Mums At The Table - December 2018

THE TIME ISSUE REAL WOMEN | REAL CONVERSATIONS | REAL ISSUES

DECEMBER 2018

HOW TO FIND

MORE TIME

CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY IDEAS

STOP YOUR CHILD BEING LATE

again AS SEEN ON NEW ZEALAND

Your magazine is complimentary and made possible by the generous support of your Mums At The Table community.

REAL WOMEN | REAL CONVERSATIONS | REAL ISSUES

contents

Jo in us

DECEMBER 2018

just for you

6 HOME HACKS Celebrating holidays and Christmas.

16 HOW TO FIND MORE TIME IN YOUR DAY 18 EVERY DAY IS FAMILY DAY This couple gave away their successful café to spend more time with their children.

28 HOLDING YOU Deep in postnatal depression, God helped her sing again.

14 18

parenting 16

24 10

PANELLISTS Fiona, Rachel, Shona, Melody, Rachel and Maryellen discuss a range of topics including current events, issues and family life.

8 THE MEALTIME WARS

Dealing with fussy eaters and mum guilt.

11 CHRISTMAS GIFT GUIDE 14 A GOOD START

Early strategies to help your child developmentally.

24 LATE AGAIN!

What to do with a child who loves to procrastinate.

32 WOULD YOU . . .

Give your children time-outs?

33 BOOK CORNER 34 FUN ACTIVITIES FOR THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS

22

food & wellbeing 10 RECIPE

Spinach & onion puff tart 12 ASK THE EXPERTS 22 COOKING WITH GIA & OLIVE

Not butter; breakfast berry smoothie; avocado pops; homemade Christmas granola.

31 WELLBEING WITH COLLETT Why mums need me-time.

PLUS healthy recipes, exercise tips, DIY projects and awesome hacks for around the home.

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VOLUME 2 NUMBER 12 The Time Issue

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editor

editor

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t has become the expected response to the question, “How are you?” In fact, I have found on several occasions that I don’t even have to reply.

The person doing the asking would often assume they know the answer: “How are you? Busy, I know.”

The thing is, if anyone ever took the time to wait for or analyse my answer (which nobody hardly does because they are often too busy themselves), they would discover that “busy” is not a state I tend to declare I am in. Sure, I have moments when I feel overwhelmed and stressed—and you will hear my plaintive wails of “I don’t have time!”—but these are merely seasons that I tell myself will pass.

My present attitude towards time stems from an article I read six years ago. Tim Kreider, in The New York Times article titled “The ‘Busy’ Trap” wrote, “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day.”

Let me be clear: as mothers, I know we are busy, pulled in every direction by husband, children, work, home and every other responsibility under the sun (Google “The Mental Load” if you ever get the chance). I am not saying what we do as mothers for ourselves, for our family, is silly, trivial or meaningless. It is anything but. (Which is why I interviewed some mums for their tried and tested ways to find more time in a day, see page 16.)

However, I also believe we can choose to shape our attitude towards time and busyness, and not let it define or control us, or stress us out. If we start telling ourselves the activities and responsibilities we have are what we have chosen to take part in, I’d like to think we would appreciate and perhaps even enjoy what we have and are doing, and find that we have time to do them—and more. Maybe I’m just kidding myself, but I have found that just the act of not admitting I am busy gives me the feeling of having more time.

And for mums, the illusion of having more time is important, because it means we are able to be there for our children—and ourselves.

Also, I will let you in on a secret: If right now, you are feeling the pressures of time and of not being able to do enough and of not being good enough for your children, you are good enough. But don’t take it from me, take it from clinical psychologist Lynn Jenkins on page 14.

Melody

Letter of the Month

Someone I met at church had picked up one of your magazines while at the doctor’s . . . [and] plans on subscribing to it for his daughter. Others I have spoken to, as soon as they know about your magazine, it has sparked an interest for someone they know. So your magazine is getting around in interesting places.

—Julie

I started subscribing to your magazine in May and so far I’ve loved the articles, recipes and tips in Mums At The Table. So part of this message is a “Well done!” and to let you know I think you’re doing a great job. The other part is to let you know how incredibly disappointed I was with Melody Tan’s “When a Home Isn't a Home” story [published in the October 2018 issue]. In the first two paragraphs, she demonises all children in out-of-home care. . . . It would have been so much better had Melody painted a more accurate picture of kids in care and the people who love them, perhaps even encouraging people to step up to help in practical ways: opening up their homes to care for a vulnerable child, loving those who do in practical ways through dropping off a meal, donating to Buddy Bags or just lifting up these children in prayer, rather than judging them and those who care for them.

—Bonnie

Editor’s note POGANIA—ISTOCK

November

s r e t let

from the

It certainly wasn’t our intention to demonise out-of-home care children. The opening paragraph was simply meant to catch attention and voice the opinions of others. Better care should also have been taken to clarify the article is about children living in out-ofhome care facilities, not foster families.

Even though I have an adult son now, I think your ministry is amazing and the young mums at my church are enjoying the magazine too.

—Kim

Thank you for faithfully sending me Mums At The Table magazine. I find every article fascinating and [it] answers everyday issues and concerns for every family, mother and girls.

—Serah

Drop us a line and win a gift!

What did we get right? What can we do better? What are the conversations you're having? What are the issues you're facing? The author of our letter of the month wins a free copy of Reflections, an adult colouring book featuring hand-drawn Bible verses and designs! Write to us at editorial@thetabletv.com.

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home HACKS

AS SEEN ON NEW ZEALAND

PROBLEM: BORING CHRISTMAS LIGHTS

SOLUTION: CUT A HOLE IN EACH PING PONG BALL AND INSERT COLOURED LIGHT BULBS

Materials

Celebrating holidays and Christmas PROBLEM: TRAVELLING WITH A PUMP BOTTLE THAT MAY LEAK IN TRANSIT

SOLUTION: USE RUBBER BANDS AS STOPPERS

Materials

PROBLEM: NO BOWL IN WHICH TO SERVE POPCORN

PROBLEM: WRAPPING PAPER CONSTANTLY UNRAVELLING

SOLUTION: CUT TOILET PAPER ROLL CARDBOARD IN HALF LENGTHWAYS AND WRAP AROUND WRAPPING PAPER

Materials

SOLUTION: CUT A RECTANGLE OUT OF THE SIDE OF THE PACKET

PROBLEM: UNABLE TO FIND WHERE STICKY TAPE BEGINS

SOLUTION: STICK IT OVER A PAPERCLIP WHEN FINISHED WITH IT

HOME HACKS

Time-saving easy projects to bring some sanity back to your life. Watch how we make these and other hacks on the Mums At The Table TV show.

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FOR MORE

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December 2018

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IMAGES TAKEN BY DANIEL KUBEREK

Materials

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THE MEALTIME

The stress of feeding picky children nutritious food can be an overconsuming affair for most parents.

What if there’s another way?

By Nikki Duffy

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ating seasonally and locally has a particular relevance when you are feeding small children because not only do ingredients tend to taste better, they can be better for you. Food produced nearby can be picked when it’s ripe and ready and full of flavour. It should be fresh as it doesn’t have to be transported far and very fresh food is more nutritious than food that has been stored. The vitamin content of fruits and vegetables decreases rapidly after picking.

Buying locally produced food usually—though not always— involves using a local retailer. Independent greengrocers, box schemes, farmers’ markets and roadside stalls can all be excellent sources of local, seasonal fare. And such small-scale retail often

PEOPLEIMAGES—GETTYIMAGES

WARS

provides a much more immediate sense of where food has come from, how it was grown and its seasonality, which is fantastic if you take your children shopping with you. You don’t have to live in the countryside to buy local food—many farmers’ markets take place in city centres and many box schemes deliver in urban areas.

