Ten Reasons Why We Fail
Here are ten reflections on falling short of a desired outcome. More precisely, why we fail despite ourselves or our best intentions.
You Get What You Look For
What do you believe about your children? Are you speaking and acting in a way that will build and train the children that you really want?
Good Words
It happened in the shoe section at Big W. Casually browsing through the sandals, Tyson kneeling at my feet. He dropped a heel, paused and said: ‘b@&&er.’ Mortified. Where on earth did he learn…? Oh. Confession time: Amongst my many and varied flaws is a weakness for the odd expletive. Something that seemed harmless enough… until I heard that word come out of my ‘epitome-of-innocence’ 3-year-old’s mouth. The other customers in ...
Gratitude: The Heartbeat of Love
New research validates age-old wisdom: the simple habit of gratitude can transform a jaded marriage into a joyous encounter. By Marilyn Rodrigues A University of North Carolina study highlighted the association of gratitude with a happy marriage. Cameron Gordon, the study’s lead author, said that the goodwill generated by grateful spouses creates a “reciprocal feedback loop” of marital harmony, helping spouses to view their interactions even on bad days in a ...
Two Secrets to a Happy Home
The big question is: “How do you create a happy home?” I think a lot of people wished they had come from one. Working with young people and families with both older and younger children, I’ve noticed that a happy home can come from any race, occupation, economic status, political persuasion and any other variation you wish to throw into the mix. When you have a strong culture in a home, ...
Why It’s Okay For Your Child to Fail
Focus on Effort, Not Outcome Do you get excited when your children get everything right? Or do you get excited when your children make mistakes and feel like what they’re doing is hard? Studies show that when we praise or reward kids for being brilliant, they get caught up in ‘proving’ how good they are. And this leads to them avoiding things they could fail at -- because failure might mean ...
Going From Good To Better
Marital health is about more than minimising conflict. If we want to go from ‘good’ to ‘better’, we need to capitalise on the positives. Most marriage counselling and education focuses on conflict and incompatibility. It seeks to help couples find constructive ways of dealing with challenges in the relationship. It’s a ‘damage control’ approach that seeks to minimise the impact of negative experiences. Conflict management and relationship repair are important skills ...
Making a Change for the Better
Change is difficult. It can also be complicated. Despite our best intentions, sustained change often eludes us. We’ve had many spouses tell us that their husband or wife promised to change, and things were good for a while, but then there was a relapse. Their good intentions were not enough to sustain their energy for change. So what can we do when we really need a change to stick? What needs ...
Finding Option 3
Even when you are overwhelmed by unforeseen messes, it is possible to choose to laugh at the situation and carry on. It always happens when you’re at your most tired and looking after the kids by yourself. One or multiple children engage in a maddening act that would be enough to make a grown man cry. This happened to me yesterday. It was the end of a very busy patch with ...
Finding the Sweet Spot in Parenting
Parenting comes with so many challenges. But the biggest challenge of all is stopping to enjoy the joys – the 'sweet spots' – of parenting. This year has been one of the most challenging years of parenting for me. In some ways, I assumed this year would be easier because Esther would be at kindy, and I’d only have Maggie and Phoebe at home. But it can be hard keeping a ...
