imperfect parenting
Family meals – our most underrated weapon?
Katie Holloway
As our eldest hits double figures, we’re tentatively considering secondary schools, which is why you’ll now find me on the school run quizzing all the parents I know with older kids about their school experiences. One such conversation led to me chatting with a Christian mum about the way faith issues are presented.
It was around the time of Charlie Kirk’s murder and this mum told me her daughter had come home saying they’d discussed his death in the classroom. That a teacher had presented Kirk as somebody who stood for something “not very nice”, but apparently hadn’t gone into details. Having not heard of him before, this teenage girl asked her parents about him. They explained that actually the man was a Christian, and much of what he stood for was Biblical.
imperfect parenting
Advent & the power in waiting
Katie Holloway
Whether you mark it in a formal way or not, Advent is a season of waiting. I don’t think there’s a single child in the country this month who’s not counting “how many sleeps” until Christmas Day, even while their parents are silently hoping for just “a few more sleeps” to get everything done.
Waiting is hard. Though we likely don’t find it as hard to wait for Christmas as our kids (though maybe you do!), as adults we still find waiting hard. Whether we’re waiting for an appointment, to find out some news, for our winter cold to get better, for God to change our circumstances… we don’t like waiting.
imperfect parenting
To the irritable parent
Katie Holloway
Before we delve into this, I want to say: I’m talking to myself, here. I’m certainly not pointing fingers, more like opening my hands in admittance, and perhaps welcoming others (all of us?) into the “irritable parents’ club”.
Whether your baby has had you up for most of the night, your toddler has refused to put on their shoes for 40 minutes (ask me how I know), or your teenager wants to start a debate about every instruction you give them, it feels like being irritable is part of the parenting package. But it doesn’t have to be.
