Christmas Gift Ideas now? It is coming close to Christmas already, so it’s best to start thinking of what you might like to get for your child before the Christmas rush.
Old Man Wills, 8 turning 30, is smart, intelligent, has a good sense of humour, and is a mature little boy. He also loves his gadgetry. If I had to guess, his Christmas wish list would be something like this:
Bethany, 6 turning 16, is smart, cheeky, playful, has a wicked sense of humour, and loves her art and craft. She is still a young girl but is interested in a wide range of things. If I had to guess, her Christmas wish list would be something like this:
I came up with a post Reward Children Appropriately May of this year, and invited the FB MoDiscipline group to participate. Unfortunately, only two responded – mostly saying rewarding appropriately is challenging and that it is better to err on the side of conservativism.
Here’s my take on pocket money and how much I’d give to my children.
Chores for Pocket Money: All of us do chores around the house, at least we’re expected to. I don’t get any pocket money for doing chores, so neither should my children. Normal every day chores for children should not be too onerous anyway and should be done without thought of monetary reward. Now if special effort is put in to do jobs-over-and-beyond, then I follow up with a spot bonus – typically with a gold coin. For larger jobs, such as car washes, I would pay a percentage of commercial rates and allocate the rest to the Happiness Fund.
Non-Monetary Incentivisation: Money is not the best reward. I’ve used small trophies and certificates/awards, and presented them in formal dinner settings with guests. This approach helps recognise achievements in things like academic performance, completion of their violin books, amazing feats of strength, and such like. Preparation for doing such awards properly take some time, but the desired impact is powerful. You should try it.
Weekly Pocket Money: Our children are young, and always with us through the week. They aren’t old enough to go out by themselves and therefore really don’t need a budget for living expenses. Larger purchases are handled by ‘Ang Pows’ – red packets gifts containing cash given out during Chinese New Year and Birthdays in our culture. They’d typically get on average maybe $200-300 per year this way. So I reckon this is enough money to afford them stuff they really want.
Pocket Money and Allowance: Eventually children need to have cash to ensure they’ve got enough money to handle weekly expenditure on food, entertainment, and expendables. I reckon that pocket money depends on the the child’s activities and your family lifestyle. The more independence the higher the sum should be. I’m estimating a weekly allowance of $20-$30 for a teenager. Anyone want to offer a suitable range of monies to give to children by age?
In my series to look at Child Care in Australia, Perth in particular, I need to talk about dumping my son in Child Care once a week to get him ready for Montessori School by age 3. Wills started off at a lovely Family Day Care provider’s granny flat in a leafy suburb. But after a year of that, the Family Day Carer told us that she was closing down her day care facility. Her life situation had changed and she wouldn’t be able to take care of our child anymore.
This was absolutely heart wrenching – Wills had gotten used to her and was even enjoying sessions at her place. Now we had to look for an alternative Child Care facility, and we feared that it will not live up to the standards set by the Family Day Carer. We were right. The new child care service, not far away, was housed in a huge building. All the children were in the same room and my son, being the gentle soul that he was, didn’t appreciate being jostled and wrestled. He was absolutely unhappy at this new place.
We persisted with this new child care place, a decision I now slightly regret, because we really didn’t have very many options and believed that along with playgroup, child care was good for him. We should have had the wherewithal to review the situation after a few weeks and pull the plug when it was ascertained that he wasn’t handling it very well. Fortunately his time at this subsequent child care service was short lived, and he entered Montessori school soon after.
Perth Royal Show is on 25th September to 2nd October 2010 at the Claremont Show Grounds.
Perth Royal Show has a rich history spanning 170 years, and is an iconic event that showcases WA agriculture, small business and entertainment. The show hosts competitions, animals, food, games, events for the family, and of course the infamous Perth Royal Show showbags. The following is a list of some of the events I think children and animal lovers will get into:
Pat-a-Pig
Name the THree Little Pigs
Brownes Milking Demonstration
Sheep Dog Trials
Animal Nursery Feeding Time
Equestrial Events
Camel Display
This is Perth’s biggest event attracting 400,000 visitors regionally every year. Before you go, make sure to download a Perth Royal Show map and to figure out where you’re going to park.
