I have consulted with a few different psychologists in my life. One of them uses Transactional Analysis (TA) in their therapy. According to TA, a human being’s personality consists of three parts or ego states: a Parent, an Adult and a Child (the Child state is split further into Natural Child and Adaptive Child). I’m not going to go into…
Month: April 2014
Sins of the father
My Dad was a strict and controlling Dad to us. He shouted and he was aggressive. And we (my sister and I) got smacks when we were naughty (amongst other things). Let me just say, I was naughty all the time, so I have vivid memories of punishments. Not surprisingly, I was always against smacking children (not least because of…
Hit the Road…
Although we had intentions of an Easter break with the UK family this year, it was one week before the school holiday and there was still no plan. My hubby said he’d like to go to Porto in Portugal for a visit to his business partner. We could all go and our children could play with the partner’s daughter who…
We are all winners
When Miss Z started school she became competitive… to the point that when she plays with Mr A, she always wants to win. In our house we implemented the rule that everyone is a winner. There are no losers. There is someone that comes first, and someone that comes second, but that doesn’t mean that they lost. Mr A is…
Getting ready – the 3 morning rules
I really like to promote independence with my kids, so as soon as Miss Z was able to get dressed herself, I encouraged her to do so. These days, as she is in school, she has to wear the school uniform during the week, but she is free to choose her own clothes on weekends. The result is not always…
Nanny guilt? I don’t think so!
I hired my first nanny when Miss Z was 9 months old. I went back to work when she was 12 months old. When I had Mr A (2 years later) I was on maternity leave for 9 months. People would often be surprised that I still had a nanny whilst I was on maternity leave. I really loved my…
The end of the afternoon nap… bring on Special Playtime
When my daughter was about 2½ years old, she no longer wanted to have an afternoon nap. She started crying every time I took her upstairs and was very strong in her resolve that she didn’t want to sleep. I was on maternity leave at the time with Mr A. He was 6 months old and he had a long…
Naughty step
I think probably everyone that has children knows what the naughty step is. Some people also call it timeout. I first heard about it from the Supernanny TV series. It’s funny really, because both my husband and I thought that smacking was a good way to discipline children. This was before we watched Supernanny on TV. Seeing is believing –…