King's Blog

Helping Your Child with Projects & Assignments

• Tweet

When I was at Primary School, one of my favourite times of the week was ‘project time’.  It was when we were all given a chance to explore a topic of interest, in greater depth and to write and draw about it in our project book.  I loved the planning, the reading up on a topic, drawing or finding pictures and then laying it all out nicely with my best handwriting.  Sometimes we even took our project books home so that we could continue our work at home before bringing it back to present to the class.

read more >>

Topics: Teens, High School, Primary School, Homework

More Chores, More Responsibility?

• Tweet

I recently read Enid Blyton's 'Magic Faraway Tree' series with my sons and they were astonished. Not so much by the exciting adventures of Silky, Moon Face et al but more by the volume and complexity of chores the young protagonists were expected to do. Barely school-age children were chopping wood, preparing meals, darning socks and cleaning houses. 

read more >>

Topics: Parenting, Teens, Primary School, Preschool, Prep, Toddlers

What to Do if Your Child's Worry Worries You

• Tweet

Worry is a normal feeling that happens to all of us from time to time.  As an emotion, it is our natural response to real and anticipated or imagined situations.  We worry about something because we perceive it as a threat and worry causes us to focus on the issue or situation at hand. A little worry can in fact be good for us as it gears us towards taking precautionary measures such as checking the road before we cross or putting on our seatbelt when we get in a car.

read more >>

Topics: Parenting, Teens, High School, Behaviour, Primary School, Preschool, Prep, Toddlers

10 Signs You Are Raising A Spoilt Child

• Tweet

We love our kids.  We want to provide for them, do our best for them and protect them. But sometimes our desire to make them happy and our dedication to looking after them can lead to ‘over-parenting’.  With the best intentions in the world, we can over-praise, over-indulge and over-protect our little darlings ... and risk raising self-centred, entitled dependents, unable to think for themselves.

Here are some red flags that indicate you might be raising a spoilt child:

read more >>

Topics: Parenting, Teens, High School, Behaviour, Primary School, Social Skills, Preschool, Toddlers

Do You Know What Your Kids Do Online?

• Tweet

"Keep all digital devices out of the bedroom!"

"Be a parent, not a friend"

"Don't let your child do anything online that you wouldn't let them do offline"

These were the three key statements repeated by cyber safety expert, Susan McLean, at King's 'Growing Up Online' Cyber Safety Seminar on 4 October 2016.

read more >>

Topics: Parenting, Teens, High School, Internet, Primary School, Technology, Social Media

How to Argue with a Teenager

• Tweet

Ah, teenagers!

Loveable, happy, engaging kids one minute; snarling, moody whirlwinds the next. 

As your children move closer to adulthood, their hormones rage and their thought processes become more sophisticated, it is inevitable that conflict will arise in the home.  It goes with the territory of parenthood.

Short of growing a thick skin or hiding away for a few years till the worst is over, how do you survive these difficult years of teenage confrontation?

read more >>

Topics: Parenting, Teens