Stories, Tips and Resources for Developing Your People-literacy Skills

Yes, being a perfectionist can cause stress and many hours of sleepless  nights. Perfectionism is a personality trait that is characterized by a tendency to set extremely high, rigid, or "flawless" goals and place excessive demands on ourselves and others. A person...

The new school year is nearly here and many parents and children find this time stressful - kids not wanting to go back to school, new uniform expenses and trying to get children back into a normal school routine. The new school year means new friends, teachers,...

Are you homeschooling your teenager and does your home environment support them to learn at home? Young adults are able to thrive because their home and the people around them make it easy for them to succeed. Research shows that the quality of a child’s environment...

You may know what family values are and even know the different types of family structures, but defining your family culture is a little more complex. Family culture is the combination of your family's habits, traditions, purpose, values, beliefs, and choices. It is...

Dealing with Emotions We all have and show emotions whether they are positive or negative, from time to time. Some styles are better at expressing their emotions and some tend to hide them. Learning to express and manage your emotions in a healthy way is critical to...

How to Create Joyful and Happy Families  Many families today are feeling the stress of modern day living. Children are much more likely than not to grow up in a household in which their parents work, and in nearly half of all two-parent families today, both parents...

We all want to be good parents. But sometimes parenting can be difficult and exhausting. You know those times that we wish that we could escape from the people we love. Have you ever wondered why life isn’t that simple and why we can’t all just get along and live in...

It’s really important to look after your emotional and mental health as a parent. You probably know how to look after your physical health (eat vegetables, wash your hands, don’t run across the road, and so on), but it’s harder to know how to look after your mental...

When my kids were growing up I was always worrying about being a good parent. I remember when one of them had a terrible meltdown in the supermarket and I nearly burst into tears because another parent walked by with this look on their face as if to say, “It’s about...

It’s so important to reflect on our learning experiences, and to teach this to our kids. After all, don’t you think this is what makes us human. When children take on a task and achieve it in whole or part, they learn along the way. Think back about a task or project...

Sometime ago, I was asked to deliver management training to a team in a local school here in Auckland NZ. The principal was having a problem with her deputy principal and staff getting along together. There was a bit of conflict happening. I’ve alway thought of...

Many parents worry about their kids being bullied, or if they have one with bullying tendencies what to do about it. Many people out there think that we are making too much of a fuss about it, that we should leave kids to their own devices. I tend to disagree. I...

Source: The Virtues Project Educator’s Guide by Linda Kavelin. Being a trained facilitator for the Virtues Project developed by Linda Kavelin Popov, I’m very passionate about supporting parents to raise happy, kind and responsible kiddos.  Parents are ultimately...

Some time ago I was delivering my DISCovering Me Program for Youth to a school, when I noticed there was one student not handing in his “HomePlay” assignments. Instead of asking him about it in front of the class, I spoke to him in private and asked what the reason...

How to Communicate with Teens So They'll Talk To You A parent of a tween reached out to me the other week and said, “Help! My daughter is not talking to me anymore and I don’t know what to do about it!” I’ve known this mother now for some time and know that she really...

My Blog this month is about “Being shy”, or as some say introverted. I was prompted to write about this topic when I was out grabbing a coffee the other day, when I was visiting my elderly mum. While waiting for my coffee I observed a mum with her two Kiddos. The...

I’m starting off this Blog with a few questions to get you thinking. What were you raised to believe as a child? Did you perceive that your environment was friendly…or not friendly?  Favorable? Or Unfavorable? Did you think tasks should be handled by taking control of...

There have been some parents asking me, “How come my kids fight with me so much?” So, I thought that my blog post for this month would give you some insights on why this happens, and tips on how to create more harmony in the family.   Clashes between tweens, teens and...