Belinda Moore

I’m very excited about a new magazine being launched in Australia this year. Check out the website for Indigo, see their mission statement and have a sneak peak of the content and style!

Justine Caine, a mother of six from Scone, NSW has formed a political party called What Women Want.

You can read more about it at the website (click the link above) and in this article which appeared in the Courier Mail.

“From the earliest times attempts have been made to classify individuals according to types, and so bring order to the chaos.” Carl Jung

Part One – The Four Temperaments

For awhile I’ve been interested in labels. I have enjoyed reading about classifications since doing those “What sort of girl are you?” quizzes in Dolly as a teen. I have also read about astrology, completed personality tests such as Type A/Type B and many others that I used to do as a student of Psychology and Education for extra credit points. But I’ve never taken any of it too seriously until lately. I’ve realised that “temperaments”, “learning styles” and similar labels can actually be useful tools for understanding myself, being an effective parent for each of our children, and providing an appropriate home based learning journey. This is the first in a series of articles covering explanations and resources for some philosophies of classification.

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Gardening with Children

SAFETY
- Choose appropriate size and type of tools for each age group and supply small garden gloves.
- Know which are noxious plants and remove them from your garden or explain to your children that they’re poisonous. You can obtain booklets about poisonous plants from the library or Poisons Information Centre. Also avoid spiky, prickly and itchy plants in a young child’s garden.
- Chemicals are best avoided in your garden. Even concentrated ‘natural’ garden treatments should be locked away.
- Spiders and snakes can by dangerous. Be aware of the species you may encounter in your locale.
- Explain to your children about things that sting. Have your preferred remedy on hand should a sting be likely.
- Water brings life to your garden but it can be hazardous too. Never leave your little ones alone with water.
- Avoid harsh sun on delicate skin. Cover up and avoid gardening in the middle of the day.

SEEDS –
Cheap, magical, fun. Collect your own from kitchen scraps or dried beans in the pantry. Buy old-traditional varieties from seed suppliers. Catalogues offer an exciting array of varieties so the children can plan their next gardens.
VS SEEDLINGS -
Quicker, already established for more success, available from hardware stores, markets or nurseries.

Easy snack plants: snow peas, beans, cherry tomatoes, mild radish, French beans
Simple flowers: sunflowers, marigolds, bulbs, nasturtiums, sweet peas
Exciting plants: pumpkins, gourds (for craft), luffa sponge, passionfruit, everlasting daisies, purple beans and corn
Perfect in pots: strawberries, a capsicum plant, a tomato bush, baby carrots, all herbs and flowers such as cosmos, pansies and petunias
Other gardens: mushroom kits, sprouting jars, terrarium, tray of cacti in pebbles, native plants.
Related activities: worm farms, compost making, hens, pets, nature crafts, ant colonies, observing bugs, scarecrows and other garden art.
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I looked up this article I wrote ages ago after conversations with friends and my own recent lack of energy. Maybe others will find it useful? A timely reminder for me, too…

I am mama to six wonderful people aged two to twelve. Due to my husband’s work commitments; a lot of the parenting, home education and household chores fall to me, which brings me to what this article is about… Burnout!

As the children have grown and more have been born, I have had to reassess my commitments and the energy I have available, as well as finding methods to cope with increases in my workload. I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned… (more…)

Childcare is headlining across the nation during this election year. It is a matter that greatly affects parents and employers – the main cogs in our societal moneymaking machine. The federal government wishes to increase the birth rate and each year they’re offering more dollars to parents for populating the nation. Childcare benefits and tax deductions are offered as enticements but rarely are the needs of children considered. A focus on numbers, timeframes and dollars motivate the debate. Childcare is big business and is currently influencing around two-thirds of all childhoods in Australia. The Australian Bureau of Statistics tells us that 66 percent of children under five in 1999 used some form of childcare. And 19 600 children were in formal childcare for more than 45 hours a week in that same year.Natural parenting is an ideology, not a dogma. It is about instinctively raising our young, and making informed decisions. Does childcare compromise or compliment our conscious parenting ideals? Are those who perceive theirs to be a natural parenting style more protective than most other parents? In compiling this article I sought the opinions of around twenty mothers of babies and young children.

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