Category Archives: Parenting

Entrepreneurship Education by Pauline Nel

Entrepreneurship Education by Pauline Nel
Entrepreneurship Education by Pauline Nel

 

All mums would like their children to be sorted with regards to independency / job security, once they leave school.

The world of work has changed extensively over the last couple of years. It’s definitely not a given that our children will find a job when they acquire their degree, much less when Read the rest of this entry

Calm Parents, Happy Kids by Dr. Laura Markham: 10 of my favorite quotes

Calm Parents, Happy Kids by Dr. Laura Markham: 10 of my favorite quotes
Calm Parents, Happy Kids by Dr. Laura Markham: 10 of my favorite quotes

 

I’m currently reading Calm Parents, happy kids by Dr. Laura Markham and thought I’d share ten of my favorite quotes from the book.

  1. “The most important Parenting skill: Manage yourself”

I believe a happy Mother creates a happy home. When all is good with the Mother, most of the time all is good with the family. When your cup is empty and you have not been looking after yourself, your energy becomes low and so does the ability to harness your emotions. Look after yourself and show them how to manage yourself. When you are falling apart, how are your kids supposed to stay afloat?

  2. “What kids need that no one tells you: a safe place to express feelings while you listen”

Sometimes its hard to REALLY listen when your toddler throws himself on the floor for the millionth time. What he really wants is for you to stop and listen to him. Hear him out… hear that he needs YOU! Dr Markham says children can only manage behavior when they learn to manage the emotions that drives that behavior. Sometimes kids needs a safe place to allow those emotions to flow free, where they won’t get in trouble for feeling what they don’t even know they are feeling.

  3. “What your child wishes you understood: Shes just a kid, trying as hard as she can. Expect age appropriate behaviour, not perfection, and keep your priorities straight.”

Sometimes I find myself all of a sudden stop myself midst scolding my 2 year olds and think, “Wait a bit… they are only 2 years old!!” When kids are linguistically advanced and talk like a three year old even though they are only 2 years old you tend to think that they should be able to listen and obey you like a three year old. Well, they’re not! 

They are a year behind a three year old which means the three year old has had a whole year more of emotional “coaching” and a whole year more of getting to understand this strange thing called life.

If you are an imperfect being, how can you expect them to be perfect? If you make mistakes all the time and loose battles with yourself daily, wether its about chocolate, swearing or smoking, how can you expect your toddler to sit down every time you ask her to?

  4. “The most useful mantra: Don’t take it personally”

Yawza, this one is one of the most difficult ones for me. I take everything personally. Everything! Dr Laura encourages to avoid power struggles by cultivating a sense of humour. I have been trying this more and more and I must say, making jokes has saved many a battle with my kids. Whenever I want my kids to do something these days I just pretend to bite their bum…

Let me explain… they absolutely LOVE dinosaurs and they love it when I chase them so when, for instance, they don’t want to get out of the bath and its starting to get a whining-crying-business, I just hold my hand like a puppet dinosaur and say, “Oh dear, you’ll have to come out or the dinosaur is going to bite your BUTT!” and when I say “bite your butt” I grab a chunk of bum and squeeze softly and they break out in laughter and get their buts out of the bath!

  5. “All misbehaviour comes from basic needs that aren’t met.”

I have experienced, from observing kids in the past, that “naughty” kids usually are in need. They need love or attention of an example of a healthy relationship between parents for instance. Sometimes its just an immediate need, like you cant expect your child to sit still in a trolley for two hours at the grocery store when they are hungry. They don’t neccessarily know they are hungry or realise they are thirsty but act out because they feel something is not feeling good.

Make sure they get enough sleep, are fed, have enough free play time, cuddle them, talk to them and make them feel safe. Dr Markham believes children want to be successful and when they don’t, they have a relationship problem, not a behaviour problem!

  6. “Because no matter how bad your child’s behaviour, it’s a cry for help. Sometimes the behaviour requires a firm limit, but it never requires us to be mean.”

I have been mean so many times, only for me to realise later that there really was something in her shoe or he really did want to pee AGAIN. Sometimes I have just not been taking care of myself so my threshold would be VERY low and then I’d expect too much of them.

Theres never an excuse for bad behaviour and discipline is very important to me but its NEVER ok to fight their behaviour by being mean. By doing that we teach them how to handle things by being mean, just causing more bad behaviour on their side.

  7. “The best parenting expert? Your child.”

This is my favorite quote! We learn from our children from the day we are born. When we observe them and meet their constant needs, we learn from them. They are basically giving it to us, we just have to learn to listen without having to hear!