While shopping locally may be a burgeoning trend, most of us still buy a lot of our food and drink at supermarkets. Of course, they are convenient and offer a lot of choice. Sometimes they can even be a better alternative, supplying something that your local farm shop doesn’t. So, while I think we should all be supporting local retailers, I am certainly not against supermarkets. I just think it’s important to use them, not be used by them.

Mail order food buying is another option for busy families and has many advantages, particularly if you have small children who don’t seem to enjoy browsing in shops. You can find pretty much anything you want from specialist mail order suppliers. The downsides are the food miles and the packaging. The latter can be excessive, particularly if you’re buying chilled foods. So use the internet and supermarket home-delivery services to source the ingredients you can’t find nearby, or to save the day when the household is ravaged by chickenpox, but don’t rely on them to the exclusion of other retailers closer to home.

As a parent, there are few things so good, so utterly satisfying as seeing your child enjoy a meal you have cooked for them. The pleasure is all the greater when you know the food you’ve given them is wholesome, nutritious and carefully prepared. More than the precise balancing of different nutrients, more than perfect presentation, more than persuading them to eat what you want them to eat, I think feeding children well should be about instilling a love of good food and of shared eating.

That, however, is not always easy. Unless you’re blessed with very pliant offspring (if you consider that a blessing), you will likely, at some point, come into conflict with them where food is concerned. If not, you will probably at least have to wrestle with your own concerns over exactly what they’re eating—how much of this and how much of that, how it has been cooked, where it has come from.

Feeding small children can sometimes be difficult, frustrating and anxiety-inducing. And no-one can take that anxiety away: like so many aspects of parenting, you have to work through it yourself because no matter how many times other people tell you it will turn out all right, you never really know that it will turn out all right until it actually does. However, I hope I might be able to lessen the stress a little. Because there are lessons I have learned, and lessons learned by the many parents I have interviewed, that are worth knowing about.

If you take only one message away from this article, I hope it’s this: try to relax. We all have varying experiences of feeding our children but almost every parent I have spoken to, when asked what they might do differently next time, said they would endeavour to worry less and relax more about exactly what, when and how their child eats. The parents who most relish and enjoy the time they spend eating together with their children are the ones who are reasonably laid-back, from the very first solid food onwards.

That’s not to say that you do not need to think about the quality of the food you give your children. Of course, you should aim to serve up delicious, health-enhancing meals, but I don’t think that’s very difficult. You don’t require a degree in nutrition to get a pretty good feeling for what’s good for them and what’s not—just basic info and a bit of common sense. And this ties into the other really important thing I want to pass on, which is that we, as parents, need to trust ourselves.

When it comes to raising our children, we are robbed of much of our self-confidence these days. Medical professionals, childrearing experts and even well-meaning friends and relatives can all bombard us with advice that makes us doubt our own instincts.

There’s nothing wrong with doing research and getting plenty of

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Christmas

GIF T GUIDE

This is lovely on its own as a light meal, but it’s also good alongside pulses, such as simply cooked red lentils or even baked beans. The spinach and onion mix can also be used as a base for baked eggs, or in frittatas or quiches.

THE COOK’S APPRENTICE Stephanie Alexander Penguin Random House $45.00

Spinach & onion puff tart SERVES: 4

A tome to cherish and one that will endure, much like its predecessor, the rainbow-coloured The Cook’s Companion, found in virtually every Australian kitchen.

Not just a recipe book, it gives good advice on everything one needs to know about the kitchen, including cooking techniques, ingredients, and which utensils to use and how to use them. The appeal of it isn’t about the fancy cooking (although it also teaches you that) but that the bare basics are included. Even those who have spent years in the kitchen will learn something. A perfect reference book for anybody who cooks—virtually all of us.

350–400 g spinach 2 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil 1 onion, quartered and finely chopped 1 garlic clove, cut into slivers 1 tsp chopped thyme leaves 375 g good-quality ready-made all-butter puff pastry (ready-rolled is useful) 50 g cheddar or other hard cheese, grated Optional: Freshly ground black pepper and sea salt

METHOD 1.

2.

3.

4.

EDITED EXTRACT FROM RIVER COTTAGE BABY & TODDLER COOKBOOK, BY NIKKI DUFFY (BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING, 2018).

Nikki Duffy is the former deputy editor of the award-winning magazine Waitrose Food Illustrated as well as the writer of a weekly food column in the Guardian. She worked for three years as the River Cottage food editor and is now a freelance food writer.

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Preheat the oven to 190°C. Grease a baking tray or line with a non-stick liner.

If the spinach is mature, tear out any tough stalks.

Wash the spinach thoroughly, then pack it, with just the water that clings to it, into a saucepan. Cover, put over a medium heat and wilt the spinach in its own liquid (this takes only a few minutes). Drain and leave in a colander to cool. When cool enough to handle, squeeze out as much liquid as you can with your hands, then chop the spinach roughly.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook gently, stirring often, for 10–15 minutes, until really soft and golden.

Add the garlic for the last few minutes. Add the thyme leaves, then the chopped spinach and season if you like.

Roll out the puff pastry on a lightly floured surface to a square, about 5-mm thick, and lift onto the baking tray. Spread the spinach mix over the pastry, leaving a margin along the edges. Scatter over the grated cheese and bake for 15–20 minutes or until the pastry is puffed and golden, and the cheese is turning golden too. Serve warm or cold.

For those who prefer to give experiences. These can be to any number of attractions: zoo, aquarium, museum . . . anything your child is interested in, anywhere your child loves visiting. Family memberships usually pay for themselves after two or three visits, and the fact you will no longer feel the pressure to see everything or do it all in a day makes them priceless. Some attractions also give you free or discounted entries to other interstate ones—cheap holiday activity sorted!

SERVICE PROJECTS Extend the spirit of giving to those who need it and cultivate a sense of compassion in your children from a young age. There are many different Christmas-related projects to get involved in, including Operation Christmas Child: providing gift-filled shoeboxes to children in developing countries; The Smith Family’s Toy & Book Appeal for children in need around Australia; or donating items to New Zealand’s The Foodbank Project.

THE PUFFIN BOOK OF SUMMER STORIES Puffin Books $29.99

A gorgeous collection of eight Australian picture books by well-loved authors, this is a sizeable hardback tome designed to live proudly on bookshelves. Parents may even have grown up with the very first story, Summer, by June Factor and Alison Lester.

The stories and illustrations evoke memories of the quintessential Australian summer and the collection will make a wonderful gift for a preschool-aged child.

LEXICON-GO! Winning Moves $19.95

LEONE VENTER —UNSPLASH, FREPIK

information, but don’t underestimate the importance of your own feelings when it comes to deciding the best way to feed your kids.

And don’t underestimate their feelings either—all children have different needs and different appetites, as well as strong instincts about how much they need to eat.

I am not a scientist or a doctor or a nutritionist. I’m a mother, a cook and a writer. But, for myself, I can claim to be an expert only on my own children. You are the expert on yours.

When you accept this, and when you make a decision to simply do the very best that you can, I think you are well on the way to the right destination. Mealtimes with young children can be a challenging part of parenthood, but they can also be a source of immense joy, fun and satisfaction. When a meal is a truly communal experience, something a family enjoys together—the food, the conversation, even the tidying up—you are all enriched by it in an emotional as well as a physical sense. For me, that’s what it’s all about.

