It’s easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking that what we have to say – as parents – is much more important than what our children have to say. If you take this logic, then our children need to listen more keenly to our words than we need to listen to theirs. We will say, ‘Don’t interrupt
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Conflicts are an inevitable part of any relationship. Without making any excuses for poor conduct, we have to accept that conversation can be a chaotic business and doesn’t unfold in straight lines. As such, it would be ridiculous to imagine that we’re going to get all of our conversations right. After an argument, people have different ways of patching things
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I sat down next to a mother recently at my son’s school sports match. We got onto the subject of teenagers and she told me how her 13-year old son had – quite recently – developed a new language that relied exclusively on communicating through a complex system of grunts. This experience was entirely new and bewildering to her, since
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As parents, the question we face when dealing with tantrums is: Do I clamp down on them? Do I indulge them? Do I ignore them? Each of these strategies has its upsides and downsides. If I clamp down, I show my displeasure but my child will feel controlled and demeaned. If I indulge them, I may defuse the immediate issue,
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