Reading Round Up: Spoiling Children and those Pesky Teenagers

I love articles like this one from Kerri Sackville from The Age on the weekend. 

http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/kerri-sackville-20130416-2hy2h.html

We should all be as honest and reflective as parents. Kerri talks about how she spoilt her third child and now regrets it. She has seen the error in her ways and vows to make amends. We all make choices as parents and sometimes we make them for the wrong reasons. Kerri sums this up in such a frank and poignant way. It’s definitely worth a read.

This next article made me think about parenting teenagers. It seems like a hard gig, I’m not looking forward to negotiating it. 

http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/teen-dreams-20130409-2hj73.html

It’s written by 19 year old Steph Bowe and gives advice from her perspective about the mistakes parents make and what young people need from their parents. I know it seems the world has changed a lot since we were teenagers but I’m not sure teenagers have changed that much. They seem to want the same things we did – time, love, understanding, someone to be there. I hope I can remember that when I’m on the receiving end of irrational hormonal screaming just a few years from now!

Full of Writing

I'm back here again after (another) break. I thought I was maybe done blogging, but something keeps pulling me back and I feel the need to explain my absence a little before I start off again.

When Ed was around 2, he looked at me one dinner time, took a deep sigh and said "Mum, I'm full of carrots!" He'd just had enough. He'd always loved carrots and had eaten loads of them in his 2 years and on this day, he'd had enough. He had a litlle break and started enjoying them again of course, but I was just thinking the other day about why I hadn't been around these parts at all in the last 6 months and suddenly realised that last year, I was full of writing.

I wrote heaps last year. I wrote for PP, for my blog and for a magazine a friend was working on. It was great and I really enjoyed it at the time, but when I sent my last article into PP in August last year after banging out 3 in one month, I just felt tired and full and I needed a rest.

I wasn't sure if or when I would be back, but I didn't panic, I just let nature run it's course, knowing I'd hit this keyboard again if and when I wanted to and guess what, now I do!

I have reservations, I was actually nervous about starting back. Is anyone still interested in what I've got to say?

I started this blog not really knowing the answer to that and I wrote for magazines not really knowing the answer to that. I wrote just with the knowledge that I'm passionate about what I write about. I wrote because I believe raising and teaching kids is important and should be valued and respected. I wrote because kids are special and delightful and deserve to have articles and blog posts written about how to raise them well. So, I'm going to keep writing and anything else that comes from that is really just icing on the cake - delicious, sweet, frosty icing ....