Sonja Walker’s minute-by-minute planning means that her parties pass muster with all the troops. Navigating the Birthday Party Minefield Birthday parties can be a minefield for unsuspecting parents. Who should be invited and who shouldn’t be invited? How many kids is too many? How long should it last?...
It was a close-run thing, but his son’s fifth-birthday party ended up being a treasured event, writes Daniel Prokop. The Pressure of the First Real Party When my wife, Beth, and I celebrated five years of being parents, we received the official thumbs up from our son,...
There is a growing number of ‘super-sized’ schools. Does the number of students matter? asks Emma Rowe Recently, The Sydney Morning Herald reported one of Sydney’s top public high schools had more than 2,000 students for the first time, thanks to the booming population in the...
Why Kids Today Learn So Differently From Us “The young people of today love luxury; they have bad manners; they scoff at authority… lack respect for their elders…” Whether or not these words came from Socrates, they’ve long been used to reassure parents: every generation complains about...
From “Why do people die?” to “Do bees have knees?”, children’s questions can catch us off guard — especially when we're tired or unsure ourselves, writes Dr Susan White But research shows that how we respond is more important than having all the answers. The truth about...
This new approach can help make it easier and quicker to work out what support is needed, write David Trembath and Rachelle Wicks If your child is struggling with certain everyday activities – such as playing with other kids, getting dressed or paying attention – you...
Dr Susan White looks at why young children ask so many questions — and why do they so often catch us off guard at the worst possible times? As it turns out, their constant curiosity is more than a phase. It’s how they learn, grow, and...
Even after they can read themselves, writes Robyn Cox, because reading aloud to your children is a parental superpower Is reading to your kids a bedtime ritual in your home? For many of us, it will be a visceral memory of our own childhoods. Or of...
Students are neither left nor right-brained, writes Kate E. Williams. How some early childhood educators get this ‘neuromyth’ and others wrong. Many teachers and parents know that neuroscience, studying how the brain functions and develops, is important for children’s education. Brain development is recommended as part of...
Marian O’Connell finds that her response to her son’s bedtime demands turns from severe frustration to serene reflection. There is an almost imperceptible change in breathing and a certain weightlessness that overcomes a child when they finally fall asleep. This is detectable only to the indulgent...