SUPPLIED

INGREDIENTS

FAMILY MEMBERSHIPS

Similar to another word game, Bananagrams, this will be great fun for the entire family. Perfect for school-aged children to learn and improve their vocabulary; the fast pace will also capture and retain their attention. The tiles fit into a small portable red bag that makes it easy to fit into a carry-on suitcase if you are going on holidays.

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e h t k as experts

Q How do I get my children to explain their problems to me? Evie, via email This really depends on the ages of your children but generally taking time to listen to our children and showing we are truly interested in the details of their lives encourages them to talk to us when they really do have a problem.

Also, tell them a little bit about the problems we face and solve every day. Then we make it normal to talk about some of our problems and how we manage them. This can help them to talk more openly about their problems and they can also learn from the way that we solve our own problems.

Children often like to talk at bed time, while they are playing a game or driving alone in a car with us. So it’s good to have one-to-one time with our children and to be sensitive to their need to talk. Better to let them talk and stay up half the night than to let them struggle alone. Those late-night conversations can be so rich and helpful.

When they do share their problems with us, it’s important to be understanding and to comfort their sadness and distress. They need parents who take their problems seriously, who understand that children can’t always solve their own problems and that their feelings might be overwhelming at times. So listen calmly and respectfully, point out what they did well and comfort their distress by helping them to calm down. Do something caring, fun and soothing to help them settle.

Once they feel calmer, help them to explore possible solutions. What do other children do? Have they ever seen or read anything that might be helpful? Or, if they are older, what ideas might they find on the internet? You might even tell some stories about how you faced similar problems when you were young.

The more we support children with their smaller problems when they are young, the more likely they will come to us with bigger problems when they are older.

Finally, they need to grow up knowing there is nothing they can do that will ever stop us loving them. We can let them know that whatever problem they have and however serious or difficult it is, we will always love them and be there for them to listen, to care for them and to support them. Even if the whole world walks out on them, we will always stand by them. Then they know it is safe to come and talk to us about any problem in their life. —Karen

OUR PANEL:

KATHY FRAY MOTHERHOOD EXPERT MOTHERWISE

NEIL GINSBERG PAEDIATRICIAN SYDNEY ADVENTIST HOSPITAL

TRISH GUY KAREN HOLFORD ANDREW DARON PRATT NUTRITIONIST FAMILY COUNSELLOR PENNINGTON KIDS' CHAPLAIN SANITARIUM HEALTH HEARTWORDS GP SEVENTH-DAY & WELLBEING SANCTUARY LIFESTYLE ADVENTIST CHURCH CLINIC

PETER WOOD OBSTETRICIANGYNAECOLOGIST SYDNEY ADVENTIST HOSPITAL

Q Help! It’s holiday season. Do you have any tips on travelling with babies?

Lynda, via email

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Q What are the side effects linked with birth control?

Sarah, via email

TATYANA_TOMSICKOVA, LIGHTFIELDSTUDIOS, ANTONIOGUILLEM—GETTY IMAGES

•• Don’t stress. When it comes to travelling with a baby, some things will not go to plan, that’s a given. Yet some things will go smoothly and that’s a blessing. Consciously make the effort to chill out and go-with-the-flow. Be fluid, be flexible, be adaptable.

•• Be prepared. Cars, trains, taxis, buses—they all have engines and multiple mechanical parts. Subsequently, they all have the potential to break down, which means you can never know for sure you won’t be delayed. So try to have everything you need for a lengthy hold-up without access to shops, including enough of the basics to tide you over (such as nappies, food, toys, sunscreen, warm clothes, mini-first aid kit, water bottle—oh and a bit of lippy!)

•• Invest in a good carry-on. Backpacks enable parents to have their hands free. Look for a bag with good structure and reasonable quality, such as a big central compartment and a few zipped pockets—not one that’s the cheapest you can find and its main zip breaks on the second day. Have a bag that’s big enough to hold everything, but still small enough to sit at your feet—rather than needing to grab it down from the overhead compartment.

•• Compartmentalise. Fall in love with ziplock bags. They take up less room than containers and you can put almost anything in little ziplock bags, and then put all the related items into big ziplock bags, making it so much easier to find things.

•• Protect against convection heat loss. Infants unintentionally lose heat by conduction (touching cold surfaces such as the car seat), radiation (radiating heat to surrounding cold objects such as a drafty window) and evaporation (such as having wet skin after a bath). A warmly dressed baby can be protected against most of that heat loss. However, newborns are very vulnerable to rapid heat loss through inhaling cold air, so keep them in temperatures of between 25°C and 27°C. •• Enjoy! Remember to pack your joyous attitude: “What a fabulous adventure to have bub vomit all over the seat on the bus—that’ll be such an entertaining parenting tale to tell!” —Kathy

Information about the different side effects of birth control can be overwhelming.

Hormone-influencing contraceptives, such as the combined oral contraceptive pill, vaginal rings, hormone impregnated intrauterine devices (IUDs), and implantable birth control and injections can have some advantages, including treating irregular menstruation, painful periods, acne, endometriosis and premenstrual syndrome. Disadvantages can be inter-menstrual spotting, mood changes, weight gain, headaches or migraines, nausea, missed periods, breast tenderness and possible decreased libido.

Other non-hormonal options include condoms, copper IUDs and diaphragms. Side effects from these are less common than hormonal contraception and use of these is up to the individual.

Non-reversible options include vasectomy and tubal ligation, both of which require surgery and possible associated complications.

The place to start is a discussion with your doctor about what might suit you best. —Peter

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION TO OUR PANEL OF EXPERTS Write to us at: editorial@MumsAtTheTable.com THE INFORMATION PROVIDED IS GENERAL IN NATURE AND DOES NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT YOUR PERSONAL SITUATION. YOU SHOULD CONSIDER WHETHER THE INFORMATION IS APPROPRIATE TO YOUR NEEDS, AND WHERE APPROPRIATE, SEEK PROFESSIONAL ADVICE.

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good START

FREE PRINTABLE “DEVELOPING YOUR PARENTING VALUES” AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD MumsAtTheTable.com /freestuff

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By Lynn Jenkins

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FATCAMERA—GETTY IMAGES

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Children respond to the quality of care they receive, so what are the early things parents can do to ensure they develop well socially and emotionally?

o understand the social and emotional development of children requires parents to know how their brain develops. Little babies are born with an intact brain stem, the first and most primitive level of the brain. This influences their ability to breathe and smell, to sense whether they are picked up roughly or gently, and to determine whether sounds are loud and scary, or soft and soothing.

It’s a basic survival skill, but survival in human terms also means having the ability to attach to another grown human. This is why human babies are entirely dependent on the adults around them.

They not only need to learn how to eat, sleep, walk and talk, they also need to learn to be able to form and maintain relationships with other humans.

A baby’s first lesson comes from their immediate environment—their parents or main caregivers. How main caregivers treat and interact with babies directly builds their brains and the development trajectory in which they will develop, for good or not so good.

Of course, babies are born with genes, but these only determine a child’s potential. How they are treated organises that potential. The most important factor both for brain development and how babies and young children develop, is consistency. The brain needs to be able to help the baby to cope with whatever environment they are born into—broadly, if it’s safe or unsafe.

If a child’s brain (through the way they are most consistently treated) assesses their environment as unsafe, the child’s priority will be to survive and the brain structures will develop in a way to support that as much as possible. Conversely, if their environment is assessed as safe, then that child can get on and thrive, and brain structures will support that priority as much as possible.

