My favourite person in the world, Julie Williams and I parent five kids between 9 and 15. We both work full-time, so it’s full on. Often enough, a woman grabs a coffee with her to get advice. They may be struggling with their one or two children, and assume that she, with so many in…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
The Stranger In Your Home: Safeguarding Kids on Devices By Julie Williams With young kids now spending more time than ever on electronic devices, safe-guarding them from online dangers is crucial. The documentary Social Dilemma alerted us to a new stranger – “the algorithm” – but in this post I suggest we stay alert to…
Should we use Time Out or Time In with our small kids? Yes. Julie and I use both with our younger kids. We’re fans of Time In. Kids act their worst when they feel their worst. They need love and connection most when they deserve it least. The cool thing about Time In is that…
My Whole Family Got COVID… Here’s the whole story. After a crazy-eventful lockdown (in which we had to make not one, but two emergency visits to the hospital for our normally healthy kids), we were so looking forward to getting back to some kind of normal. Our kids’ school was opening up again, our work…
