Not sure if this makes me an Agony Aunt, but one of my Twitter names is Auntiejaney and every day I add a tip on parenting or something fun to do with the children. Well, why not!  And now our own two sons have grown up and pretty much left home (in what seems like a nano-second), I miss them hugely – and therefore want everyone else to treasure their time with their teenies, even more.  So ask away for my opinion, friends, whether it’s how to get them to do homework or how to handle nightmares. Oh bless!

It’s like all the cliches are, after all, true.  Who knew!  Abandon the washing up to take your child to look at the rainbow….yes!  Mud is the colour of fun (well, not on your sofa, maybe, but on your legs and rough clothes, yes!).   Oh you know the sort of thing… all those sayings that are about prioritising the fun moments with the kids – with less emphasis on worrying about some of society’s etiquette/rules.

It’s ridiculous that education comes at a stage in our lives when we aren’t yet desperate to learn.  I’d LOVE to have Geography lessons NOW!  Of course, at the time – I saw no relevancy whatsoever to my life.  It’s ridiculous also, that we are often at our busiest stage of life (ie working hard, running a business, travelling for our jobs) just at the time we want to be rearing and interacting with our children.   Aagh.

When I tell people that I also offer NLP coaching to children and ’stroppy’ teenagers (or is it the parents that are stroppy?!)…I immediately receive sorrowful tales of stressful, sad situations between parents and teens.   Parents driven to despair; youngsters driven to cut themselves off and total non-communication.  Sigh.  Keeping the communication channels open really are important  – do everything you can to preserve that – and let me know if you’re stuck!

Well, I am NOT the perfect parent (and if my boys get the chance to comment on this blog, they will no doubt testify to THAT!).  However, I have found that my NLP learnings gave me a huge new variety of invaluable tools for my Parenting tool box – and I was able to set about rebuilding the Parent-Teenager bridge immediately.  Fantastic.   I’ll post some blogs with tips and ideas and you can let me know if they’re helpful.

So, whether you have an 8 year old with nightmares, or a teenager who ‘is’ a nightmare (oh bless!)…or want some party ideas/family fun, let me know.

I’m godmother to 8, Auntie to 4, mother of 2 (there’s a pattern there!) and have a ridiculous soft spot for everyone’s children.   Love ‘em.  I’ve also been a quiz creator, party organiser and of course, I’m an NLP master practitioner, so perhaps all these elements come together to form Auntie Janey.   Test me!

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