Imagine a patch of beautiful green grass. A dog runs over it repeatedly for a period of time. A pathway is formed. That’s how the brain develops. The way a child is interacted with repeatedly develops neural pathways in the brain, and these pathways influence how that child develops as a human being. Obviously, we aim for children to be able to thrive rather than being hindered by the need to simply survive.

When children have a genuine felt sense that they are safe with and can trust and depend on their caregivers, then they have developed a secure attachment. This does not refer to the parents’ relationship with their child, but to the child’s relationship with

their parents—whether they feel secure to them. It’s like whether parents have been meeting certain KPIs! Don’t feel pressured from learning that secure attachment is the golden parenting standard because it is way easier to achieve than some might think.

Donald Winnicott, a pioneering perinatal psychotherapist, proposed the notion of the “good enough mother”. He acknowledged that the needs of a baby can be met by the “ordinary devoted mother”; by “the ordinary mother in her ordinary loving care of her baby”. From a baby’s point of view, ordinary devotion is enough!

He also made reference to a “not good mother”, by which he meant the sort of behaviour that leads to a sense of insecurity.

From a baby’s point of view, such a mother’s care would seem unpredictable; the baby’s important needs would sometimes be met but often not; care would perhaps be given but then taken away; there is generally no rhyme or reason to their environment (and this includes neglect and abuse).

So the two main things that steer babies onto the track of security—on the pathway to thriving—lie in the quality and responsiveness of the interaction with them. When children have been consistently treated in a way that sets them up to thrive, they are usually on track in skills such as emotion regulation—expecting others to think of them fairly well, thinking about themselves as at least OK, genuinely feeling they can depend on and trust other people, and have an idea that all feelings are OK and maybe even what to do with them when they get “big”. Their brain has been allowed to develop the specific parts for healthy social and emotional skills, and relationship functioning. They have felt safe growing up, so their brain has progressed as it was designed to.

Being a parent can be tough, fantastic, stressful, heartblooming and heart-breaking! The best we can do is our best and be confident that it is good enough.

Lynn Jenkins is a clinical psychologist, author and mum-of-three. She is very passionate about early intervention in little lives in the areas of anxiety and social and emotional development. She also enjoys visiting schools, teaching kids about how to manage anxiety through her picture books on anxiety.

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Between school drop-offs and pick-ups, grocery shopping, household chores, juggling a full- or part-time job and then some, there never seems to be enough time in a day for a busy mum.

Here are some tips to steal some minutes into your life.

By Melody Tan

PLAN AHEAD “Before bed, make sure you and the kids are packed and clothes are all ready to go for the next day, so there’s no looking for shoes or books in the morning,” says time management coach Barbara Clifford, author of 101 Time Saving Tips for Busy Working Women.

NETWORK

D N I F O T W HO MORE TIME IN YOUR DAY

Find families who live close by and recruit them as part of your village—people who can share some parental duties. “My son goes to tutoring every week with his mate down the road. I drop off and the other mum picks up,” says Alana Okumu, a busy mum-of-three who works six days a week. “My other son goes to soccer training and the mums carpool. I save up to two hours a week by working together with other mums!”

PETEKARICI—GETTY IMAGES

BEDTIMES

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You get more done when you are not worn out and the key to that is enough sleep. “Many mums fall into the habit of staying up late in order to get some alone time and it often means they stay up too late, sacrifice their sleep, are still tired the next day and are not as alert and energetic, and in turn are less productive,” says Heather Lindsay, from Blissed Out Mums.

“Going to sleep at an earlier bedtime also helps a mum get more sleep when the children still wake overnight. Set a timer for your alone time once the kids go to bed and when it goes off, finish what you're doing and get yourself some well-deserved rest.”

Going to bed early also means you can steal even more time as you are probably able to wake up earlier. Shona Gates, mother-of-two and owner of two businesses, suggests waking up at five or six in the morning so you can get one to two hours of

work or exercise in before the kids even wake up. “It sucks the first few weeks, forcing yourself out of bed at 5 am but, once you get into the habit, having peace and quiet while you relax with a face mask on and the rest of the house is still fast asleep is pure bliss!” she says.

WEEKLY FAMILY MEETINGS “Regardless of the age of the children, a weekly family meeting can help save time for everyone by making sure that everyone is on the same page with what is going to be happening in the upcoming week,” says Heather.

“This can include things around school, daycare, work obligations, extracurricular activities, social activities, family outings and more. Family meetings are the ideal way to get everyone working collaboratively on the same page towards the same goal, which saves everyone time by increasing communication and decreasing overall family stress.”

EMBRACE THE LAST MINUTE Shona believes nothing makes you do something faster than a deadline. So she sets herself up with some real ones: “If I want to make sure I clean my house, I invite friends over. If I want to get a bunch of work done, I book a lunch date for the following day. If I don't get the work done, I can’t go,” she says. “At the end of the day, we all have 24 hours. So stop being a glass-halfempty complainer, pour it into a smaller glass and voilà!”

Melody Tan is editor of Mums At The Table magazine and a regular panellist on Mums At The Table TV show. She lives in Sydney with her husband and her son.

December 2018

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One couple have taken the radical step of giving away their successful business in a bid to spend more time with their young children.

By Vania Chew

E

family day

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December 2018

SUPPLIED

EVERY DAY IS

very mum understands it’s a struggle between wanting to be a mum and wanting to follow your passions,” says Laura McNamara, former business owner and mum of two children.

When her first child Frankie was born, Laura decided it was time to leave her job in the corporate world. During her maternity leave, she began thinking about her love of raw treats and whole foods. Now that she had left the corporate world, she wondered if it was time to pursue that passion.

“When Frankie was six months old, I started making products for my first market at the Mornington Peninsula [south of Melbourne],” says Laura. “I had so much self-doubt about the products and how they would be received. But they sold within the first few hours.”

This early success boosted Laura’s confidence and she continued to make and sell healthy whole food treats at various markets. Eventually she started thinking about running a café.

Just before Frankie turned one, in 2015, Laura found a property on Phillip Island, a popular day trip destination from Melbourne, that had originally belonged to a butcher.

With financial assistance from her grandparents, she signed a lease on that property.

Laura was really passionate and had studied good nutrition and healthy eating. Her main goal wasto nourish the community by providing healthy food for them. The result was a café called Island Whole Foods. After she and her husband Matt decided to go vegan, they turned the café vegan as well.

“I came from a business background but I had to learn on the go how to manage staff,” admits Laura. “I had to learn how to train people and do everything in the business.”

A year-and-a-half later, Matt left his retail business to manage the café when Laura gave birth to their son Myles.

“When I had my second [child], the seed had been planted that I really wanted to be a mum,” confesses Laura. “I’m so proud to have started a business where I could overcome judgements, vulnerability and follow my heart. By example, I’ve shown my kids that they can do this too.”

Laura and Matt always had a goal of someday travelling around Australia—whether it would be just them or travelling with their children. Believing that the first seven years of their kids’ lives would shape the people they would become, they were keen to take the time to start travelling with them.

“We had so much pressure and stress over mortgages and business and our main focus was on financial issues,” says Laura. “It didn’t seem right that we had these two beautiful children who we wanted to spend time with as a family but our focus was on our money.”

After a conversation, Matt and Laura decided to make their goal of travelling around Australia as a family come true. When discussing their dreams with a friend, the friend told Matt and Laura of a resort in Panama that had essentially been given away and suggested they do the same. (Island Whole Foods is rated number one on TripAdvisor for restaurants on Phillip Island out of a total of 80 and has more than 9000 followers on Facebook and Instagram.)