When I was invited to guest post on A Dose of Dannie, I asked her to send me a few links of posts from her blog that she’d especially like. Most of the links Dannie chose were either anecdotes of family life or had lots of parenting humour. So I decided to come up with Human Children Raised Like Dogs. It’s the post no child wants to read – how this parent used puppy training techniques on them whilst they were growing up.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity, Dannie. Everyone go say hi, won’t you?
I turned 40 this week. I’ve got lots to be thankful. Most of it goes to my beautiful family.
This song Hallelujah was written by Leonard Cohen, and I first heard it performed by the Choir of Hard Knocks! I mostly like male vocal renditions, but this particular video showing Alexandra Burke singing the song is breathtaking. The power of her voice really honours the song.
Pick up Woman’s Day or Vogue magazine, and wish you hadn’t? If those magazines aren’t dressing up food, they’re dressing down skinny emaciated girls. On my recent weekend flight back to celebrate my birthday with my folks, I noticed a fellow passenger with one of those glossies in her hand touting a firmer body for the Australian summer. Can I say something? I don’t think she’d ever get there. Fortunately for her, not all men are convinced that beauty is about being stick thin. Here’s my guide to beauty for all women.
Beauty of Personality: I remember having to approach a young nanny in my playgroup and give her an orientation regarding use of Montessori jobs and materials. She looked at me like I was a leper or lech or paedophile, or WORSE, a Montessori Nazi. Now does she think I’m going to ask her out or something? What a turn off. I’d rather prefer a gorgeous smile, engaging warmth, and confidence. Much better to shake your doubts and extend your energy girl! Confident guys like confident girls!!!
Beauty of Scent: Lingering subtle perfume. Your perfume has to remind me of you when you leave the room and establish gravitas when you enter. While you should stay away from the cheap stuff, don’t just assume just because it’s expensive and it’s French that it’ll automatically suit you.
Beauty of Informality: I’ve seen some plus size mums at school in the tightest see-through exercise outfits – it’s not a good look. You know, I wouldn’t bat an eye in the gym, but if you were doing the school runs – I’d go for neat and presentable casual clothes. Suits are great and attractive, but really, everyday wear is about pragmatic clothes which are stylish and comfortable for you. If you want to know, I like Kelly @ Be a Fun Mum’s ideas about fashion. From what I know she goes from attractive classic wear to vibrant wearable colours – and look at how she flicks her hair back! Wow. And you shouldn’t need to feel like you have to show cleavage or dress like a school girl.
Beauty of Nature: I love beautiful hair. I like cropped hair. I like short hair. I like long hair. I really like shiny glossy light flickable hair. I love sensuous curls. I like hair nicely styled. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?
Beauty of Natural Colours: Understated makeup is best. Having stage make-up for this day and age is not on. Reapply and smooth it out at night – cracking or caking is not going to look very nice.
Beauty in the Details: You either have a perfect coat on your nails or not at all. I absolutely love beautifully done nails. But I also absolutely detest cheap chipped chewed nail polish.
Beauty and Pride: Men are really into well-polished shoes. Beat up old leather is not a turn on. Go polish your shoes. Guys are really into that! Not the act of polishing – the end product.
Inner Beauty: You don’t have to be a saint. Everyone has an inner light which is beautiful to people who tend to look for it. Doesn’t matter even if you use terms like ‘WTF’ all the time. I can see this kind of beauty. It’s all about heartware, folks. Start cultivating some now and let it shine.
Zoey’s post 10 Things I Won’t Discipline and then Kelly’s follow up post Childishness or Foolishness has inspired me to start a sushi train. This time I’m promoting the definition of discipline focusing on the root word ‘disciple’. This post talks about my main disciple – William my son, the best of us.
Discipline of Composure: We once had a violin session which started out badly – William was tired and grumpy. He was reduced to tears and refused to play his violin. I waited till he settled himself down, got him to have a break, return, and start from scratch – warming up, and working with basic pieces. Eventually, he had a fantastic practice and finished off feeling positive. That ability to centre himself is important – concerts aren’t going to wait for anyone. Everyone is human and everyone is affected by emotions, we however need to learn how to bring ourselves back from the brink and get back into the zone. That discipline of composure, son, will give you strength beyond your peers.
