Are you a working mother who feels you do not spend enough time on your child's development?

As mothers we tend to be hard on ourselves most of the time - our thoughts raging around how we could have spoken calmly to our child instead of raising our voice, how we could have remembered to dress him up for book day instead of letting the day slip by with him returning home teary eyed, how we could spend more time with our child instead of staying late at work.... The list of how we could be better mothers is endless and for working mothers the list is even longer accompanied with a constant chatter of guilt around less time with your child.

The grass is greener on the other side is an old adage that can aptly be used for the working mum versus the stay at home mum. Usually working mums feel that they are at a disadvantage because they have less number of hours with their child. Working mums can also be overcome with guilt for not doing enough.

Today's blog answers a problem by one such working mother who has written in sharing I feel I don't spend enough time to contribute to my child's development.

Please click on the photo below to watch the video and hear and hear how you can rid yourself of your guilt and take some positive steps to create more bonding with your child in the given time:

How can I communicate with my 14-year-old son who ignores me and does his own thing?

Recently I spoke with a mother of a 14 year old teen boy whose body language and voice emitted disappointment, fear and helpless around parenting her young son. My heart went out to her and I know, sometimes how despite our best interests at heart for our children things just don’t seem to be going in the right direction. Whatever you as a parent say or do seems to antagonize your child even more, with the result that you end up feeling even more confused and at a loss of how you could be a better parent.

As far as your child is concerned, the teenage years can be full of turmoil and confusion and you as a parent may feel helpless and inadequate that despite  doing your best, your child has become unresponsive and indifferent to you increasing the gap in communication.

I share below how I guided this mom who asked: How can I communicate with my 14-year-old son who ignores me and does his own thing?

How and when do I talk with my children about stranger danger?

Given the recent spate of messages on face book and what's app regarding a small boy being approached by some men in a car, I thought it might be a good idea to discuss some safety measures we can take to prevent any unfortunate incidents with our children.

This is a subject that is very difficult for us to talk to our children about and sometimes we do not wish to face the reality that our children can be faced with a dangerous situation from a stranger. Unfortunately there is enough statistics to show us how 'real' the danger of ‘strangers’ is. And however much we would like to push the thought away we need to first face the reality ourselves before empowering our little ones.

As our children begin to grow their wings and leave the safety of their

home to enter the 'real world', stranger danger is a subject that we need to educate them about. 

We will look at 7 strategies to first get clarity on how you as a parent will approach the subject of stranger danger and then help your children outline clear steps on what to say and do incase they face such a danger.

Tips on how to better your relationship during Ramadan

The truth is, in order to improve any relationship, there needs to be a huge amount of time spent together. Don't expect a relationship to just prosper on it's own when you hardly exchange two words during the entire day and don't even remember the last time you had dinner together. 

Fortunately, Ramadan is a huge blessing to every Muslim. It betters a person in every way. It improves your health by controlling your eating habits, nurtures you spiritually and literally forces you to spend more time with your loved ones. You have no choice but to Iftar and suhoor together, no matter how busy your schedule is. 

So I gathered some tips on how these changes can help improve your relationship with your spouse:

1. Take advantage of your meals together. Talk some, laugh more. Be a happy family. Try to catch up on what you've been missing on all these years when you were busy at work. The more you communicate, the better the bond becomes.

2. The way to the heart is through the stomach. This is the perfect time to spoil your husband by cooking his favourite little munchies. Might be harder on the muscles, since we don't enough energy to stand for long hours at the stove, but who can resist anything on an empty stomach? Gratitude will be pouring. 

3. Be spiritual together. Shaitan is locked up. Take this opportunity to bond more by going to taraweehs together. Involve your family in giving out charities. Compare your Quran talawats. I mean it's cute. And IA Allah will bring you closer together.

4. Train your habits and teach your spouse to do the same. Ramadan is the month of patience and sabr. It's a month where you get rid of your bad habits and adopt good ones. Avoid having fights with your husband. If he does something that annoys you, instead of roughing it out at him, control yourself and either be quiet or explain to him humanly what it is he is doing wrong.  Build your self-reserve. Ask your spouse to do the same. And notice how it will do wonders to your relationship. 

5. Go Eid shopping together. The biggest festivity of the year and you have to go shopping. Buy clothes, shoes, accessories for Eid together. Ask your husband for opinions and vice versa. You'll be surprised how much he actually knows about women dressing up. 

Try and follow some of the tips mentioned above and do tell me how they worked out. I'll be more than happy to have feedback from you. 

Till next week. Happy Ramadan. :)