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We don’t want to be in 9–5 jobs and only see [our kids] at nights or on weekends.

Holding onto anger is like swallowing a poison pill and hoping the other person dies.

spend more time with them. Our café has always been closed on Tuesday. Frankie knows that Tuesday is family day. Now every day will be family day.

“When we first discussed travelling around Australia, there was a part of us that just wanted to go and run and be together. But we’ve made lots of personal changes over the past six months. We transitioned from a three-bedroom house to a yoga studio and we’ll soon be living in a caravan. We’ve gone plant-based and we are careful about waste consumption. So we’re going to start a blog called The Avocado Tribe [going live this month] where we can share our challenges on the road and the journey.”

Laura is keen to spend more time with extended family during this adventure as well.

“We only have my mum close by. All of my family and Matt’s family live a couple of hours away. We’ll spend more time with my sister and we have expressed our desire to have friends and family join us on this journey if we get to a location where they can fly, drive or camp with us.”

The McNamaras plan to spend more time surfing, visiting beaches and going to the skate park. They also want to learn more about Indigenous culture—the foods and the land.

“There are no set goals,” says Laura. “We might only be on the road for one year and find a community that we love. Being confined as a family without a community can have its challenges.

However we do want to make sure we spend these years with our kids. We don’t want to be in 9–5 jobs and only see them at nights or on weekends. We’re excited to start the next journey—every day being family day, travelling Australia in a caravan, and sharing our plant-based and zero-waste lifestyle.”

In this free series about forgiveness, learn about the ways anger and hurt affect your emotional and physical wellbeing.

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Visit forgivetolive.org.au to begin this free series online, or return this form by mail to receive your first booklet.

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The couple had a lot of initial questions and spent around eight weeks investigating how this could work. Once they became convinced that it was viable, they loved the idea. They had been able to develop the business with the help of a loan from Laura’s grandparents and they liked the idea that they could potentially help someone else by passing the business on.

Tax and legal complications meant they couldn’t just give the café away and so a competition was devised, with the prize being the business, $10,000 cash, $4000 in stock, and rent, body corporate fees and council rates paid until March 2019, fixtures and business assets valued around $100,000, and all applicable taxes, duties and costs to transfer the business and lease.

Entries into the competition were with the purchase of a $15 Raw Golden Chocolate Bar from their café. Matt and Laura also took the opportunity to raise awareness for charities that are meaningful to them through the competition, including environmental organisations such as Take 3 For The Sea, Plastic-Free Phillip Island and Boomerang Bags. With every purchase, Matt and Laura split a donation of $2 between Take 3 For The Sea and the other local charities and raised $13,000 by the end of the competition.

Allison Goldie from Ferntree Gully in Victoria was the winner of Matt and Laura’s unique giveaway, but according to Laura, they have impacted many other lives.

“People contacted and told us they were hoping to change their lives,” says Laura. “Even if they didn’t win the business, they’d realise that what they were currently doing was not what they wanted to do forever. They’re thankful for the inspiration and the encouragement for them to find out what they’re passionate about.”

It’s still hard to understand why Matt and Laura were willing to give up a business that they’d poured their heart and soul into—a business that had been valued at almost $200,000.

“Our children are now four and two,” says Laura. “We want to

FORGIVE TO LIVE

SEND THIS FORM TO : Community Manager Hope Channel Locked Bag 1115 Wahroonga NSW 2076

COOKING with Gia & Olive

Avocado pops PREPARATION TIME: 10 MINUTES FREEZING TIME: OVERNIGHT MAKES: 4–6 POPSICLES

1 ripe medium avocado 1 cup fresh baby spinach 400 ml coconut milk ¼ cup fresh lime juice 2 tbsp honey or maple syrup 1 tsp vanilla extract ½ cup strawberries, chopped

PREPARATION TIME: 0 MINUTES COOKING TIME: 45 MINUTES

METHOD 1.

2.

INGREDIENTS ½ cup polenta 1½ cups + ¼ cup water ½ tsp salt (or to taste) Optional: 1–2 tbsp raw cashews (for extra creaminess) Optional: Herbs and fresh garlic (to make herb and garlic not butter)

3.

PREPARATION TIME: 15 MINUTES FRIDGE TIME: 20 MINUTES SERVES: 10–12

Place polenta and 1½ cups of water in a small pot and cook on low–medium heat until polenta is soft and cooked through. Stir occasionally to prevent it from getting lumpy.

Blend all ingredients and ¼ cup of water in a blender until smooth. Store in air-tight container in the refrigerator.

450 g frozen berries 450 g coconut yoghurt 100 ml nut milk of choice 2 tbsp honey 25 g oats

METHOD 1.

2.

22

Blend all ingredients, except oats, in a blender until smooth.

Stir in oats before serving.

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December 2018

FOOD STYLED BY SHONA SOLOMON AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY ADAM KAVANAGH

INGREDIENTS

¹/³ cup 100% maple syrup Optional: goji berries or dried fruit

METHOD 1.

2.

INGREDIENTS

Breakfast berry smoothie PREPARATION TIME: 5 MINUTES COOKING TIME: 0 MINUTES SERVES: 4

Blend all ingredients, except strawberries, in a blender until smooth.

Add chopped strawberries into paddle pop moulds, then pour in avocado mixture.

Freeze until firm, preferably overnight.

Homemade Christmas Granola

METHOD

2.

NEW ZEALAND

INGREDIENTS

Not Butter

1.

AS SEEN ON

r this fo Make mas!

Christ

3 cups rolled oats ¹/³ cup sunflower seeds ½ cup slivered or chopped almonds ½ cup coconut flakes 1 cup rice bubbles ¼ cup linseed meal 2 tsp ground cinnamon powder ½ tsp salt ¼ cup rice bran oil

3.

4.

Preheat oven to 170oC (fan-forced).

Combine ingredients in a large mixing bowl using a spoon or hands until oil and maple syrup are thoroughly combined. Spread evenly on lined baking tray.

Place baking tray on middle shelf in the oven and bake for 15–20 minutes or until golden brown. (Keep watch as it can overcook if you don’t take it out of the oven in time.)

Once cooled, mix in goji berries or dried fruit if using, then store in airtight container for up to two weeks.

GIA & OLIVE The world's cutest sous-chef and her talented mother show us how easy it is to be healthy.

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The pattern is always the same.

Staying up late to complete homework that could have been started earlier and assignments finished in a frantic last-minute rush. What do you do when your child is a procrastinator?

LATE

again!

FREE PRINTABLE “HOMEWORK CHECKLIST” AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD MumsAtTheTable.com /freestuff

By Dr Sarah Hughes

I

f your child procrastinates, it’s not because they are lazy.

Their tendency to leave things to the last minute might make you question their level of motivation, but procrastination is often a symptom of other underlying issues, the main culprits being a need for control, anxiety and poor organisational skills.

There are three main types of procrastinators. Your child might fit clearly into one category or they might be a mixed procrastinator and tick multiple boxes.

Knowing your child’s procrastination type is essential. If you don’t understand the driving force behind their procrastination, you won’t be able to help them break their procrastination habit.

Use the information below to help you figure out their procrastination style. Let’s look at each of these types of procrastinator in a little more detail.

These kids are sensitive to being controlled and resent having tasks imposed upon them by others. As their name suggests, the need-for-control procrastinator delays starting tasks to take back control.

