How can you be the best parent you can be?  How do you know that you are doing the best job when others are doing things differently?

I thought about this question when reading extensively on what makes for great parenting and how best we can enrich the lives of our children.  It can be a little overwhelming as a parent to be bombarded with the ‘best’ way to get the very ‘best’ out of your child and do the very ‘best’  job that is humanly possible. In perusing the plethora of information, one can be forgiven for starting to feel a little inadequate with some of their own parenting practises. [Read more...]

Before I had children I knew exactly the type of parent I was going to be and subsequently I knew exactly the type of children I was going to ‘create’. They would never throw tantrums in the middle of the supermarket aisle like those other kids with parents who had no control. They would never make noise and annoy other diners at a restaurant and would never spill a full glass of soft drink despite repeated warnings. In fact they wouldnt have nor ask for soft drink. They would never have anything dripping from their nose and nor would they ever sit in a dirty nappy for any length of time whotsoever. They would always come when they were called, would learn to iron by 6, give pedicures and facials, cook a roast like a masterchef kid….ok so it wasnt long before the pre children ideology morphed into something more realistic, something less glamourous and somewhat unpredictable,  but still found itself sticking to a few basic ideals based on some firmly entrenched values.

When thinking about different parenting styles, I started to think about the role models we may have consiously or sub-consciously modelled ourselves on. It wasnt long before I began to examine all sorts of highly influential people, including those mums we spent hours watching on TV.  So role model or pure entertainment value,  I thought I would share some famous TV mums with you [Read more...]