Category: ADHD
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Remember The School Gates? Getting Old Isn’t All Bad
A friend recently wrote to me about how old she feels each time she passes the primary school our children attended and sees all the young, hip mums hanging outside the school gates. Being a mum in the playground is personally one of my least favourite periods of parenthood to reminisce about; post-traumatic memories of…
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Mental Illness: Crazy, Bad or Misunderstood
How did you spend your Sunday afternoon? I spent mine mine devouring a riveting series that I missed on the ABC last year about a mental health hospital in Sydney. That’s just the kind fun person I am. But what’s interesting, is where once the subject of mental illness was a taboo one, locked firmly…
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We’re Lucky Enough To Be Holidaying With Our Parents
It’s family holiday time and no, I never did manage to lose the three kilos I needed to semi-confidently wear my swimsuit in public. I wish I could savour this feeling of excitement and anticipation that I always experience in the weeks leading up to a holiday; that is, before we go. Before I remember the…
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The Question That Divides A Nation of Parents Of Teenagers
A lot has changed over the past thirty years in terms of what teenagers can and cannot do. happy young couple in bed at morning But nothing sets the cat quite as freely among the pigeons as the question of where parents stand on sleeping arrangements and privileges in the homestead, once teenagers enter into…
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How A Small Part Of You Celebrates When A Friend Fails At Parenting, Too
Just as a small part of you dies when a friend succeeds, (according to Gore Vidal), a small part of me celebrates triumphantly when a friend fails spectacularly at parenting, like I have so many times. Do you know what has truly kept me sane through all these troubled ‘Kurt years’? It’s the support of…
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Sometimes It Feels Good To Coast
For those of you who read my posts for my input on ADHD, I discovered the most fantastic read on ADDitude magazine last weekend by Frank South, aka ADHD Dad. It just so happens his post was about his twenty-three year old son, who sounds suspiciously like he is carving a similarly dodgy career to…
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Do Mothers Ever Stop Worrying About How Much Their Kids Eat?
So, my son turned eighteen this year and I still worry about how much he eats. Knife and fork with white plate on red background While I try to limit my own calorific intake a little more every day, I face an ongoing battle to shove as many calories as I can down my son’s…
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Don’t Let Your Children Define You
I reach the other other end of another decade next week, which has given me pause for reflection. http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/566419105 I entered this last decade with a new life in Australia, but ‘life’ as such is rarely defined by the country you inhabit, rather the people you inhabit it with. Inevitably, my most recent decade has…
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Scoring Parenting Points
This photo makes me cackle bitterly. Photo by thegreenhouse2009 at flickr.com It seems a double standard to me that each time I have disciplined Kurt since my return from holiday, I have been accused of ‘nagging’; yet when the old man does the same thing, he calls it ‘confronting’ bad behavior. Do you and your…
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Self- Esteem And Learning To Love Yourself
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/108113005 Learning to love yourself is one of life’s toughest challenges, which is unfortunate because it affects so many other facets of the life we end up living. No matter how many times our esteemed leader at ‘Bad Parent Group’ raps my knuckles for nagging Kurt about his behavior – because as she says, “that…
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Teenage Truanting – 10 Ways You Could Deal With It
Sebastion by▲SBJØRN found on http://www.flickr.com I’ve sensed a collective sigh of relief on the Internet over the last few days as we parents approach the end of the fucking long school holidays. Which are, frankly, four weeks too long. Even Kurt appears eager to get back to school. Now. Today. Or at least until term begins.…
LOUISA SIMMONDS 