Monthly Archives: September 2014

Healthy Date and Pecan Cookies

These Healthy Date and Pecan Cookies are so easy to make that even my two and a half year old could do it! They were a perfect choice for my Tasty Tuesday recipe of the week.

Date and Pecan Cookies

I have two very active toddlers who both seem to have boundless energy stores keeping them going all day long. Neither of them stop for sleeps during the day to recharge so I have found that it is important that they have a balanced diet that consists of foods which have a low GI (slow release, long lasting energy).

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Why We Should Let Children Take Risks

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Risk taking is a natural part of our everyday lives. Many risks we probably don’t even think of as risky: pouring our tea, driving our car, crossing the road etc. We are so used to these things going right that we no longer associate them with danger.

Other risks we take on after careful consideration of the dangers/ pitfalls, the potentials and the overall feeling of worthiness it brings. The risk is at the forefront of our brain and it takes a level of consciousness before the final decision is made. These might include such things as a new job, a big role, parenthood or embarking on thrill seeking adventures etc.

It is important for us to be able to weigh up all the risk factors to make good decisions and keep ourselves safe in our daily lives. Often this can be done without too much consideration, if any at all, as we have the benefit of past experiences telling us the likely outcome.

At one point, though, nearly everything we have done in our lives was a new experience and one that came with an element of risk.

Pushing ourselves outside our comfort zone is often daunting but our ability to do this with a degree of confidence largely stems from our childhood experiences. It often goes hand in hand with how many risks we have been exposed to, how we handled them, the outcome and how the whole experience made us feel; our accomplishment.

That feeling of accomplishment is what makes many of us strive to achieve more and more in life. It makes us jump at the opportunity to take on projects and roles that we might have otherwise shied away from lest we fail. The emotion of pride, stemming from achievement made with an element of risk, is a powerful one and one our children deserve the chance to feel genuinely and often.

It is for this reason that I give my children a certain freedom in their explorations. I weigh up the risk
to benefit ratio for them, consider the worst that could happen and the likelihood and then let them go for it. Continue reading →

Ravioli Bake (Aka Cheats Lasagne)

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My family loves lasagne. Served with vegies or a salad, it is easily a favourite. My mother’s lasagne is second to none with a creamy béchamel sauce combined with a rich mince mixture, it is easy to get lost in the deliciousness of it and sneak back to the kitchen for extra spoonfuls, stolen straight from the dish. Unfortunately, with the hecticness of life with children, the luxury of spending bucket loads of time fiddling around making this meal can no longer always be afforded so this ravioli bake is the perfect alternative.

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Taking the Brunt of a Child’s Anger… And Still Finding Connection

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When I arrived home from work the other day, I was looking forward to cuddling my children and having some fun spending time with and connecting with them. Instead, I was greeted with the sounds of children in distress and a husband at the end of his tether. It had been a long, sick week for the family and being the only healthy body in the house, my husband had been on night wake-up and child minding duty all week.

As he began reluctantly to make his way towards his screaming youngest child, I told him to stop, sit down, relax, have a drink; I would get this. I was feeling better. I missed spending time with my girls and this was my opportunity to reconnect with them.

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Fresh Pineapple and Banana Muffins (With Added Healthy Bits)

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It’s Tasty Tuesday and time to share our best weekly recipes…

I love fresh pineapple and we ended up with a large amount of it this week after a two for the price of one deal at the local markets. After devouring a significant amount of it with the children there was nothing left to do but to use it in my weekly baking spree and make these delicious Pineapple and Banana Muffins.

We are in the process of reducing the refined sugar we consume in our house. We have recognised the ill-effects of consuming too much of this sweet substance, both in the behaviours of our children and in our own feelings of well-being.

Having said this, we are not going cold turkey and I am happy to include a little bit of white goodness in my baking so as not to compromise on taste. I found that if I cut it out completely, the children would be happy to eat the first helping I offered them but would less than politely decline when offered again in another sitting. I would rather my children ate the food I made for them from scratch (with a little sugar), than consume too many highly processed, packaged products.