Discipline of Objective-Oriented Thinking: Picture this: you are at the Perth Royal Show and your son wants more than the one show bag you bought for him. So you look down and say, “Did you bring your money? Well, if you don’t have enough money, we can only afford to buy you one show bag.” So following that one incident, the entire year he starts saving up all his monies – from gifts, from over-and-above type chores, and by not spending on small items. Eventually, he amasses more than a hundred dollars this way for the next Royal Show. I can’t believe that a 6 year old would have this sort of tenacity. Amazing!
Discipline of Logic: Picture this: you’ve got a son with a fist full of cash at the bloody Royal Show. You’ve promised him one show bag and he’s able to blow his hard-earned money on however many else he wants. You know how irresistible those bags are? Can I tell you something? The kid buys himself ONE showbag because that’s all he decides he wanted. There’s no point in spending hard earned money just because he can. How proud do you think I felt? My heart was bursting!
Discipline of Initiative: Following Masterchef, Wills decides he’s going to cook dinner and dessert for the family. He prints out a Spag Bol and Apple Crumble recipe from the net and brings them to me. So I run him through how to create a shopping list. Then I bring him to the grocery store. Then I stand next to him in the kitchen helping him with everything from knife skills to timing and tasting. He eventually turns out a pretty impressive Spag Bol. Good on you son, that kind of initiative plus the determination to cook an entire dinner is fantastic! What discipline!
Discipline of Self-Control: Young William would eat all the fruit on the cake and then I suppose the cake, and save the chocolate truffle to the end. He’ll then put the morsel into his mouth and savour it for the longest possible time. Apparently, he learned this “save the best for last” from one of the other children in school … and has been doing it since. I just love how you think, son.
When our little boy Wills was 12 months old, we knew that he’d be starting full time Montessori school here in Perth at the age of three. So we started to look for child care close to us where Wills could go for half a day or so, once or twice a week. We didn’t need long term child care as I was a stay-at-home parent doing my Master’s studies, and had my MIL close by.
Family Day Care seemed to be in line with what we wanted for our family – Family Day Carers are child care providers who would take care of up to four wards in their own homes, and are governed by policies set forth by Family Day Care WA. The choice of child care provider of course was up to us, and this was very much what we wanted.
We picked a family day care lady who was absolutely gorgeous. She was five minutes from us, had a lovely granny flat converted to a play house, and had four absolutely lovely teenage children. Of course, William, who was then 18 months old, was unimpressed and bawled bitterly when I left him for a short play that first day. I was devastated – and felt awful that morning. But I knew the experience was good for young William, and he needed to get used to a larger circle of people.
With his time at Family Day Care, he was exposed to other children, a new carer, stories, toys, games (he got really good at T-ball), art, and craft. What I thought was really cool was that he was exposed to different lunchtime food provided by the family day care provider. It’s not that we eat Asian food exclusively, to the contrary we don’t. But our lunches then were different to what they’d be served, and it would be nice to know he developed a taste of pumpkin soup outside our family. A new story to tell, son.
Family Day Care turned out to be just fantastic for him. His carer was better than we expected, and I still have very fond memories of her and her children to this day.
Families face child care choices is a recent article on WAtoday which revisits my issue of a dearth in parental support in Perth and the rest of Australia. I touched on this in my About page mentioning my fantasy non-profit organisation with a range of child care services, satellite office facilities and other amenities.
The article mentions that economists propose new parents “clarify their family’s priorities” with the arrival of a baby but then mention the hard fact that these child care services would decimate wages. That’s the punch line isn’t it? With an average daily charge of “$72.20 per day for care,” this means working parents with newborns would have to earn an additional $26,000 in wages to afford child care services in Sydney – a little less if you needed child care in Perth.
I’m afraid despite the choices mentioned in the article, most parents, especially those lower income wage earners would have fewer choices in child care than is alluded to.
The following are some child care links that provide information to parents seeking support in child rearing.
