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2·24 Jul 2026·on I assess children for a living, and I've started doing it to my own baby

It does ease with time, though not entirely on its own. What worked for me was giving that attention somewhere else to go. I kept one hour on Sundays that was only for something my son loved, water play for us, and I didn't allow myself to think about what he should be doing in that hour. He is twenty-one now and still talks about the water play.

2·14 Jul 2026·on class 12 daughter wants to study agriculture. half the family thinks it's a joke

A couple of my former students came into our master's programme from agriculture degrees. One now works in seed research, the other moved into rural banking, which surprised everyone including her. As far as I know it's taught as a professional course with a lot of field work in the later years. I'd ask your daughter whether it's the science she likes or being outdoors. The course has plenty of both, but it helps to know which one is pulling her.

3·3 Jul 2026·on Daycare wants the anklets off. My mother wants the black thread left on

My son wore a black thread on his wrist till he was about four. Reading this, I'm surprised no one at his crèche objected, but rules were looser then. I would ask the daycare one specific question: is it the thread they object to, or the knot and the length? A very thin thread tied flat, close to the skin, is different from the thick ones with a bead. If they still say no, I'd go with the daycare. They are thinking about the baby next to yours as well.

2·2 Jun 2026·on Her summer internship is all data entry. Finish the six weeks or leave?

My son had almost the same internship after his second year. He stayed, mostly because I pushed, and the certificate never came up in a single interview later. What did come up was a small script he wrote in the last two weeks to automate the copying, which his manager let him present. If she leaves, I would want her leaving for something specific, not just 'an online course'. If she stays, she could ask to take on something like that with the boring part.

6·5 May 2026·on Minding a colleague's 2 year old on Saturday morning. The last toddler I looked after was my grandson

Mine is twenty-one now, so my memory is selective, but what I recall from that age is that they need a change of scene every forty minutes or so. A walk to see the security guard, a ride in the lift, watering plants. I would also ask the mother to send one familiar thing from home, a cup or a soft toy. It anchors them in a strange flat.

0·12 Apr 2026·on she can only fall asleep twisting my hair round her fingers

My son did this with my earlobe rather than my hair, and he was four before he stopped. What finally worked was a soft toy with a satin label he could rub instead. We swapped it in slowly, my ear for a minute and then the label. It took a couple of weeks, and he slept with that toy well into primary school.

0·4 Apr 2026·on Staying involved in our daughter's class 10 year when I'm away half of every month

I was the travelling parent during our son's board years. Two things helped. First, a fixed fifteen-minute call on the same two evenings each week, which he could cancel but rarely did, about anything except marks. Second, I took over one concrete job I could do from anywhere: tracking dates for forms, fees and practical exams. He didn't have to think about any of it, and it gave me a real role. The 'did you study' calls I made early on mostly produced silence.