Of course you love your kids. But how you express this love makes all the difference between them feeling loved or not. The same goes with listening. Of course we all listen to our kids. Of course we know how to listen – we think. But what if the way we listen has always been…
So many parents only capture their kid’s pictures, but forget to capture their words. Although listening is not my strong point, there’s one kind of listening that I’ve become good at – listening for the unforgettable things my kids say. About a decade ago, a seasoned parent told me, ‘Promise me this: when you have…
Happy New Years. For many it’s time to shed some kilos. Take heart, my buddy Grant Clark writes this humorous guest blog for us on the subject. Just so you know, I don’t surf with him… “It is a well-established fact that Exercise and I are not particularly good friends. I would say that…
There’s ten things our kids say that we tend to miss because we aren’t listening for it. Our child’s squabbling, demands, cries, screeches, rants and raves have a way of forming survival filters in our hearing – which have the unintended effect of causing us to miss some amazing stuff they sometimes say. I’ve already…
If we don’t listen to our kids, we may lose them. Here’s why. Previously I admitted that I suck at listening. With so much work required, is it really necessary that I do the hard yards of improving? We know we have ‘two ears and only one mouth’ but are there reasons of critical import…
I suck at listening. My wife has told me so 100 times – and that’s only the times I heard her say it. Before we had kids it was about my failure to listen to her. Now she says I often apply the same inept attentiveness to our little ones. I wouldn’t have believed her,…
(By guest blogger and my wife, Julie Williams) There’s a weird thing happening in SA. Well, to be fair, there’s a lot of weird sh@# going down. But I’d like to focus in on the niche weirdness of white, upper-class parents in SA at this point in time. And their seemingly unchecked yet (in my…
Like it or not, when it comes to parenting, your example overshadows your words. ‘In the final analysis, your child’s character hinges on the traits you exhibit as a parent. And who you are as a parent isn’t left to fate, luck, or chance. You can choose to be the kind of parent you want…
You know the scariest part of parenting? They might not hear a word you say. But they don’t miss a deed you do. Who I am and what I do will ultimately mark the kind of people my children become. They tend to receive not just my physical genetic, but my moral and lifestyle genetic…
I’ve had enough of the constant challenges to my authority (I have 5 kids). But I also dread becoming a tyrant. Is there a better way than coming down strongly on my kids every time? Mysteriously (for low-EQ dudes like me at least) the more I validate my kid’s feelings of disagreement with my decision,…