Category Archives: Uncategorized
Where did neighbourhoods go?
The best part about buying our first house 26 years ago was discovering that we now lived in a real neighbourhood. We were the first family with young children to move into our road in some years. Our neighbours were such a mixed bunch age wise, gay and straight, with or without children. My two […]
What’s the difference?
I was thinking about the perception of the world from the point of view of two different populations. What does a child with developmental delays understand about the world? They are often anxious and jittery and their speech is usually delayed. Sometimes they are initially thought to be deaf. But the world to them is, […]
Thinking about TV and Speech Delays
Several articles published this year have suggested a relationship between TV and autism. I don’t pretend to be an expert on autism but I have cared for numerous children younger than 3 years. My first rule in caregiving is “no TVâ€. In households where the parents use TV as a babysitter or as part of their […]
52 Ways To Bludgeon Your Child’s Physical, Mental, Social and Emotional Development Part 2
The next 26: 27. Never be aware of noises that startle your infant/toddler/child. 28. Never do anything about noises that startle. 29. Be impulsive for your own needs, never your child’s. 30. Always satisfy your needs and guilt before your child’s needs. 31. Spend as much time away from your child as possible; be it for […]
52 Ways To Bludgeon Your Child’s Physical, Mental, Social and Emotional Development Part 1
The first of a two-part blog today. This list is in no particular order of importance. The first 26: 1. Don’t talk to your infant or toddler in more than grunts, if possible don’t talk to them at all, for as long as you can. 2. When and if they do start to talk repeat their incorrect […]
Horrors That Really Happened!
A tiny baby is left to cry for an hour each evening because “you aren’t supposed to feed babies more often than every 4 hoursâ€. Toddlers are locked in their bedrooms by their parents. Children are shut in dark closets to discipline them. Children are never allowed to get ‘messy’, be it jumping in puddles, getting […]
A Number Worth Remembering
This post is the 225th article I have in my ‘blog bank’. The number is significant because it is the number of the house I lived in with my parents and brother for 16 years, so in my mind it is more significant than the number of the flat I lived in from birth to […]
Consciously Learning All The Time
‘Learning All The Time’ was the title of John Holt’s last book, completed after his death using material he originally wrote for my early home education ‘bible’, the newsletter called Growing Without Schooling. With the right attitude of mind you too can be ‘learning all the time’ no matter what your age, despite going to […]
Take charge of your children – you’re the parent!
Can you stop your child from doing something you think is unsafe without using the word ‘no’? Here are some ideas I’ve used: Does your child show extraordinary curiosity when you plug in the vacuum? (In your mind he is ‘trying to put his fingers in the sockets’). Did it ever occur to you to […]
Crabby dog, crabby child? — Crabby ‘parents’?
I can’t count the number of times I’ve been in households with noisy, irritable and temperamental pets. In just about every case the temperament of the pets parallels the irritability of the ‘parents’ – usually with each other! Then they top it all off by having children (usually they get a dog and then decide to have […]