By: Robert GarrettEmpowerment is a concept synonymous with our times. We hear a lot about the empowerment of women, teens, and other groups in society. But I’m not entirely sure we all share the same understanding of what empowerment means.As a parent, I want to empower our children to...
By: Robert GarrettIt has been said that character is ‘who you are when no one is watching’; it’s those things that we do in private, not for the praise or recognition from others, or conversely, for fear of being caught out.As parents, it’s essential that we live a life of...
By: Robert GarrettWhen our kids were little, people would say, ‘enjoy them now, because when they’re teenagers …’ Consequently, I had this sense of resignation that when they hit their teen years, we’d lose connection with our kids and there was nothing to do but...
By: Robert GarrettIn several recent blogs I reference experts encouraging parents to keep the channels of communication open with their teens. From dads staying close to their daughters, to maintaining healthy parental dialogue around social media use, a positive outcome involves parents who...
By: Robert GarrettFrom the day our daughter was born, she’s always held a special place in my heart. From my experience talking to dads and reading numerous parenting books, there’s nothing unusual about that.But those same sources also tell us that it’s common for dads to step...
By: Robert GarrettIn Braving the Wilderness, author Brené Brown says, “In philosophy, “you’re either with us or against us” is considered a false dichotomy or a false dilemma. It’s a move to force people to take sides. [However] the ability to think past...
By: Robert GarrettI was recently talking to the Head of Human Resources for a large organisation about their corporate strategy. During our chat she said something that caught my attention, “to be honest, COVID has been a gift”. It was an odd phrase in light of the current state of the...
By: Robert GarrettIn my blog on teens and social media I shared that we haven’t yet allowed our teenagers to have their own social media accounts. I drew the analogy that simply giving them access to social media when they turned 13 would be like giving them the keys to the family car...
By: Robert GarrettParenting involves sacrifice – that’s hardly news to anyone with kids. Whether it’s getting up early on a Saturday morning to take them to their game or going without something in order to provide for them, it’s just what we do.However, sometimes we can...
By: Robert GarrettI can be quite ‘particular’; others call it perfectionism. Regardless of what you call it, this sometimes obsessive tendency for things to be ‘just so’ can undermine our goal to build confidence and responsibility into our kids.We have lots of hedges in...
By: Robert Garrett‘The things I don’t want to do, I end up doing, and the things I want to do, I don’t do.’ Those words, written almost 2,000 years ago in A.D. 56 express the idea of inner conflict. Clearly, the conflict of not living up to our own expectations is not a new...
