I am hearing of more and more parents complaining that their children are addicted to electronic devices such as tablets such as iPads, MobilePhones and games consoles and that the children get stroppy when told to switch them off. I had a similar problem when my eldest son became obsessed with his play station and although…

Thanks to Tina for the suggestion of an absent parent, a difficult subject; but one I have had a little experience of. My boys, were aged four and six years, when myself and their father split. I decided at the time that I was going to try to stay on good terms with my ex,…

Similar to learning about numbers and colours, the easiest way to teach our children about shapes in my opinion is to make it fun. Start by looking around your environment. Sitting in my living room, I can see several different shapes; square and rectangle picture frames, a round clock, rectangular windows and door frames, a…

The subject of encouraging your child to do No.2’s (poos) on the potty, has recently come to my attention, both in person and on social media. I did encounter, this problem, with my middle child, although his problem was of constipation; which in itself can be a vicious circle, it hurt him to go, so…

Managing their child’s behaviour can be one of the biggest challenges for many parents, after all; the “terrible two’s” do start at around 18 months and finish at 18 years, don’t they? The solution to this is simple – reward good behaviour and, wherever possible ignore the bad. The best example I can give of…

Another request from Sarah Knight, this time for fussy eaters. Thank you so much Sarah. My experience with my own children, as far as eating goes is that they usually eat most things, until around twelve months, when the picky eating starts. My eldest son would eat a varied diet until this age and then…

During my time as a childminder I was asked; on a few occasions (usually by first time parents) what were my feelings towards using a dummy. When I was in my early twenties and expecting my first baby I was under the mind set that no child of mine would ever be seen with a dummy in…

Personally, I have never experienced sibling jealousy with my own children. When I was pregnant with my second baby, I told my son who was almost two ,in language that he could understand. We looked at pictures of babies in magazines and borrowed library books etc. He came with me for some of my midwife…

Cooking with children is an activity that I have done with both my own children, and the ones I used to child mind. You can simply let the children help with baking, my own children used to like to stand on a chair beside me so that they could reach the kitchen worktop and help…