask parents of teens to describe the teenage years, words like crazy, confusing, frustrating, scary, and out of control often crop up. Vibrant…

Tag: teenagers

The Six Best Gifts My Dad Left Me

Here’s the six best gifts my dad left me In this post, I pay tribute to Allan Mullins, my second dad and the proud grandad of my five children. I hope to gift you with some of the remarkable and priceless gems he gave me through his wisdom and character. As hundreds of people who…

Tag: example, my–dad

Living In The In-Between

I don’t know about you, but the long-awaited end of 2020 feels like a firecracker that got wet before we lit the fuse. We’re all huddled around it, waiting for the spark and bang of a fresh new start … and nothing. So, here’s another post from my lovely wife, but posted here as a…