It’s one thing to eat meat, it’s another to eat organ meat. I’m not normally a fan due to frightening childhood experiences, but I’ve been experimenting with liver the last few weeks and not once did my boys curl their top lip or notice anything different. In fact, when they Read more…
Active listening with our children is not really about conversation, it is about holding a silence, holding a space to hear our kids. When they open up a discussion, it is not so much about giving them the answers. Opening the doorway to communication is about saying things like “Sounds Read more…
In my experience once we sit with this truth and wrap our heads around it, a full disclosure about the fears that are plaguing us, does help communication blocks. You see we all get triggered at times. I’ll give you an example, sometimes because “health” is my world, (I spend Read more…
Kids tease. There’s nothing nice about it but it happens. On one level it’s often about one child teasing another child about their name, surname, hair colour, or a mistake they have made. I like to give kids the benefit of the doubt and trust that it’s just light-hearted humour. Read more…
The other day I had a little patient and at some point, during the adjustment he picked his nose. In her embarrassment the Mum gently scolded him, and the little boy completely withdrew and lowered his head and eyes. As a fellow Mum I said, “It’s okay buddy, everyone picks Read more…
Do you sometimes think that buying organic foods is just for high net worth individuals with too much cash? For the wee gullible? For the ‘Do Right’ families, keen to show the rest of us up? Do you make your “green smoothie” in the mornings and guzzle it down convinced Read more…
Have you ever wondered how often you should poo, or if your poo was healthy? Okay, after we get passed the awkwardness of this topic most of us would admit we are a little intrigued… How often we use our bowels and what our poo looks like tells us a Read more…
Parents often ask me, “How do I get my children to eat good foods?” and to this I always reply, “Pick your battles and be very clear that ‘food’ is the battle that you win!” Every family must negotiate guidelines and boundaries around many lifestyle habits but in my experience Read more…
Part 2 of 2 in our Dangers of Screen Time series. Our families are certainly not immune to the demands of our “plugged in” world and, as you will have read in Part 1 of this Dangers of Screen Time series, we too feel challenged in knowing how to set Read more…
By Matt Mahalo, wellbeing author and proud father of two. No, I’m not talking about gut feelings and intuition here. I mean simple gut health… Because it’s difficult to be a good parent when we have limited emotional resilience and low energy — two things that are seriously affected by Read more…