Mother by profession

Raising a child is not easy at all. Raising someone else’s child is even harder. But raising six children who are not your own, giving up your life, sounds crazy to most of us.

Who is educating your child?

Education is essential for the survival of any social group, since a community ensures its existence and development only by passing on to the next generation the knowledge it has accumulated, the power it derives from it and its ideological aspirations.

Fatherhood through a toddler’s eyes 

I used to think I was a patient person. Then I became a dad.

Compassion, empathy and bullying

Raising children with the ability to empathise is key in creating a kinder, more compassionate and loving world. 

Gentle parenting and the illusion of perfect choices

Gentle parenting—how did this seemingly wholesome phrase come to elicit such strong negative reactions as contempt, sarcasm, and condescension?

What we can learn from our children

The relationship between a parent and their child is one of the most significant in their lives, with its primary role being education.

Having the courage to be a stepparent

In the whole array of virtues that a stepparent must possess in order to succeed in raising a well-rounded child whose world has been shattered by the separation of his or her parents, courage is only mentioned in passing. Yet courage is the foundation of a construction that promises to be challenging from the outset, say those who have plunged into the role...

”Think of the children!” Are video games harming us?

As the world went into various lockdowns over the course of last year, people turned to a variety of entertainment forms to cope with...

To raise an Amish child

I’m a walking contradiction when it comes to technology. I spend far too much time on the internet—some productive, such as paying bills, researching for my work and reading the news, but mostly wasted time on one-too-many funny cat videos—but I’m still using a Nokia E71 mobile phone bought in 2009. (Don’t laugh! It did win Mobile Choice’s phone of the year in...

Methods to motivate a child to draw closer to the Bible 

Regular reading of the Bible in childhood is a strong predictor of spiritual health in adulthood. If instilling a love for the Bible is a crucial factor in religious education, parents need to develop methods to reinforce a habit that keeps children on the desired spiritual trajectory.

Becoming a father in the second half of life

While the debate over the “ideal age” for fatherhood may go on endlessly, one fact is clear: the average age at which men in modern society become fathers has steadily increased in recent decades. Behind the polished statistics lie moving personal stories about what it means to embrace fatherhood at an age when youth is little more than a distant memory.

Parenting school: the counsellor and consultant phases

This article is the third and last in the "Parenting School" series. The first two parts were published in the May and June 2020 issues of Semnele Timpului, the Romanian version of the ST Network.

What does the blue sock know about oppositional behaviour?

It all starts with the blue sock—that dreadful sock that the five-year-old firmly and loudly refuses to put on. "But what's wrong with it? Is it too tight?" "No! I don't like it!" "But you can't go without socks, just put this one on." "I DON'T WANT TO!" These infamous words bring the scene to a close in tears. Only the child allows...

What kind of children do our words shape?

"The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice" (Peggy O'Mara).

No one is perfect: how to help children learn from mistakes

To err is human. “The only sure way to avoid making mistakes is to have no ideas”, Albert Einstein said.