  8. “One generation full of deeply loving parents would change the brain of the next generation, and with that, the world. – Charles Raison”

Theres a saying that goes. “All you need is love and a place to call home.” In Afrikaans the saying is more true because it translates to “All you need is love and a little water.”  Children that are neglected and never touched have found to be very far behind developmentally. This shows how important love and physical touch is for human beings, we can not function without it.

Song of Solomon 8:7 says, “Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.” How powerful love is!!

  9. “Parenting is not about what our child does, but about how we respond.”

Much too often I find myself thinking a behavior my child portrayed, shows what kind of parent I am. I have responded in a bad way so, so many times… My only comfort is in God and the fact that He has grace for me and therefore my child will also have grace for me, through Him! My mistakes can not be undone and I am making them as I go, but God is guiding me every step of the way and will never fail to show me the way. I know Its going to be OK because thankfully God has made kids adaptable and He has given us the strength and courage to change.

Dr Laura says “you’ll have to manage your own triggers and emotions to effectively coach and connect with your child” man is it difficult to manage my triggers when the kids find all of them within a 5 minute frame. I have issues, I know that by now, and much too often they come out in situations where I am trying to coach my children. They learn to regulate their emotions and behaviour by watching us do it. We have to be OK for them to be OK. That’s a scary thought!

  10. “Our children need to know that we take joy in them or they don’t see themselves as worth loving. In fact, your ability to enjoy your child may be the most important factor in his development.”

Life can distract us so much from whats happening right under our noses. How sad is that when theres children happening right under our noses! Was it not important for us to know our parents took joy in us, or very sad when we knew they didn’t? Isn’t it important for us to know our spouse takes joy in us, or sad for us when we know they don’t?

Our children are not as emotionally developed as we are. Imagine how badly affected they are when they don’t experience us having joy in them. They are our worlds, let’s make them know they are!

Positive Parenting

Positive Parenting
Positive Parenting

Theres so many ways of Parenting and being a Christian just mixes things up a little… or actually it should be easier just following the advice of the Holy Spirit but having discernment and keeping your perceptions sharp on how to raise your children remains a daily process revolving around endless mistakes and accomplishments. We are flooded with parenting advice on worldly standards and keeping true to what God intended remains the one and only goal.

Having Positive Parenting in the mix, I believe has its benefits as long as you stick to having rules and boundaries and don’t lack in the very important process of guidance. Read the rest of this entry

Guest Post: Entrepreneur Mom on balancing family and a home business

Guest Post: Entrepreneur Mom on balancing family and a home business

I asked Claire Winson from http://entrepreneurmom.net/ to give Moms with new businesses or new families some tips on balancing family life and a home business and she came up with these great insights. My favorite tip is something I like to do…

Always plan out the following day the night before. Always.

She suggests to keep an A4 notebook and write headings on each page for various daily activities. Thats exactly what I do so I like her already!  Claire is… “a mom to the cutest (although I maybe biased) little boy, and a dog with issues. I’m a seasoned PR professional and writer, Nescafe fanatic, runner, wanna-be surfer, and the founder of EntrepreneurMom.”

She is also building quite an empire on her Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/EntrepreneurMomZA?fref=ts… please like and share her page and subscribe to her blog, there’s a wealth of information waiting to encourage new business owners so please support her!

Balancing family and a home business

One of the toughest things for a mama to do is to stretch herself between work and family. As the founder of EntrepreneurMom, an informative platform to helps moms start, grow and create awareness of their home business, the question I’m most often asked is how do I find the balance between earning money and taking care of my family. Can a true balance ever really be found?

Whether you have to work out of necessity, or because you desire the freedom, or just have a brilliant business idea that cannot be kept under wraps the answer, of course, is yes, you can have and do it all.

There may be moments in time that your schedule is not as you wish it to be, but remember, they are only snippets in time. Everything you do now paves a path of success for you and your family. So give your kiddies an extra squeeze and follow these few tips to help you create the best balance.

1) Scheduling

One of the greatest things about working for yourself is being able to schedule your work around your activities. Rather than being chained to a desk for eight hours, schedule work time in the early morning hours while your family is asleep, or get some admin done after your babies are tucked in bed. Just because it is ‘work’ and ‘business’ does not’ mean it has to happen between 9am and 5pm.

2) Ask for help

No one said that owning your business would be easy but no one said that you must do it alone either. Enlist help to keep your house in order; even just once a week or every other week, this can go a long way to keeping your sanity. Within your business, consider hiring a virtual assistant who can help (remotely, of course) keep track of your admin, bookkeeping, social media and more, which leaves your precious time to take care of your core business.

