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*Penny arrived to her Parenting Reset day visibly frazzled.  She used whatever energy she still had left to force a smile before flopping down heavily on Love Parenting Studio’s new and particularly snazzy green velvet lounge.  There was an audible sigh that told me she was physically here, but the rest of her was still arriving.  I handed her a lime to scratch and sniff while she caught her breath. I poured our tea. She scratched and sniffed the lime and then looked slowly around the studio.  After paying particular attention to the lush hanging plants she commented “Gee i ..read more

Something really useful a Parenting Reset couple did lately was bring in a bullet pointed list of things their child says in a conflict situation. Like most households they had one trigger-happy child quick to whip out the dreaded ‘I hate you’ Like most parents, hearing that was getting their parenting knickers in quite the knot. Obviously it is never as easy as knowing some fancy words to respond with. Heck – my hourly rate would be so much higher if it were that simple. As with any parenting challenge, it is best worked through by focusing on two things at once: 1) F ..read more

  Parenting a child who seemingly can’t follow an instruction to save their life, and shame about one’s own yelling are the two key reasons that parents link in to access me as a Parenting Coach alongside them. This blog is to talk about how you can use a basic timer to build in Diva-Moments where you ‘just do you’ ….and in doing so shave some of the angst and overwhelm out of those two scenarios. We can’t give clear instructions that are likely to be followed, or mange to not go into our volcanic yelling if we are constantly running at capacity giving out, giving out and giving OUT to o ..read more

Today on Raising Wildlings Mel will be discussing the new accommodation vouchers that have just dropped into the Service NSW App & her thoughts on how we can use them ..read more

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month & on todays podcast Louise deep dives into the statistics, the myths & the important conversations that are needed to shine a light on this issue. Louise chats to Haylee Penfold- sex & health editor of Ramona magazine about her experiences. Hayley will be paneling for the Newcastle event Confronting Consent on April 7th in Newcastle. Our parenting expert Mel Burgess talks about how we frame a conversation about consent to our kids & how to empower children to have agency over their bodies Sex & Relationships Therapist Gabrielle Lawrie ..read more

Check out this MamaMia article about body image I contributed specific Emotion Coaching tips to I am a mum of two boys, my eldest son is 11 and my youngest son is five and as their actual biggest fans, I think they are gorgeous. After years of loving them and taking thousands of photos to capture treasured memories of their sweet faces, it physically hurts my heart when they tell me they dislike something about their appearance. It might be a perceived facial flaw they see in one of my many photos, or when they tell me they wish they had ‘abs’ like fitness trainer Joe Wicks on YouTube. I alway ..read more

Listen to my interview with ABC 1233 on tips for working with your own or your child’s returning to school anxiety.   https://loveparenting.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Mel-Burgess-copy.mp3 ..read more

Can I use this?  Be driven there?  Be bought that?  Invite such and-such over? It’s hard to be the recipient of rapid-fire school holiday requests from our kids.   Mark and Sarah were in the thick of this with their two early-high schoolers.  There was building resentment at how much they were being called on for, and concern that they were somehow growing up ‘entitled’ kids.  They each wanted to give their children childhoods with happy memories but were stretched and flagging from all they were doing trying to keep th ..read more

How has it been to be you over there so far this month? What are you trying to manage in terms of trying to make this festive season special?We know families have the most joyfully memorable Christmases when as parents we are able to mindfully be present. It can be extremely hard to work out how much is ‘enough’ or ‘too much’ though, can’t it!? Here is an idea to try on: Imagine there are a set of balancing scales and that each magical experience you set out to deliver falls onto one side.  On the other side sits how much of yourself you have available to give to this this year. There ..read more