Throughout adolescence, teens develop a stronger sense of self, and with this comes both a desire for more freedom and an acute sensitivity to the feeling of being controlled. Some see homework as a violation of their right to be in control of their own life, and this drives their resistance to homework and their propensity to procrastinate. To the need-for-control procrastinator, starting tasks ahead of time isn’t a course of action that helps their own interest; it’s an intolerable concession of control and procrastination helps them to save face.

THE ANXIOUS PROCRASTINATOR There are two types of anxious procrastinators: perfectionistic procrastinators and easily-overwhelmed procrastinators.

Perfectionistic procrastinators procrastinate because they place undue pressure on themselves to excel academically and procrastinate to delay evaluation by others.

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Easily-overwhelmed procrastinators, on the other hand, have a lower threshold for stress and are more vulnerable to stress and anxiety in the face of multiple assessments and overlapping deadlines. Like perfectionistic procrastinators, easily-overwhelmed procrastinators procrastinate to avoid the stress and anxiety that schoolwork triggers. But while procrastination offers relief from stress and anxiety in the short-term, it causes more stress longerterm as work builds up and deadlines multiply. It might seem counterintuitive to rely on a strategy that ultimately makes things worse, but anxiety isn’t logical. Anxious teens are motivated by a desire to feel less anxious, and the short-term relief that procrastination offers is what entices perfectionistic procrastinators and easily-overwhelmed procrastinators to procrastinate.

THE POORLY-ORGANISED PROCRASTINATOR Poorly-organised procrastinators lack the skills they need to

ANTONIOGUILLEM—GETTY IMAGES

THE NEED-FOR-CONTROL PROCRASTINATOR

plan ahead and stay on task. Their procrastination is due to a skills deficit, not laziness.

There’s evidence to suggest that some teens procrastinate because their developing brains can’t yet support the cognitive skills they need to self-regulate and stay on task. Their procrastination might seem deliberate, but this isn’t necessarily the case.

The inability of poorly-organised procrastinators to plan ahead and meet deadlines may actually be a symptom of them not yet having the neural scaffolding they need to be proactive and task-focused.

If your child is a poorly-organised procrastinator, their procrastination should reduce over time as their brain develops, but the brain is also incredibly plastic and has the ability to change itself to support the learning of new skills. So the good news is, your child doesn’t have to wait for their prefrontal cortex to be remodelled to break free of their procrastination cycle. They can

speed up the rewiring of their brain by learning and practising new skills for organisation.

If it was as simple as choosing not to procrastinate, your child would have done that by now. Threatening consequences and offering rewards also won’t work, because motivation isn’t the issue—skills are.

Your child is missing the key skills they need to break free of their procrastination. Need-for-control procrastinators lack the skills they need to complete tasks others have asked them do; anxious procrastinators are missing the skills they need to better manage their anxiety; and poorly-organised procrastinators are lacking when it comes to organisational skills.

Staying up late to help your child finish work they’ve left to the last minute or emailing teachers on their behalf to request extensions might help to avoid a meltdown in the short-term, but saving them from the natural consequences of their procrasti-

December 2018

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GET

Assessments can be expensive, but if there are attention or learning difficulties at play, you need to know what you’re dealing with so you can know how to help. Persistent procrastination might also signal the need for additional support around other underlying causes, such as clinical perfectionism, anxiety disorders and mood-related disorders.

Dr Sarah Hughes holds a doctorate in clinical psychology and a PhD in child and adolescent anxiety disorders. She is the founder of Think Clinical Psychologists and has 10 years of clinical experience.

AN EDITED EXTRACT FROM SKIP THE DRAMA BY DR SARAH HUGHES, AVAILABLE FROM EXISLEPUBLISHING.COM AND WHEREVER GOOD BOOKS ARE SOLD.

find us @MumsAtTheTable

PROCRASTINATION APPS If you want to take a step back and let your child be responsible for their deadlines, but you’re worried

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they won’t stay on track without you, apps are a good middle ground. There are a range of apps designed to help chronic procrastinators to procrastinate less. Each app has a slightly different focus so it’s important to pick apps that match your child’s needs, but here are a

•

Todoist can help your child stay on top of their homework and assignments. It allows them to create efficient to-do lists complete with due dates and tasks

How to make grocery shopping with children less torturous (and even fun!).

9 DECEMBER

• •

listed according to their level of priority, making it easy for them to keep track of their deadlines. If large tasks overwhelm them, they can break tasks down into smaller sub-tasks, and best of all the app allows them to send themselves task reminders via email or push

Should children be entrepreneurs?

Would you let people into your messy house?

16 DECEMBER

•

notifications, which means you can stop monitoring their due dates because the app will do it for you.

SELF-CONTROL AND FREEDOM

Should you take your children out of school for a holiday?

23 DECEMBER

• •

a set period of time. And they mean business. Once you’ve set your restriction time limits, access to blocked

An easier way for schools and parents to communicate with each other.

Surviving and thriving at Christmas.

30 DECEMBER

sites is impossible. You can restart your computer or

• •

delete the application but it won’t matter. The only way to access blocked sites is to wait for the time to pass.

Self-control and Freedom are both great for those who

Raising race-conscious children.

The positive side to digital parenting.

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get distracted by Facebook, Instagram and any other social media platforms when studying.

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December 2018

WOULD YOU DISCIPLINE ANOTHER PARENT’S CHILD?

2 DECEMBER

TODOIST

applications that might interfere with productivity for

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Did you know we have a Facebook community where you can join in the conversation on our show segments, magazine articles and much more?

Recently, we asked our members:

couple of good examples.

Both of these apps allow users to block any addictive

26

social MACHINE HEADZ—GETTYIMAGES

nation is a band-aid solution and it won’t help them to do things differently in the future. What your child needs is help to learn the missing skills driving their procrastination.

To help your child break out of their procrastination cycle, you first need to understand the underlying cause of their procrastination. If the skills you try to help them build don’t match their procrastination type, your efforts won’t be effective. Not only that, if your approach is incompatible with their procrastination type you might inadvertently make things worse. For instance, if your child procrastinates because they resent having homework forced on them, stepping in to try to help them to be more organised may backfire. They’ll see your efforts as an attempt to control them and be even more resistant to starting work as a result.

When you start to put things into practice, it’ll be tempting to closely supervise your child’s progress to make sure they implement the skills and strategies you’ve discussed, but be mindful of the difference between supporting them and enabling them by taking on their responsibilities.

Whether or not your child meets their deadlines is their responsibility. Help them to plan, encourage them to practise skills and make time to help them if they have asked for help in advance, but don’t force compliance or stay up late to help them finish work they should have started earlier. If you’ve had support in place to help your child finish their assignment ahead of time but they’ve chosen to leave things to the last minute, don’t step in to help.

Handing in an incomplete assignment or losing marks for handing an assignment in late will be distressing, but it’s this distress that will help your child to reflect on their actions and acknowledge the need for change. If you help them to finish their assignment, the distress of finishing everything in a mad rush will be overpowered by their relief at getting a completed assignment in on time, and they’ll stay stuck in their cycle of procrastination.

As with any new skill, your child will need time to consolidate the skills they require to stop procrastinating, but if despite support and natural consequences they continue to struggle to get school work completed, it might be worthwhile investigating whether there are any underlying learning difficulties contributing to the problem.

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Hyacinth: Nope.

Leah: Absolutely, we’ve lost this acceptable standard and have a lot of behaviour issues. Instead many just walk around shaming others.

We should be helping each other out. Discipline doesn’t mean punish. It’s correcting behaviour.

