The Practica Programme Blog – How to demonstrate our love for our children. Today we introduce our very first guest post – we will be inviting many people who work within the child development field to give us their take on what’s important to know when it comes to your little one! This guest post is written by […]
Understanding how to follow a calm, collected and effective discipline routine is one (very important) thing, but actually deciding which behaviours are deemed unacceptable is another. This leaves some parents with a lax approach, allowing their children to explore (and conquer) at will. While other parents swing to the opposite end of the pendulum, and […]
Let’s set a scene that I am sure many parents have experienced before… It’s Monday evening, and after a long and stressful day you’re trying to prepare dinner or are tidying the house before bedtime. Your toddler is nagging behind you. You do not have the energy for confrontation, so you’re hoping they will forget what […]
In our last post, we discussed how words alone are simply not an effective means of discipline. This is because a small child’s world is based on their immediate and physical experience. Words alone will not change a young child’s behaviour. However, words are very important when it comes to explaining just why the cookie is […]
How to discipline your child – part 3 We often hear how children are referred to as ‘little adults’. However, while our children deserve the same respect and love that any adult does, they are not adults… by a long shot. Young children live in a world that is very different from ours. While we […]
HOW TO DISCIPLINE YOUR CHILD – PART 2 You’ve heard it before – every single piece of literature on discipline contains the word ‘consistency’. Yet it is something that is surprisingly difficult to achieve … and many people wonder how important it is anyway? The answer is that consistency is more important than most parents realize. In fact, if […]
How to discipline your child – part 1 For most parents, there is nothing so tiring or so challenging as discipline. We know we must do it, we know our children need and deserve boundaries, but the act of enforcing discipline often leaves parents feeling bad, frustrated, insecure and unsure. As with many things in […]
The 10 Things Children REALLY Want From Their Parents In our world today, parents can often feel that they are not being good parents unless their children have access to countless battery-operated toys, or even more extra-mural activities and sports to choose from. The result is a parent who is running from pillar to post […]
Being a parent is certainly a challenging undertaking, especially since most children can push the boundaries and be emotionally-charged at times. Nowadays, it seems as if the concept of ‘good’ parenting is forever changing, depending on which expert is doing the talking. This is because the very context in which parenting takes place (our cultures, society and the global community), is […]
While some children are absolute dreams when it comes to mealtimes, roughly 50% of all children ‘eat too little’, their parents believe. And this is according to Dr Christopher Green, from his book called Toddler Taming, A Parents’ Guide to the First Four Years (Random House). Below we introduce ideas from two books about feeding a fussy eater – […]
Photography: Loren Stowhttp://www.lorenstow.co.za/ We’ve all been there… the day that our once-compliant and well-fed baby turns her nose up at meal-time, followed by a clear and concise ‘no!’. She shakes her head and just plainly refuses a meal that mere days ago she gobbled down with delight! And before you know it, she’s surviving on a […]
Example of a page from a personalised bookDesign by Loren Stow When you know your child is going to experience a big change, such as starting a new school, moving house, or the arrival of a new sibling, there is a creative and effective idea that has worked well for many moms and […]
As parents, we do our very best for our children, actively giving them everything we believe they need… and more. So, the idea that their ‘love tanks’ may sometimes be running low is not only hard to believe, but it flies in the face of the love we express for them daily through our words […]
Photography: Loren Stowhttp://www.lorenstow.co.za/ In his book, “How to be a Gifted Parent”, Dr David Lewis formulated 40 questions that would measure how gifted a parent is. In light of our last post on the shared qualities of parents who are raising gifted children, we thought this would be interesting. The Rules Give yourself one mark for […]