So these muffins were an experiment to see whether I could get the balance right between tasty, healthy and palatable (texture) and am pleased to say they have been a huge hit. The children love them and I am happy that they have a good dose of healthiness in each one.

Fresh Pineapple and Banana Muffins

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

Just over 1/2 cup castor sugar

1/2 cup pepitas

1/2 cup sultanas

2 teaspoons rice malt syrup

1 cup mashed banana

450g fresh pineapple (whizzed in the processor until finely chopped)

1/2 cup healthy oil (I used rice bran oil)

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 180 degrees and line muffin tins with patty papers (I used baking paper cut into squares as we were out of proper liners). Combine sifted dry ingredients, sugar, pepitas and sultanas in a large bowl. Stir in wet ingredients until just combined. Spoon mixture into prepared cases (about 3/4 full). Bake for about 35 – 40 minutes, checking after 30 minutes with a skewer.

Please share a snap of something you have baked or a meal you have cooked on instagram and be sure to use the hashtag #ppcktastytuesday

Why I Allow my Kids to Struggle Over Toys

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My daughters have always had a rather volatile relationship. Born just 13 months apart and with polar opposite personalities, they have often struggled living their daily lives in each other’s company particularly when it comes to sharing toys.

In the beginning it was quite easy to get caught in the trap of seeing my eldest, Lucy, as the aggressor in many of their altercations (because, in reality, she was), leaving my youngest, Penny, with no choice but to be considered the victim, always having to be rescued by us.

Over time, and after learning about RIE and reading many expert articles cautioning against not only using these labels for children but also against even perceiving one child as the victim and the other as the perpetrator, we changed how we considered the children’s roles in these struggles. I have previously written about the importance of this shift in mindset and for the most part we have managed to remain neutral umpires during our children’s scuffles.

As the girls have gotten older and wiser, we have been able to enjoy more and more beautiful moments watching them play harmoniously together for extended periods of time. However, with their developing age, significant physical strength has emerged from both of them. Their previously lop-sided battles for toys that used to end quite quickly with Lucy gaining possession of the hot items, were now becoming a much more even contest involving far more drawn-out struggles.

With the drama surrounding these struggles, it can be easy, as parents, to want it ended quickly to restore peace in the house. It is tempting to step in and break up the fight, putting the toy away or giving it to its original owner. We made the decision quite some time ago to allow our children to work through these struggles in their entirety, stepping in only to prevent physical hurt from ensuing.

Tonight, for example, Penny (my 2.5 year old) was initiating a game of hide and seek, crawling under a table and calling out, “You can’t find me!” Whilst under the table she discovered a bead maze that her older sister had left there hours earlier. She picked it up and began playing with it whilst I proceeded to ‘try’ to find her. Hearing a game in progress, Lucy came racing in excitedly and dove under the table only to find Penny with ‘her’ toy.

Hide and seek quickly became a duel between the two as each staked their claim on the maze and fought furiously to defend it. As I crouched under the table beside them, blocking their attempts to grab each other’s hands to prize them off or push each other over, and sportscasting the event, I admired their tenacity and found myself appreciating the courage, strength and determination each of them displayed in this volatile situation.

I could see how healthy this battle was for their strength and resilience in the following ways.

It was loud. To remain assertive in a situation where someone is screaming at you from just centimetres away takes bravery.

It was physical. Gripping an item tightly for an extended period of time whilst someone struggles against you, pushing, pulling and occasionally swiping at you takes immeasurable strength and determination.

It was emotional. Feeling these emotions and conquering them takes resilience and it is liberating and empowering for young children to know they can survive these emotions and come back stronger.

