As parents we need to have the sex talk with our children, both boys and girls as early as possible. This way they will hopefully have a good idea of what sex is, what is ok and not ok, and the consequences like pregnancy, Aids and other STD’s. We cannot stop our teens from wanting sex, or even having sex. All we can do is try to make sure they make the best possible informed decisions.

I have had to set boundaries for my children’s free time. If I did not use a timer when my son is on the computer he would be on it all day. I need to use a timer so that he knows when his time is up, he has no idea how much time passes when he is playing.

Everyone in the world seemed to be giving me contradicting parenting advice when I was pregnant with my son. I listened to what everyone said, even the extremely obnoxious neighbour who seemed to think she knew it all even though she did not have kids. It seems her friends had them and that was enough to make her an expert on every thing. I smiled and said thanks for the information. When people told me I was doing this wrong, that wrong, I needed these or that I said I would look into it. No matter how ridicules or sensible every piece of unsolicited parenting advice was I took the time to let the people know I heard them. I never said what I would do with their advice.

Neutral open-ended questions are the key

It is not OK to raise a baby night owl.

We spent years trying to get our son to go to bed and stay in bed. Every night we dreaded bedtime. We waited until he was so tired he would start to fall asleep or until he became grumpy we knew he was tired. Then tried to get him to go to bed and stay there. It would end up with me fighting a grumpy tired child. He was so over tired he was impossible to deal with or get to sleep. I was going out of my mind.

This is a very helpful article so parents can find if their children are on track, have a developmental delay or a learning disability. It also stresses how important it is to identify any delays as soon as possible