Brag about it HERE

How many of us have proudly told a story about something or other our little ones have done only to be told to “shut up”. Most of the time it’s a little more polite but in essence that is how people react to a little pride in a little person. Whether it’s sleeping through or saying the first word ahead of “regular” milestones most people react in a negative way to your excitement. We get told “don’t ruin friendships with good babies” and in the end we tend to keep quiet and keep our stories to ourselves.

Well this is where it ends.

I invite everyone who wants to, whether your child is 6 months old and already walking or 26 years old and running a multi-global company or even if they are 7 and lost their first tooth to come and share it here. Beam with pride and get excited about it. You will not hear from me “sssh don’t say that too loud” or “they all balance out by the age of 2″. None of that deflating talk will be allowed. Fill your mommy (or daddy) sails with as much bragging as your heart desires.

My son is 20 weeks, I am brimming with pride because:
He sleeps through
He can roll around from back to front and front to back
He has started to figure out how to crawl
He is teething and handling it like a pro
He still loooooves breastfeeding (and so do I)
He loves to be loved by everyone and doesn’t fuss when other people hold him
He giggles but he also does full laughs, whole body shuddering laughs
He puts his hands out to be picked up
He puts his hands out when he sees me with one of his stuffed toys

I am sure there are more and I will add as he grows and I hope you all do the same. Here’s to our amazing children!

Discipline – Leading on from advice

There are so many controversial topics when it comes to parenting and EVERYONE thinks that there way is the right way. One of the more hotly debated topics is “discipline”. To smack, not to smack, how to smack. With the introduction of “Super Nanny” and “World’s Worst Mum” and other shows of that nature, every person with DSTV has suddenly become an expert. Likewise, people who have used 1 method to raise their well behaved children believe that that must be the best way, never taking into account that their children and themselves are not the same as everyone else and that hindsight is 50/50.

I personally believe in spanking. There I said it. I don’t believe children should be taken over the knee the moment they transgress and smacked as hard as possible until they cry out in agony. Myself and Jack have discussed discipline for many years, it was something that for me was important to agree on. A solid front, which ever method you choose, is the most important thing when it comes to discipline.

In short, the way we would like to discipline our child (and possible future children) is with a combination of time-outs and physical discipline. The time-out being both for the child to understand why there is a consequence to their action AND for us, as the parent,s to calm down, to let the anger (or laughter) subside and to give the punishment in a calm and controlled way.

I have friends who have successfully disciplined their children in a non-impact way, I have friends and family who have successfully disciplined the children with spankings. There is no “one true way”. It boils down to your own beliefs AND how your children react. It is important to adjust punishments accordingly. If you have chosen to spank and your child’s response to it is “meh” and they take it, shrug and walk away…no lesson was learned and so it’s time to pick a different strategy.

My least favourite argument is “violence begets violence”. How many of you were raised with spankings? How many of you who answered yes are extremely violent people? My theory is like so: If a child knows that a smack hurts, will they be so quick to smack for fun? If a child is taught that a spanking is something you get when you have done something very wrong, will they be so quick to dish it out to their siblings or friends (or parents)? I don’t believe in just spanking, there is a lot of talking that happens around it. A child must know why they are receiving a punishment, just smacking them and expecting them to “just get it” is silly and will work just as well as having not punished them at all.

Currently, bleeding heart lobby groups are trying to get the government to legislate against spanking in the home. Firstly, government legislating into the home is a slippery slide nobody wants to get onto. Secondly, how would you police something like that? Lastly, their reasoning is to lower the rate of child abuse in the country, very noble but banning spanking from the home to curtail abuse is like stopping restaurants from serving alcohol to stop alcohol abuse.

The government does not need to BAN things, they need to EDUCATE and EMPOWER and that is exactly what you should do with your kids, however you choose to do it.