Well with a quiet goodbye Michelle and I flew to Wellington then Blenheim and were met at the airport by one of the Marlborough Committee members Barbara (evidently who has 2 sets of twins ..) .. she told us that sadly after this conference their club may well be finishing up unless others were ready to take on the challenge .. which we told her was really sad after the great achievement they made with the conference ..
Michelle and I went for a walk after settling in to the motel .. and came back with armful of shopping .. best to get the present buying over and done with first to have a guilt free weekend laid ahead of us ... lol ..
Just across the road from us
The next morning we moved to the accom where the conference was to be held .. and while waiting for our rooms, decided what else could we do but do some more shopping ..
That afternoon we had an interesting initiation in to the world of the National Body of NZMBA to say the least at the AGM and will just say it certainly highlighted how varied and how strong some personalities of Multiples parents can be ..
Onwards and upwards to the "But Wait there's more .. " theme night where it was mainly an introduction to the relaxed mood of the rest of the conference ... Nigel Latta got us in to the mood by talking about how "having kids can completely change your relationship" and a humorous guide as to how to survive this .. along with our brilliant MC Heather's hilarious quips and lead in to topics .. fueled more and more by the wineries sponsored refreshments as the night went along ..
.. The next morning Nigel Latta talked to us and squashed into an hour and a half or so his two shows: the Politically Incorrect Parenting Show, and Revenge of the Teens .. about parenting .. and tips on getting through it all .. with lots of humorous pictures, ideas and so on .. but basically his main focus was just do the best you can ...
He also talked about his behaviour management tool called "the Ladder of Certain Doom", one of his discipline methods was the "ladder of certain doom". It involves a ladder , the top rung having your children's bedtime written beside it. The remaining rungs step down in 1/2 hour intervals until you get to, say 3.30pm. For each unacceptable behaviour the bedtime moves down 1/2 an hour. Payback jobs can earn a trip back up toward bedtime.
Here is a "excerpt" from his website from some of his talk ..
The Politically Incorrect Parenting Show: The first decade .. and revenge of the Teens ..
Relax... we're all bad parents
It would be nice to think we were all great parents all the time but, of course, we aren’t. If you can be great some of the time, average some of the time, and really crap only occasionally, that’s not a bad score. It’s worth remembering that most of us didn’t have perfect parents either.
It would be nice to think that none of ever bellow at our children, but of course most of us do. This is just another fact of parenting life, and something else to feel bad about. From time to time though, a bellow can be a very effective way of getting the little people's attention. The trick with bellowing is not to do it all the time. Bellowing all the time is like overusing an exclamation point: it just get's tiresome.
"Look! I get tired of the fact that no one ever listens! Really tired! All I do all day is talk and talk and no one ever listens! You need to listen to me! Put the teddy down and listen! When I ask you to do something I expect that you will do it! So do it! Right now! Now! Now! Now!"
Boring, huh? All those exclamation points reduce it to little more than a very loud form of nagging. If you bellow all the time, stop. It isn't working. If it did you wouldn't need to bellow all the time. Instead you should try very hard to speak very quietly, and impose appropriate punishment, and praise, with an iron determination.
If you are going to bellow, save them up, and use them wisely. Bellow at just the right point, and you will probably get a reaction. Better still, once it's out of your system you can go back to the stuff that actually works to improve behavior.
Most of us worry that our children will hate us if we bellow. They won't. Your kids won’t hate you if you’re not perfect, so just relax about all that stuff. They will, on the other hand, hate you if you’re mean. Fortunately there's a world of difference between periodic bellowing, and meanness. If you are mean to your kids, then stop. If for no other reason then one day they'll be bigger than you.
So that’s it really… don’t be mean, and just do the best you can.
The 10 Basic Principles of Parenting
As a parent you will face endless situations that no parent has ever faced before, mostly because no one else has ever parented your children. Each day is a new day, only some days more than others. These are the ones I'd suggest:
1. Remember the three R’s
2. Loving is easy, liking is hard
3. Children are piranhas
4. Feed the good, starve the bad
5. Kids need fences
6. Be consistent-ish
7. Don’t take any crap
8. You gotta have a plan
9. All behaviour is communication
10. Embrace chaosIf you have some practical, realistic guiding principles, then you should be able to find your way home even when the fog rolls in and the light begins to fade.
