Family

From Mouths of Babes

Sometimes you just trip over great blogs. Other times you have to travel thousands of kilometres to find them.

As well as the many great stories that I’ll be sharing about my trip to Papua New Guinea, I want to share a blog I’ve just discovered. It’s called From Mouths of Babes and it’s written by Katrina Roe who was a member of the media team that travelled to PNG. Katrina’s the morning announcer on Hope 103.2 in Sydney.

So what’s her blog about? Here’s part of the story in her own words.

When I fell pregnant for the first time, I couldn’t have been happier. We had been trying for a baby for a while and I knew I was ready for this next stage in my life. But so often my friends with kids had only negative things to say about becoming a parent. ”Enjoy your sleep while you can!” ”You don’t know what you’re in for!” Or sometimes just a smug smile that said, “You’ve got a big shock coming.” The thing is, my first year as a Mum was the best year of my life. I loved everything about it. That doesn’t mean the adjustments weren’t difficult, but just that the joy of knowing my child far outweighed the difficulties.

So I really want this site to be a celebration of parenting, a celebration of all the joy and love our kids bring us. Yes, we need to talk about the hard stuff too, but let’s talk about it in a way that encourages us to be better parents and better people.

I love that attitude. We had people telling us the same sort of negative stuff when our kids were very young but I can assure you that Emily (14) and James (12) have brought us untold pleasure over many years. Of course there are tough times but I wouldn’t swap parenting them for anything.

Katrina’s most recent post, A Brown River Christmas, tells part of the story of our trip to a couple of villages near Port Moresby. I hope you’ll enjoy reading her account of the trip and that you’ll stick around to read more of her posts.

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How can you find reliable parenting advice?

Dec 1st, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

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Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man. – Francis Xavier

It’s the very early years of life that will have the most influence on who a child will become. That can be a frightening revelation. When our children are “brand new” we’re just “brand new parents”. At the time we most need to be getting it right, we’re just feeling our way into this strange new experience of parenthood.

How do you know how to be a good parent? What parenting advice can you trust? Why does it always look so much simpler on television?

Thankfully help is at hand. Every fortnight as part of my morning radio program I speak to David and Charissa Scotford on a range of parenting issues. I’m always impressed by their down to earth, common sense solutions to parenting problems.

They’ve just launched their new website, 4 The Family. If you’re a new parent or even quite a few years into the process, you’ll find some really helpful hints and resources at the site.

Whether you are expecting your first child or have several children at different stages, 4 The Family is a website filled with Resources to help you.

You will find materials grouped according to the main stages of parenting. Some of them overlap and you’ll be able to see a complete list of everything that’s available in our Online Store.

We also have several Resources you can download for FREE.

While they’d be the first to admit that they’re not perfect parents, or that perfect parents even exist, the Scotfords are people who ‘practice what they preach’ and the results are obvious in their own family. I’ve spent extended periods of time with David, Charissa and their four children and I can assure you that the principles they talk about work.

If what you need to know isn’t on the site, they’re always happy to be contacted with questions.

Do your kids, your marriage and your family a favour and check out 4 The Family.

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700 Billion Minutes

Nov 23rd, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

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So think about this one. Four years ago most of us did not use Facebook at all. And today we are using it compulsively.

Tim Challies has written a fairly confronting article for those of us who use Facebook titled 700 Billion Minutes. It focusses on the time we spend on Facebook and highlights some alarming statistics.

While I was away last week I did manage to ‘stay connected’ with various online sites to a limited degree but I must admit that it was rather freeing to be somewhat disconnected while making real life connections with other members on our cycling team.

I certainly thought about my involvement online and about achieving a better balance in that area of life. I’m not going for a knee jerk reaction and closing down accounts all over the web but I do want to use my time wisely. I think the thing that most hit me while I was cycling last week is how our time can be so consumed with things that didn’t even exist a decade ago. Tim’s article brings that out very clearly.

