Disappointment is one of those things that we all go through as a child. Whether it be a small thing or large, we’ve all been there and gone through it. As an adult though we see it in a different way. A lot of the time though we’ll brush it off as something insignificant, but for the child it could be devastating. And when you’re close to your child seeing the look on their faces, as the lips tremble and the eyes well up, it can break your heart.

One such occasion happened to my son Jay just this last week. read more

Our family is what one may call multicultural, my wife (SO) is ethnically Chinese, our son is Javanese, and I’m a plain old regular white guy. On a day to day basis these labels are irrelevant to us, we are a family and that’s all that really matters.

Occasionally though something comes up to remind us that we are, in some ways different to each other.

One such occasion came up a few months ago when SO was dying her hair. Being Chinese her hair is, of course, black, but she’s starting to get a few grey (white?) hairs coming through. As such she’s taken to dying her hair every few months. read more

This is a question I think most parents ask themselves at one time or another, especially in what we call the electronic age. What effect does early exposure to these gadgets have on a developing mind? Does it prevent an active lifestyle? Should our kids spend more time running around outside playing with their friends like we did? Or do the benefits that using these things early in life bring outweigh the negatives?

I’ve owned and played with computers for almost 30 years now. I had a Playstation 1, and Playstation 2 and now have both a Playstation 3 and Playstation 4. Both SO (my wife) and I both have smart phones and our household has 3 iPads, and iPad 1, iPad 2 and iPad Air 2. read more

As a parent one of our concerns is what our children are exposed to, especially in the internet age. It’s no longer just what they see, or allowed to see, on TV, but the availability of just about everything, good and bad, on websites is a cause for concern. Even the most tolerant of parents are, or at least should be, concerned about what their children are exposed to.

I’m not different.

From an early age SO (my wife) and I have tried to expose our son to what we feel are positive messages. We watched educational and entertaining programs on TV and DVDs and of course in this age quite a few videos on youtube. read more

One of the things that happens when you study psychology is that people will have the tendency to ask for help with things that they think you should have the solution for. Of course that happens for a lot of different occupations, doctors, plumbers, electricians, bankers, you get the idea. Friends and family will come looking for answers or advice because it’s what you do for work.

One of those things that people seem to keep asking about is when their child has just started school and seem to be having some problems with their classes. I’ve personally had family, friends and even friends of friends come to me with this problem. read more

As parents we all have our favourite stories we tell people. This isn’t one of the stories I like tell, although SO (my wife) and I have told it a couple of times, it’s actually a story that J, our son, likes to tell people. And he’s told it to pretty much everyone who’s not a complete stranger.

Considering he was less than a week old when it happened I don’t think he actually remembers it happening, but he does find it highly amusing.

And so sets the scene. He was, if I remember correctly, and SO would probably say I don’t, but she’s not writing this, I am, so I shall for this time ignore her voice in my head and say that J was all of five days old at the time the story takes place. read more

My wife (SO) and I have always loved kids and before we got married we knew we wanted to have some. I always told people I was going to have 3 children, 1 boy, 1 girl, and 1 we weren’t too sure about. Okay that was probably funnier in my head, but I really did tell my friends that.

Anyway, with both of us wanting kids we decided to try. Didn’t see that coming did you? Oh, you did? Well, just forget I said that then.

After years of trying and then going through the normal ways of conceiving and getting help to conceive, we still had no little rugrats to call our own. I’m not going to expand on these attempts here, maybe another time. read more

Some people have a natural filter that stops them from saying things that can come back to haunt them. I do not.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about inappropriate things or anything. I’m usually quite good at not saying bad things in front of kids. I’m talking about saying things that are amusing to adults, but not fully understood by the youngsters in the mix.

The incident I’m talking about now happened when my son was about 3 years old while we were enjoying our typical family dinner. We do try, as much as humanly possible, to have dinner together everyday as part of our time spent together. read more