The theory of temperament and traits is a fascinating subject. An understanding of our own temperament, our partner’s temperament and our children’s temperament will certainly help when it comes to parenting. Especially in our understanding of how best to respond to certain behaviour that is causing us concern. I remember…
Some people have told us that they were worried about attending a parenting course. They felt that others would judge them and would think that they were not good parents. They thought it was only parents who hit their children and didn’t know the first thing about parenting that went…
These were the words of a new migrant parent when she was interviewed for a research project conducted by Whanau Marama Parenting several years ago. Behind her words are the deep concerns of many new migrant parents. In their country-of-origin children are expected to study for many hours after school…
If you are like me – just about pulling your hair out over your children fighting I recommend listening to this informative 30 minute podcast. When my four children were little they used to fight a lot. They fought every day, sometimes many times a day. This was my biggest…
The giving of real respect comes as a heart response from the person giving it. Actually we can’t make our children do anything from their heart. There needs to be ‘willingness’ from within them. We can try to make our children do something and it may result in them complying, maybe out of fear, but it…
It is a time when members of a family connect with each other in a loving way. It is a time when parents give their 100% attention to their tamariki/children. It may involve playing together, sharing a special time, listening to each other, having fun, sharing emotions and being together…
Sometimes we punish good behaviour even when we do not actually intend to. This can lead to our child feeling discounted and often quite angry. E.g. The child/ tamariki wipes up the bench, but has forgotten to squeeze out the cloth and leaves the bench very wet. Parent says, “Great,…
Sometimes we ask our child ‘Why did you do it?”. We then tend to be surprised with their answer is “I DON’T KNOW” especially if they say it in an angry voice. After all, we were asking what we thought was a helpful question. We were only trying to help…
I wish I had the information about positive parenting. Thinking about the way I parented our four children, who now have children of their own, I have many regrets, although there were good times too. On one hand we were reasonably good parents. We both really loved our children, spent…