14 Year Old Boy in Custody, Bali – Where’s the Compassion?

As our family drove back from a country holiday on the weekend, we heard news on the radio that a 14 year old boy from NSW had been arrested in Bali for allegedly being in possession of a small quantity of marijuana. Our boys are aged 16, 13 and 9, so it was easy for me to make a quick mental leap to the minds of this young man’s parents … But there was some commentary I saw online today that made me uncomfortable and angry Read full article
Raising Boys with a Healthy Body Image

When baby boys are born, they usually look close to perfect – their parents gaze at them with the rose-coloured glasses that are issued to all new mums and dads. And apart from snotty noses, muddy knees and bruised shins, those little boys remain cherub-like in the eyes of their parents until their early teen years. By then, teenage boys are starting to define and compare themselves with others and will be making efforts to show how different they are from their doting parents. Enter the influence of the media, the movies, peers and reality television, and all of a sudden a teenage boy notices that his muscles are not as bulked up as his favourite television show character, and his hair is not as straight and cool as the popular boys in his year. Read full article
Teenage Boys Under Pressure to Look Good
Boys are under increasing pressure to look good. How is this impacting on boys’ healthy body image? Yvette Vignando appears on The Morning Show Channel 7 and discusses briefly what parents can do to promote a healthy body image in their teenage sons and protect them from developing eating disorders. Also appearing, Danni Rowlands from the Butterfly Foundation and Loveena Guilford from Styed with Love. Read full article
Survival Guide for Parents of Tween Girls

Parenting a Tween feels a bit like you’re running a medieval gauntlet. You know it’s going to be tricky. Some of your friends already have had kids going through the Tween stage, between the ages of nine and 13, and you’ve heard the stories of once happy and empathetic children morphing into self-absorbed, emotional nightmares when they don’t get their way. Read full article
Sibling Rivalry – Brothers, Mothers and Manlets

Wow, isn’t this potentially murky territory? The love/hate relationship we can have with our own flesh and blood…The relationship between my own two sons swings wildly from love to warfare. Sometimes I worry about it; I worry that one day they will only have each other and I desperately hope that nothing comes between them. At least nothing of a permanent nature. They’re such different people, as all our kids are I guess. Read full article
Popular Books

When Rosalind Wiseman published her bestseller Queen Bees and Wannabes in 2001, it…
Paperback Book$32.99 AUD

Talk Less Listen More provides parents with strategies and ideas on how to teach…
Paperback Book$29.99 AUD

When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley, one girl spoke out; Malala Yousafzai…
Paperback Book$32.99 AUD