Every day, we send messages to our kids that shape their thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Equally, our kids are sending us messages about their thoughts and feelings through their behaviour, particularly when they’re feeling distressed.
Topics: Parenting, High School, Behaviour, Primary School, Social Skills, Anxiety
In Australian schools, children are taught to read phonetically: They learn their letters and the sounds they make – both individually and in combination with other letters (eg ‘ch’, ‘th’, ‘sh’). In this way, they learn how to read and build words from their component phonemes.
Topics: Literacy, Primary School, Prep
So you've been scheduled 10-15 minutes to drill the teacher about your child's performance and well-being at school. You've just received your child's school report and have a number of issues to discuss. How do you make the most of your brief meeting?
Topics: Teachers, High School, Primary School
In an increasingly digital age, it's easy to view handwriting as a dying art. Few people own fountain pens; most written correspondence is tapped directly into devices. In Finnish schools, children are no longer taught cursive (joined-up) writing but move straight to keyboards two years after learning their letters.
Topics: Literacy, Primary School, Preschool, Prep
As young as eight, I would hop on my bike after school, cycle a few blocks and knock on my friend's door to see if they could play. We would kick balls in the street or ride to the woods for fort building and games of tag and 'capture the castle'. If my parents worried, they never showed it.
Topics: Teens, High School, Primary School, Social Skills, Friendship
There are some wonderfully creative, thoughtful parents who scour Pinterest for novel ways to present a sandwich or jazz up the contents of their kids' lunch boxes. And then there are the frantic, time-short parents whose main concern is how quickly they can throw together some (healthy-ish) packed lunches before dashing to work/doing the school run. This blog is for the second category.
Topics: Parenting, High School, Primary School, Food, Preschool