3) Let some things go

Your house does not need to be perfect, so choose what is most important to you (not someone else). Maybe the beds aren’t made until it’s time to crawl in them, maybe you work in pyjamas, maybe your child watches a move or plays by themselves for a little bit when you have a meeting. Choose your battles; you don’t need to get everything right all of the time, and let go of any guilt that goes along with it!

4) Plan

If I have one tip it is this: always plan out the following day the night before. Always. I have an A4 notebook and write headings on each page for various daily activities, for work, personal, and family life. That way, as soon as I get up in the morning I know what needs to be done rather than try to remember what is happening.

5) Prioritise

In my long list of things to do, I prioritise those activities which absolutely must be done that day, for example, events, meetings, and those items with a deadline. Then I mark off say, 3-5 other tasks that need to be completed. That way I know that as long as those specific tasks are done, the rest of my day can be juggled and planned accordingly, releasing any guilt for not having put in a 9-5 effort.

What is most important when trying to juggle family and your own business is not to follow anyone else: set your purpose and create your own rules.

Infertility

Infertility
Infertility

InsteadOfYourShame

This blog has changed so much since I started it and I think its finally moving into a direction where I can finally pinpoint what I am going to focus on. Even though it all started with my infertility, its now thankfully something of the past and I am focusing much more on motherhood now, so therefore I have decided to remove the page “Infertiliy” to a post on the home page so its still archived, but its not going to be one of the focus points anymore. Unfortunately its still only in Afrikaans and I doubt if I will have the guts to write it all over again in English but who knows what future may hold… for now, Afrikaans speaking friends… here is my Infertility Journey once again, just to archive. Thanks for your ever growing support! Read the rest of this entry

Stop Cyberbullying!

Stop Cyberbullying!
Stop Cyberbullying!

 

I grew up in a small town where you had to have the right surname to have the right to “belong”. I was about 5 years old when my group of friends realised my surname did not fit in with theirs… I roamed the playgrounds from my first day in grade one until one fortunate day in grade 4, and then some more in grade 6, again in grade8, 9 and 10. The truth is I never really belonged anywhere as the damage has been done in my most critical forming years. I don’t think I was always bullied… sometimes “they” would laugh about something and I would tell myself they laughed at me. To be honest I liked to play the victim, feeling sorry for myself became what defined me.

I felt like what they call “white trash”whatever that may be… like no one would want to be my friend. Once one of the hunks of the school asked me to dance at a party, with all his friends laughing and looking at me. I liked him a lot and he always stared at me in class, so I felt like cinderella for a few minutes, in the arms of one of the most beautiful boys I knew. Imagine the damage caused when the song ended and he stopped me in front of his laughing friends, and also the rest of the hunks in school, and asked loud and clear for Read the rest of this entry

Slaap soos ‘n baba… pfff!

Slaap soos ‘n baba… pfff!
Slaap soos ‘n baba… pfff!

CN2R1117-Edit

Ek moet eintlik die blog “The nursing notes” noem want dit is al wanneer ek tyd kry om te blog en ook net op my foon, so verskoon maar as ek soms kortaf is of foute maak… My rekenaar gaar stof deesdae en dit nadat ek op ‘n tyd dag en nag ge- design of -edit het!  Maar nou ja, so tussen die malheid wat ‘n tweeling huishouding is (oh my goodness ek Read the rest of this entry

Ek borsvoed ‘n tweeling, co-sleep en beoog babywearing… so sue my!

Ek borsvoed ‘n tweeling, co-sleep en beoog babywearing… so sue my!
Ek borsvoed ‘n tweeling, co-sleep en beoog babywearing… so sue my!

Hoekom het die lewe so moeilik geraak vir jong Mammas?  In die verlede was dit maklik… of was dit nou moeiliker?? ‘n Baba is vir jou gegee en jy moes maar sien en kom klaar sonder al die informasie wat ons vandag op die tv, internet en in tydskrifte kry.  Hierdie informasie is nou wel great vir my, maar omtrent alles is kontrasterend!

Read the rest of this entry

My laaste blog… hopelik!

My laaste blog… hopelik!
My laaste blog… hopelik!

Ek het nou al ‘n paar blogs begin en elke keer word ek mismoedig met myself omdat ek nie gereeld inskrywings maak nie, of die rede vir die blog (soos gebedsgroepies om swanger te raak) word nie vervul nie en en en…

Nou het ek uiteindelik my rede vir bestaan gevind… die Moskabouters, my kleine twee Read the rest of this entry