We then went to the workshops we had selected ..
That afternoon was then filled with a wine trail at Villa Maria Estate (managed and run by Barbara and her husband)
The wine is chilled from anywhere from 6 weeks to a year
depending on the grape/type ..
... of course these were Oak flavoured .. and "brewed" longer ..
.. then on to shopping at Prenzel, Makana Confectionery ..and a few other cottage industries...
.. Then that night we had a "wine'd up evening" .. where we were broken into tables .. and we had quizzes on wine appreciation .. tasting .. and answering questions about the wine district that is Marlborough .. and trying to guess what wine had been donated for the quiz .. then after we came 2nd!!!!! after the next door table had a local spy .. and had all the answers .. lol .. it was Jazz music and socialising ..
The next morning Gill Connell spoke and she was very interesting. Her profile speaks volumes and she again was very relaxed but informative .. and again the message was mainly .. let your kids be kids ..
This is from her website :
During her long career in education, Gill has become more and more aware of the growing number of children arriving to begin their schooling at five, unprepared for formal learning. As a result, Gill has established her own consultancy business Moving Smart Ltd. Gill (director and facilitator), runs courses for primary and early childhood teachers working with mainstream, normally developing children, teachers of students who have a motor, behavioral or developmental delays, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, and RTLB's.
These courses include implementation of PMP and Smart Words, Reflective PMP courses, Child Development Moving To Learn and Transition to School courses. She also facilitates parenting courses for 0-5 years. These courses carefully explain the importance of play and movement and how it grows and develops young brains.
The first three years of life hold the key to how the child develops and for this reason, Gill has co authored her very popular book “Moving To Learn” which his about to go into its third print run. The book has been written to inform parents and educators about children in the first three years of life, the importance of movement and play and how to include it in the home and learning environment.
Gill also works extensively in early childhood with teachers, parents. Kindergarten Associations, Play Centre Associations, Parents Centres, home based carers, Plunket and Kohunga Reo’s etc.
She also helped develop the SPARC Active Movement Initiative and trains and mentors the Active Movement coordinators nationally for Sport and Recreation New Zealand. She was heavily involved in the writing of the Active Movement guidelines and wrote the Active Movement brochures for SPARC.
Her courses aim to help provide an in depth understanding of the importance of movement and how it forms and grows the child’s brain. They are both practical and theory based and provide many ideas of how to promote movement for young children using the environment and what the child has available to play with. The courses are proving to be extremely popular!
Gill regularly visits the Fiji islands where she has lectured and helped teachers implement both movement and spelling programmes. Her greatest thrill has been the opportunity to help write the developmental programme for Sujit Kumar - "the chicken man". Sujit has been the subject of world wide interest as he was abandoned by his family and kept in a chicken coup underneath the family house for the first 10 years of his life. He was then transferred to an old peoples home in Suva where he was tethered, thrown his food and hosed down when dirty. He was found by Elizabeth Clayton, a psychologist who made it her ambition to rehabilitate him. When Elizabeth met Gill, she invited her to spend the day with Sujit. it was a life changing experience and Gill has since made several trips back to Fiji to help humanise Sujit with her developmental ideas.
Next up were the rest of the workshops .. "Perfect Wardrobes for me" .. "Jimmy only comes from Scotland" for Michelle .. then Gill Connell the next session "Getting Children Ready for School".. which again was very informative .. and then a personal trainer teaching us ideas for a 5 min workout (20 lunges, 20 back lifts, 20 sit ups and 20 "mini" press ups ..) to improve our health and talking about nutrition ..
Then before we knew it the weekend was over .. and we were heading for home ..
. .after a brief agrgghhh about even being able to get home due to fog and delays at Wellington (and the plane having a technical problem soon fixed) .. we arrived home again .. back to the chaos ...
Roll on next year at Hutt Valley .. well worth the money .. and certainly Michelle and I came back humming with ideas .. not only was it great for socialising, but sharing of ideas .. talking to other parents .. and having time to yourself to regain composure ..lol
Thank you to the committee for allowing us to be able to go, it was really appreciated!
(Unfortunately Nicky was unable to come along this time .. but hopefully next time she may).
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