Parents need to give their kids more responsibilities like walking to school, a psychologist specialising in kids’ neuroscience says. Parents wanting to prepare their children for the modern world need to let their kids get out and explore it — sometimes without them. That is the message visiting psychologist and TED talker Kathryn Berkett shared Read more
During a recent show, a Jewish French-Moroccan comedian Elmaleh gently poked fun at Catholics for their lack of religious pride. French Jews and Muslims, he pointed out, are a lot more public about demonstrating their religious identity. But if you ask a Catholic about their affiliation, he said, you’re likely to get a more evasive Read more
Today families don’t appreciate teachers, Pope Francis told a parents’ organisation that supports education as both a scholastic and social effort. He said the relationship between education and the family is declining. “The educational pact is declining. The family no longer appreciates the work of teachers as they did at one time,” Francis says. “To Read more
A Dunedin school principal is increasingly concerned by the social expectations imposed on schools – and says some parents need to take more responsibility for their children’s actions. During the recent King’s High School senior prizegiving, rector Dan Reddiex praised his present cohort of pupils for their outstanding achievements during the year but went on Read more
Dear Katrina, After watching our friends’ two grown kids go off to college and stop going to Mass and the disappointment it’s caused their parents, I was wondering if you had some advice for me and my own son, who will be leaving for college in two years. He’s already grown disinterested in coming to Read more
Fears religion will isolate their children at school is stopping parents from passing on their faith. A recent poll of 1,013 UK parents found a quarter of them are of this opinion. Furthermore, nearly one in five said it was not their role “as a parent to pass on my beliefs to my children”. The Read more
Parenting is hard work. It calls on mothers and fathers to really forget themselves and put their kids first. So it’s no wonder that sometimes, we take shortcuts. We buy them a toy rather than spend more time with them; we lose our temper rather than practice patience; we put on the TV at dinnertime Read more
At the time I had my first child I was a solicitor, a job for which I’d studied and trained and got qualifications. You’d think that those negotiating and persuasion skills I’d acquired on the job would have equipped me for parenting. Have you ever tried negotiating with a toddler? It becomes very clear who’s Read more
The teenage years can be mystifying for parents. Sensible children turn scatter-brained or start having wild mood swings. Formerly level-headed adolescents ride in cars with dangerous drivers or take other foolish risks. A flood of new research offers explanations for some of these mysteries. Brain imaging adds another kind of data that can help test Read more
The Bible is not a handbook on parenthood, or morality, or any number of other things for which handbooks are perfectly suitable. The Bible is a written testimony to the persistence of God’s grace throughout centuries as experienced by a particular people, in particular times and places. Scripture presents ancient families doing things that ancient Read more