For the majority of us, Facebook is a new thing. Those 700 billion minutes are not minutes that we’ve taken away from other online pursuits. They are minutes that we’ve taken away from real life. Studies show that time spent interacting online comes at the expense of face-to-face relationships and about at a 2:1 ratio. So every hour we spend on Facebook comes at the expense of 30 minutes talking to a person face-to-face.

Do you think you need to step back and look at your time priorities? Have you noticed your online life robbing you of ‘real life’ relationships? Are you taking time away from your family and close friends to interact with those you’ve never met?

If you want some great food for thought I encourage you to read through 700 Billion Minutes and then consider your own plan of action.

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Plane Spotting

Nov 1st, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

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Monday’s arrived once again. It comes around far too fast. How was your weekend?

Our weekend was pretty busy as we celebrated having a 12 year old at our place. James had a birthday on Saturday so the whole weekend seemed to be spent partying.

One of the great things we did yesterday was to picnic at Jandakot Airport.

Opened in 1963, Jandakot Airport is the major General Aviation Airport in Western Australia, and is the busiest airfield and largest aviation training base in Australia. Three runways, associated taxiways, tenant leased property and natural bush land constitutes an area of 622 hectares, 18 kilometres south of the city of Perth.

The airport provides access for essential service organisations such as the Royal Flying Doctor Service, CALM Forest and Bushfire Patrol and the WA Police Air Support. Jandakot is also an important training base for international airline pilots, with Singapore and China Southern operating flying colleges and student accommodation facilities at the Airport.

There’s a public viewing area with a few benches and shelters. We found a large shaded area under a big tree to throw down the picnic blanket. James and some of his cousins had Star Wars light sabre battles while others of us spent the time plane spotting.

I’m scared of heights but I’ll fly in just about anything. If I had the money I’d look into flying lessons but that’s never likely to happen so it was just wonderful to sit and watch other people taking off and landing. There was quite a range of small to medium sized planes, including a vintage Tiger Moth, using the airport as well as a few helicopters coming and going.

I don’t know how much the kids enjoyed the location but I can’t wait to go back there for another picnic.

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I’m not a monster …

Oct 28th, 2010

by Rodney Olsen.

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… so why am I made to feel like I am?

Many years ago if I’d seen a child looking lost in a shopping centre or a park I would ask that child if they had lost their mum and then try to help finding them. These days I stand there and look around for a woman, any woman, to ask for help. It shouldn’t have to be that way.

Miranda Devine has written an excellent article titled, Why are all men made to feel like fiends? I encourage you to read her article all the way through and then think about what it means for our communities.

She tackles the difficult issue of paedophilia and how it has tainted the way that society looks at men. These days men are more likely to ignore their first reaction to immediately rescue or protect young children and to find alternatives to helping vulnerable youngsters.

She talks about a man who desperately wanted to help a child in imminent danger but was concerned about the consequences. Thankfully the child was rescued but in another story Devine tells, the outcome wasn’t so happy.

In 100 different ways every day the same scenario is played out, reflecting a profound and largely unspoken shift in the way decent men view small children.

These are just ordinary men, fathers, grandfathers, brothers, uncles, who have been made to feel like criminals around children and obliged to suppress their natural, healthy instinct to protect the most vulnerable members of our society. – News.com.au

I’d like to think that if a child was in immediate danger I would still act, despite the consequences, but would that moment of hesitation lead to tragedy?

Have you experienced this kind of phenomena? Are you a man who has held back rather than jumping in to help? Are you a woman who has wondered about the motives of a stranger?

We need to aware of the dangers around us and protect our children but I think Miranda Devine sums the situation up well in the final lines of her article.

… demonising men won’t prevent child abuse. In the interests of children, we women must force ourselves to reclaim the notion of male innocence.

The male protective instinct, after all, is one of the most crucial safeguards of childhood.- News.com.au