When I was in the second year of my undergraduate studies in psychology at the University of Queensland, one of my lecturers, Professor Ottmar Lipp (who still teaches at UQ) said something particularly marvellous. He said that every question in psychology has the same answer and the answer is this: it depends. At the time […]
Can someone please tell me why our generation of parents has decided to turn back the clock and raise our children with 1950s gender expectations? Or has our generation forgotten to even think about how we want to raise our children with regards to gender? As a psychologist and a researcher, my opinions about gender […]
A good sense of humour is a must if you want to be a happy parent. I strongly recommend cultivating an attitude of relaxed amusement. You quickly learn, after bringing your little newborn home that the hilarious scenarios within comic movies and TV shows featuring new parents aren’t overblown but rather are amazingly accurate; especially […]
Most parents have a whole variety of plans for how they will parent, how their family will operate and how their children will behave. But most parents also know that children have plans of their own! It is not unusual as a parent to find yourself in a situation where your ideas about what should […]
Many women choose to breastfeed their baby and want to maintain breastfeeding for a specific length of time. Yet, many women also fall short of their own personal goals around breastfeeding or find themselves struggling with breastfeeding at some point. I’d like to share my advice, as a psychologist and as a breastfeeding mother, on […]
Parents are often made to feel guilty and ashamed of the way their children sleep (or don’t). But the truth is: There are a variety of ways that adults, children and babies can sleep. Sleeping practices are cultural. We each have our own individual sleeping preferences, needs and patterns (e.g. children vary in how much […]
Me-time, taking a break from your children and doing something just for yourself, is something I often here parents speaking of wistfully. It is something I’ve been known to speak of wistfully. But in my opinion, me-time can be a dangerous obsession. Let me be clear here, I don’t mean that you shouldn’t have any […]
I live in Australia and, since my last blog post, our Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivered a national apology on behalf of the Australian Government to parents and children affected by forced adoption practices in Australia from the 1950s to the 1970s. At that point in Australia’s history, unmarried mothers were expected to relinquish their […]
One of my pet peeves is this particular phrase “she’s only doing it for comfort…” It is a phrase you hear frequently and often with a dismissing air, the subtext being that as it is only for comfort she should hurry up and stop doing it. Oh, how this phrase frustrates me! It frustrates me […]
Parenting is a 24/7 job and you can’t be at your best 24/7. I know that I am capable of providing my toddler with a day filled with a whirlwind of enriching and stimulating activities and outings, while simultaneously keeping my household running, encouraging her emotional development and responding to any challenges along the way […]