The latest positive news for South African children is that the National Road Traffic Act has tightened regulations for road safety. As of 1 May 2015, children under the age of 3 will have to be strapped into a car seat while travelling. This is due to the high numbers of children loosing their lives […]
How a baby changes your relationship
Whether your baby is planned or unplanned, an addition to your duo will come with some complexities and changes to your relationship. Firstly, I think the thing that stands out most when you have a baby is the differences in a couples personal values and principles. Suddenly you have a little specimen to impose […]
Choosing a caregiver for your child
At the end of 2014, a heart-breaking video of an abusive nanny went viral. To this day, I can’t bring myself to watch it (I don’t have the emotional maturity to forgive people for such horrifying actions). As parents, our biggest fear is probably the safety of our children – their wellbeing is constantly on […]
Inhlawulo: When an unmarried Zulu woman falls pregnant
When an Zulu woman falls pregnant out of wedlock, there are firm traditional procedures to adhere to and inhlawulo usually comes into play. Even though we evolve and modernise quickly, this is one of the many practices I have noticed many families still uphold. The process of Inhlawulo: Please note that I’m outlining the typical scenario, however, the […]
Lessons from speech therapy after speaking our mother tongue exclusively at home
As with most parents, developing my son’s mother tongue was one of my top priorities. I made a conscious decision from the time that he was born that I would speak our home language (isiZulu) with him, exclusively, until he went to school. In my mind, it was the only way to ensure that he […]
Raising a positive child
In light of schools and society adding constant pressure on our children, we need to raise more positive children. I was helping my son prepare for his first class speech (I was surprised to discover that they do speeches in Grade 1; we certainly didn’t in our day) and as we went along, his anxiety started to […]