It was authentic. After what seemed an eternity (probably one minute), one of the girls emerged with the item, leaving the other devastated and flailing on the floor. A short time later, that same child had picked herself up, dusted herself off and moved confidently onto a new toy. To feel genuine loss and grieve that loss only to rise again, finding contentment in another toy soon after, empowers them to cope with other forms of hurt, loss and grief they may experience in the future.

As I have come to terms with my children expressing their emotions freely after practicing Magda Gerber’s RIE parenting for nearly two years, I now feel confident to allow my girls the time and space they need to come to their own natural conclusions in their fights for a particular hot item. I am realising that despite the trauma they seem to be going through at the time, they are actually learning so many valuable skills during these scuffles. My interference would only rob them of the chance to grow from these altercations.

Toddler Toy Battles- Interventions that Work (Podcast) ~ Janet Lansbury (Janet Lansbury- Elevating Childcare)

5 Reasons to Love Conflict ~ Emily Plank – Abundant Life Children

7 Things I Should Know About Helping my Children to Share (From my Toddler Coach) Kate Russell (Peaceful Parents, Confident Kids)

Banana and Yoghurt Cake

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Banana and Yoghurt Cake is one of my children’s favourite treats. I love the nostalgia this cake brings me and I am so excited to share the recipe with you as I step out of my comfort zone on my blog and begin what I hope will be a weekly series delivered to you on Tasty Tuesdays!

Banana and Yoghurt Cake ~ Peaceful Parents, Confident Kids

Delicious home-cooked banana and yoghurt cake.

My mother was a great cook when we were growing up and, well, she still is. She cooks real food, from the heart and seems to make even the most boring food taste like it should be in a five-star restaurant.

Everything we ate when we were children, came from our farm. Most of the ingredients she used she made from scratch. It wasn’t that my Mum was a fanatic about health (although she was conscious of eating healthily) or being a hippy, 70s parent, it was merely because my parents had very little money.

They used the space they had on the farm to grow fruit and vegetables, rear beef and chickens and milk cows. Nothing was wasted and Mum became very efficient at making ordinary, everyday ingredients into beautiful, country-cooked meals.

Now, I don’t profess to have inherited her gift with food but I have, overtime, managed to nut out some of her (and my) favourite recipes. It has been a trial as often her descriptions for recipes go something like this:

“Beat a handful of sugar and an egg together. Add a dash of milk and stir in a pound of flour” ~ Mum

Ok, Mum, so how many tablespoons of sugar would that be? Yeah, so as you can see, she’s not so great on the details but I think I have managed to get some proportions together and replicate some of her delicious meals and scrumptious baking.

I intend to share these with you for as long as I can get her to share them with me.

First up, I would like to share this delicious Banana Yoghurt Cake with you. My Mum actually dislikes Bananas a lot! But we grew them in abundance on our farm and therefore they had to be used.

So I have many fond memories of smashing up bananas whilst my mother gagged over the smell and then eating warm banana cake straight from oven. It was the only cake, Mum let us eat more than one piece of at a time because she just wanted to see it gone. I hope you enjoy it!

Banana and Yoghurt Cake

125g softened butter (free tip 1: if it is not softened it will not cream!) (free tip 2: warm the bowl and beaters with hot water before creaming if the butter is not quite soft enough)

3/4 cup castor sugar

1 egg

3/4 cup mashed banana (3 overripe bananas)

200g greek yoghurt

1 cup wholemeal self-raising flour

1 cup white self-raising flour

Grease a 15cm x 25cm loaf tin and line the bottom with the wrapper from the butter. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, add egg, beat until combined. Stir in banana and yoghurt then add sifted flours. Spread mixture into prepared pan and bake in oven for 1 hour or until skewer comes out clean.

(Free tip 3: check cake with a skewer when the baking aromas in the house start to intensify as this is a good sign it is nearly done. An over-cooked cake is a dry cake!)

I would love for you to take a photograph of your Tasty Tuesday Meal and share it with us all on the Peaceful Parents, Confident Kids Facebook Page with a link to the recipe or on Instagram using the hashtag #ppcktastytuesday