Elise: If it’s my friend’s children, most definitely. It takes a village to raise a child. However, [disciplining] a stranger’s child is dependent on the situation. I would if my child is in immediate danger, otherwise I would remove my child from the situation before there is an issue.

HopeChannel (New Zealand) Check website for times

Content accurate at the time of printing but may be subject to change.

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HOLDING y o u

discovered a way to thrive and overcome the difficulties of motherhood.

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December 2018

GAYE EDWARDS PHOTOGRAPHY—SUPPLIED

Bel Thomson suffered a traumatic birth and postnatal depression, but

I

thought I was prepared—the nursery was decked out in blue and I had read all the childbirth books. My birth plan was written out and I looked forward to building our special, new bond. I was full of eager expectation, and often prayed about the birth in the months leading up to my due date. I had enjoyed a very healthy pregnancy, working as a full-time singer-songwriter right up until 37 weeks. I expected that birth and motherhood would also be fairly straightforward and come naturally to me.

I was so optimistic that I packed joggers in my hospital bag! I can recall thinking, I’ve kept fit my whole pregnancy, why would I wait until I get home to exercise again? I also remember thinking I’d have quite a lot of downtime during our hospital stay because newborn babies sleep a lot. Under this false belief, I packed the complete biography of Bonhoeffer to read in hospital—all 600 pages of it—and wondered if that would be enough!

Right from birth, things did not go to plan. I wanted no medical interventions, but after 17 painful hours of labour, my son became dangerously distressed and I was rushed in for what is termed a Category 1 Emergency Caesarean Section—this was life-threatening. My husband wasn’t even allowed to be there for the birth in the end and I was put under general anaesthetic because of the urgency of the situation.

Our son wasn’t breathing when he was born, so he needed special medical help before being transferred to the special care nursery to recover.

My expectations came crashing down with this traumatic experience. I had dreamed of those first intimate moments with my baby and I was devastated that I wasn’t able to hold, nurse or even see him when he was born.

When I woke up from the operation, I was disoriented and confused. I had no idea where my baby was. The nurses eventually pushed my bed into the special care nursery to see my son, who was sleeping in a humidicrib. I stared at him with disbelief. How could that be my baby, hooked up to all those monitors? This was not the first meeting I had hoped for.

I was exhausted and in shock from the difficult birth, and while I was thankful that he was OK, I felt devastated that I had missed my baby’s first moments. A black cloud began to descend on me as I stared at him in the little special care crib. I felt lost and overwhelmed, and I grieved this unexpected beginning for many months.

When I took my son home, I struggled with postnatal depression and anxiety, and found the

challenges of caring for him extremely difficult. I felt totally lost in this new life.

I’ll never forget the day I saw my obstetrician, seven weeks after the birth. I fought back my anxiety about being back at the hospital and shared how upset I was that I wasn’t able to be there for my son when he was born, and how I felt I’d let him down.

My obstetrician looked at me and quietly said, “You may not have been able to hold your baby when he was born, but God was holding him the whole time.”

I silently let those words sink in—the reality that God had cared for my son when I was not able to. This realisation was salve for my aching heart and helped me start to reframe the birth experience, seeing God holding my son at every moment.

I came home and sat at the piano, which had been silent since our son’s birth. With tears streaming down my face, I poured my pain and raw emotion into a melody, composing a song from a deeper place than any song I’d ever written before. That was the start of my own healing. As I wrote the lyrics, I thought of friends who had experienced pain and loss with pregnancy and childbirth. I called the song “Holding You”, and I felt like it was for all those with scars from their motherhood journey.

Through my own grief, I felt a new awareness of God’s closeness and care for us amidst the pain. From that point on, my motherhood experiences bled into my song lyrics every time I sat down at the piano. In those first six months, I always had my bub strapped to my chest in the carrier and as my fingers brushed the keys, I often had tears streaming down my face as I processed all the change in my life. These new songs became a deep conduit for my own healing.

Over time, I was able to begin to release the weight of the guilt and sadness I felt every time I thought of our birth experience, and I started to sense that God cared not only for my son but also for my own pain.

One night when my son was about six months old, I felt God bring words from the Bible to my mind: “Comfort my people”. I sensed Him say, “These songs you’ve written in this dark season are not meant to be kept to yourself, but are meant to encourage other people and remind them that I am with them in their dark seasons too.”

I thought, You must be kidding? How can I possibly record these songs now? You see how much I’m still struggling! There’s no way I could juggle a major creative project and look after my son! How would I do it?

The next day, those questions still echoed in my head and so I looked up Isaiah 40, the chapter in the Bible where God says, “Comfort my people.” As I read the chapter, I found some powerful words of encouragement: “He will gently and carefully lead those nursing their young” (Isaiah 40:11, Amplified Bible).

I stopped. I reread those beautiful words, full of God’s grace toward mothers.

He would lead. Gently. And carefully. I sensed His promise that if I would step out in faith to record the songs written in my season with postnatal depression, He would show me how to juggle my call to be a mum and a musician.

December 2018

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WELLBEING with Collett WHY MUMS NEED ME-TIME

T

Above: Bel reaching out for Mikey through the window of the special care crib before she was allowed to hold him.

Right: Working on songs for the album with Mikey in his carrier.

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happening anytime soon! Thomas the Tank Engine will have to suffice for now.

But I am learning to lean on God for strength and to trust Him to “gently and carefully” lead through all the challenges, broken expectations and adjustments that come with the gift of motherhood. In the years ahead, I want to always remember the revelation learned so early on, that He is holding me and my son, at every moment of our journey.

Bel Thomson is an award-winning Australian singer, songwriter and speaker.

For your opportunity to win one of four copies of Bel Thomson’s album, Seasons, tell us in 25 words or less when you have felt God hold you.

Enter at MumsAtTheTable.com/ BelThomsonGiveaway.

Australia and New Zealand addresses only, sorry. Giveaway ends December 31, 2018.

HALFPOINT—GETTY IMAGES

WIN

SUPPLIED

So after a lot of prayer, with my husband’s support, we embarked on my fourth album recording. What a ride! My baby got a front row seat, cuddling me in the carrier while I laboured over songs and melodies, workshopping songs via Skype with my producer in America. To my amazement, my son loved the experience and would often reach his hand out to play the piano with me as I worked!

As a family (including Nana who helped care for Mikey while I was in the studio!), we travelled to Nashville to record and God provided everything we needed to make it both a great family experience as well as an amazing work project for me. I saw the truth of God’s promise to “gently and carefully” lead and I found great satisfaction caring for my son and using my musical gift.

I titled the album Seasons, because the songs reflect my journey through the changing seasons of life and God’s faithfulness through it all. As I poured myself into shaping these songs, it facilitated my own healing—I think you can hear that sense of healing and comfort woven into the very fabric of the album.

“Holding You” was released as the third single and I’ve heard from mums all over the country who have been moved and encouraged by the song. I’m blown away to see God use my own pain from this season to help others.

We recently celebrated our son’s second birthday. As I reflect on our growth as a family, I realise not only have I survived, but I’m learning to thrive as a mum. Mind you, I’m yet to read a single page of Bonhoeffer and am not holding out hope of that

ime plays an important role in overall life satisfaction and wellbeing. So when we feel time pressure, we end up with experiences of stress, depression, and sleep and other health issues.

Mothers in particular tend to experience the sense of being time poor because of their constant balancing of roles such as homemaker, caregiver, partner, parent and so on.

Taking control of your time, including periods of self-care, is very important for mothers to consciously and actively prioritise.

