Squish will always know the story about her birth mother and will always be free to ask questions about how it all began.

My kids are only 2 and 3 1/2 and, already, their competitive spirit is alive and well. I think it’s important to nurture it in a healthy way and teach them how to use it properly.

It is truly amazing that in this one little life is a personality just bursting to get out, complete with interests and quirks, distastes and dreams, humour and chutzpah, and so much more.

Apparently, a strong-willed child (I parent one) needs their soft underbelly affirmed five times for each critique.

One day, I won’t be there to catch them, and I need for them to know how to dust themselves off and keep going.

Here's the thing about adventures: not only are they educational and great fun; they create incredible, never-to-be-forgotten memories that you and your kids will cherish forever.

Boys are more prone to separation anxiety than girls and struggle more with understanding that mama loves them and is coming back. Thus, the genuine, gut-wrenching cries both my boys have subjected me to at bedtime.

Humans were designed for adventure. Boys and men, especially, are hard-wired for it. That’s why each year, Dads4Kids holds a Dads and Kids Fun Camp.

My heart lifts when I see my daughters cradled in healthy conversations with my parenting helpers.

On the school day my children leave my care, I will drop an “I love you” note into their lunch box or a quirky gift from the two-dollar shop.

Our children are, in many ways, strangers in the world of adults. They don’t speak our language particularly well – and we seem to have forgotten how to speak their language as we’ve aged.

Getting Squish to nap regularly is a conscious choice, a discipline. It has me wondering how many parents let their newborns decide their own sleeping patterns and, if so, how much misery it could cause!

I love this article, published by Time, to help parents like me make the most of these short years we have with our kids: "How to Have a Happy Family – 7 Tips Backed by Research".

Courage. It transforms everyday people into unlikely superheroes. We have an amazing 10-week online course for dads called Courageous, starting Tuesday 3 October.

Sometimes on the other side of a wonderful parenting weekend, there is a sense that single parenting is a clock-on-clock-off thing. A full parenting weekend involves the tumble and fun and out of sorts and homework and silliness and around-the-house helping out. Then, it goes quiet when I mentally punch off my dad timecard after wrapping up the school drop-off, knowing that the mum shift starts that afternoon. And, while I ...

No wonder I’m so tired! A UK study found that the average child asks around 300 questions a day. How on earth did our parents ever get by before Google? What made me smile was that the research revealed kids were more likely to ask their mother questions because their father was likely to say, ‘Ask your mother.’ Here are my tips for being the best ‘source of all knowledge’ you ...

Sometimes my weekends are a maddening tussle to make the one-after-the-other events that seem to start flooding our Friday and spill into our Saturday and Sunday. Sport, birthday parties, youth group, housework, homework, school socials all back up, one against the other, to make our dad and daughters time fairly frenetic. Leading into my last weekend with Miss 7 and Miss 12, I knew that my Friday to Monday was going ...

My kids and I were watching a Disney movie recently. In the movie, a dad who was coaching his child’s sports team yelled at his son. After the coaching session, the boy asked his Dad, “Why did you yell at me, but you didn’t yell at all the other kids?” His Dad yelled back in exasperation,  “I don’t care about the other kids.” I was struck by the irony of this ...

Ludwig van Beethoven said, “Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.” Ronnie James Dio, a former member of Black Sabbath, said, “Music, rock & roll music especially, is such a generational thing. Each generation must have its own music. I had my own in my generation, you have yours, everyone I know has their own ...

Silly giggles, 3 am feeds, bedtime cuddles, wiped tears and heart-to-hearts. These are the moments you’ll treasure when your little one is all grown up. I reckon that if anyone ever does invent a time machine, it’ll be a mum. After all, wouldn’t you give everything you own to have one last snuggle with your little one, while they still think you’re the most amazing person they know? Losing Time A ...