I was moved to tears today by a lady at the shops.

My children love the games shop at our local shopping center as it has a train set permanently set up down the back. The children begged me for a small play there and I acquiesced on the condition that they come as soon as I ask them too. They promised they would.

It is 9:09pm on the eve of "Australia's biggest party". I am already in my pyjamas, my children are safely tucked in bed and I am glad I have a long time to wait before I have to personally worry about Schoolies. But there are plenty of mums and dads around Queensland whose stomachs are aswarm tonight. Firstly, because their bundles finish school forever tomorrow and secondly, and probably more significantly, their little ones will most-likely attend some sort of Schoolies celebration.

I nearly ran over one of my children the other day with the pram.  I was turning left, he was standing there, and low and behold, I ran over his toes…again. “How did that happen!?” I thought to myself and the answer was very obvious:  I didn’t tell him where I was going or what I was thinking. To him, an unreasonable person ran him over. To me, an unreasonable person got in the way.

Sometimes, the parent-teacher relationship is like this; without appropriate communication, one or both parties can get very confused about where they're both headed!

“Have you done your homework?”  “I don’t have any!”

Does that sound familiar? Have you thought about changing the name from homework to something like study time? No homework from school? Excellent, how about you revise maths, English or spelling, or get ahead on that assignment? Still nothing?  Oh well, this is study time so some silent reading will be a good choice.