We often think of self-care as a luxury when in fact, without it, the whole family suffers. Mum’s self-care is not a selfish act. It is not healthy for a frayed, exhausted mum to keep pushing herself to do more.

Yes, there will always be things that need doing, so how do we learn to prioritise and incorporate periods of self-care?

1. Schedule self-care into your weekly or monthly activities.

2. Keep it practical, simple and doable. Self-care involves activities that you find good for your body and your soul.

Those things that bring you joy.

3. Make a mental (or written) list of both short and longer activities that you can realistically add to your time schedule.

Anything from five minutes to an hour or half a day.

Here are some examples of self-care: • Once a week, light a scented candle (meant only for you) to use while you take a bath after the kids are in bed.

• Listen to your favourite music for 10 minutes after you have dropped the kids at school.

• Sit with a cup of tea on the patio in the morning before everyone wakes up. Savour the stillness.

• Make sure you eat well.

• Get your body moving. Go for a solo walk around the neighbourhood on a Sunday afternoon or lock the door, put a short movie on for the kids and do some light stretches.

• Swap childminding with a friend once a month so that you can each have a few hours to go for a massage, have a long nap, go shopping or read a book uninterrupted.

• Keep connected with a good friend of two. Sharing our lives with girlfriends is a healthy stress release.

• Plan in advance for one or two longer periods of time to yourself each year.

• Pick up a hobby or activity you love but have neglected.

COLLETT She’s an author, mum of three and psychologist. Watch Collett Smart share ways mums can look after their own wellbeing on the Mums At The Table TV show.

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BOOK CORNER PRESCHOOL

would you...

GIVE YOUR CHILDREN TIME-OUTS?

SARIFA YOUNES MELBOURNE, VICTORIA

DYMPNA KENNEDY SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

I see time-outs as an essential learning tool for emotional intelligence—if it is used right. I introduce it more as a concept of managing my child’s emotional states and a way for them to become more self-aware of their emotions and the need to have a break from outside stimuli, a skill which is invaluable throughout school years and later life.

Some parents introduce time-outs as a threat and remove the child from the space, and often with it, from their presence.

To me, a time-out is asking or gently offering the child to get some fresh air when feeling frustrated, diverting attention or simply changing the activity until the child feels better. There are different forms of time-outs, however I believe they ought to be used to help the child, not to threaten or punish them.

If the behaviour is really unacceptable, the way the time-out is introduced might be more stern and affirmative, yet still ride on an undertone of love and care. We are addressing a behaviour that was less than ideal, not the child who is “bad”. Keeping the focus on just the action allows for the child to learn they can choose better actions, rather than feel that they are bad. Keep this in mind, no matter what type of time-out is given.

Some parents use “quiet time” for self-reflection and “timeout” for more inappropriate behaviours. With the children and staff at my early childhood learning centre, I have always used a scale of time-out, depending on the situation. The fundamental has always been to give the child an opportunity to reflect on themselves, their behaviour and to realise that different choices of behaviour get different responses.

I believe discipline is about teaching, guiding and supporting a child, which means we should be focusing on time-ins rather than time-outs. Time-out is asking a child to manage their emotions in isolation—something they have shown they were unable to do, which led to the undesirable behaviour in the first place.

If a child hits a younger sibling and was sent to time-out, the parent believes it will teach them not to hit in the future.

However, the child is not sitting in time-out thinking, It wasn’t right to hit my sibling, I’m six, I should know better. Instead, they are likely to be planning their revenge on the sibling who got them into time-out.

Parents need to teach, guide and support, which can only be achieved with time-ins. Time-ins is where the parent remains with the child. The parent responds to the child, first by connecting on an emotional level and then following up with logic.

In time-outs, a parent reacts with logic to an emotionally fragile child, which risks sending the child into a higher emotional state or it silences the child through fear of further consequences.

Children need us to be with them to manage their emotions until they can do it on their own. By sending them to time-outs, we risk sending the message, “If you have a problem, you need to deal with it on your own.”

If we are there for them when they are little, they will turn to us when they are older because they will innately know that no problem is too great that they cannot share with you.

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December 2018

Adorably illustrated, this book has a simple but important message: it’s not the stuff we collect that makes us happy, it’s the connections we have with people that do. Teach children about the perils of overconsumption and stress sustainability in this fun read-aloud book.

Brilliant and inspiring, this boldly and colourfully illustrated book will introduce children to some amazing women who made a difference in Australian history. Interesting for both parents and child, written in an easy-to-understand manner.

Encourages children to ask, “How will I change my world?”

WANT TO PLAY TRUCKS?

AT THE END OF HOLYROOD LANE

Ian Mutch Fremantle Press $24.99

A brilliant book for parents who want to encourage non-gender-specific play.

Told with simple words and a matter-of-fact tone, this book helps to normalise the fact boys can play with dolls, and at the end of the day, there are easy ways to compromise—especially over a common love for ice-cream!

PRIMARY

would not . . .

AMAZING AUSTRALIAN WOMEN

Ann Stott & Bob Graham Walker Books $16.99

MARKPIOVESAN—GETTYIMAGES

would . . .

MORE AND MORE AND MORE

SONAM AND THE SILENCE Eddie Ayres & Ronak Taher Allen & Unwin $24.99

Magically beautiful, this tale of the irrepressible power of music will charm with the haunting story of an old man who teaches a little girl— through music—how to calm the nerves of her soul. A nice introduction and snippet of what life in other countries (in this instance, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan) may be like.

Pamela Freeman & Sophie Beer Lothian Children’s Books $26.99

Dimity Powell & Nicky Johnston EK Boooks $24.99

Such a clever, powerful and stunning picture book. The duality of meanings makes it a story about being brave for most children, while giving it the potential to speak volumes to those experiencing domestic violence. Encourages children to speak up and seek help whenever they are afraid.

WINEN'S

CHILDR S! BOOK

g parentin on your ry if to s d l n a ence a person or experi e Submit a thoughts we’ll send you th , y e rn u jo , ry to ! s e g our n this pa we use y atured o books fe te to us at Wri le.com tTheTab MumsA l@ a ri o edit

December 2018

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33

S E I T I V I T C A FUN FOR THE

DOWN LOA AS A PR D THIS INTABL E FROM MumsA tThe com/fre Table. estuff

MUMS AT THE TABLE MAGAZINE REAL WOMEN | REAL CONVERSATIONS | REAL ISSUES

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GET WET Almost every child loves water. Being in the southern hemisphere means the Christmas holidays is a great time to bring the kids to the local swimming pool or water park. Dad joins in on the fun, mum gets to relax in the shade and the children get very, very tired by the end of the day.

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CHRISTMAS MOVIE MARATHON

WRITE CHRISTMAS CARDS Not just for family and friends. Get your kids to think about people who may need some love this Christmas: the postman, seniors at a residential home, a widowed neighbour . . . the opportunities to teach care and compassion are endless. You can even make your own Christmas cards if you’re a little bit crafty.

This does depend on your screentime philosophy and the kids’ bedtime, but Christmasthemed movies are often warm, fuzzy and family-friendly.

Imagine your family cuddled up together on the couch, living room lit only by twinkling Christmas baubles (we show you how on page 7) and a pack of popcorn to go around (page 6 shows you how to make an instant bowl out of a popcorn packet).

XAVIERARNAU, KOKKAI, DGLIMAGES, MAXIMKABB—GETTY IMAGES, FREEPIK

Every neighbourhood has that street where its residents go all out with the Christmas decorations and lights. After the sun has gone down, take the family for a drive to gape at them in their full glory.

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