Welcome to my blog – New Year, New Resolutions

My resolution

The start of the year is obviously an opportune time for new resolutions and I have made one of my own.  I set up ‘Educating Matters’ 15 years ago and over that time have supported thousands of parents. So many of you have said I should be writing more and sharing my ideas with a wider audience. With 4 young children and running a business of my own, I don’t have much spare time!!!!   However this is the year I have resolved to start a blog and see where it takes me.

I have so many thoughts and ideas about parenting and educating children floating around in my head.  I am not necessarily saying anything new or revolutionary but it’s all tried and tested, either on my own children or those of parents I coach.  Parents seem to find it helpful to hear from someone right in the middle of parenting their own children and sharing stories about what has or hasn’t worked.

Resolutions in general – Yuck!!!

I am sure many parents in January resolve to shout less, try to keep calm and enjoy their children more. Yet every year, people find themselves making the same resolutions: to exercise more, eat healthily, spend more time with friends and family, prioritise, improve their work-life balance etc.  Particularly with regards to parenting, unless you have some skills up your sleeve and a clear vision of where you want to be and how you can get there, your resolutions may be unrealistic.

We often expect too much from ourselves and then become frustrated when we fail and give up quite quickly. There is absolutely no such thing as a ‘perfect’ parent – we can only be ‘good enough’. How good we are on any given day, depends on so many varying factors that may have nothing to do with our children. Such as how much sleep we have had, have we eaten, what’s happening at work and how overwhelmed we feel.

I can’t count the number of times parents have come to me saying things like – ‘my child is difficult, unmotivated, lazy, over sensitive, highly strung’.  Armed with a few really common sense skills, parents find their children magically change.  Of course all children have different temperaments but the truth is most of the time it is not about the children, it’s about the way significant adults respond to them.

There is an overwhelming amount of resources out there but if you have come across mine and it helps then great.  My mission is to share some simple but very effective ideas to make a genuine difference to the quality of family life for as many parents/carers as possible.

Please join me on my journey, share and encourage others to sign up to the newsletter.