Teenagers
Teenagers pull away on schedule, and it is not about you
Increased privacy, peer orientation and irritability at home are developmental features. The relationship survives them if the door…
Rosalind Achebe
Contributing writer, Things Parents Know
Rosalind covers household systems, food and money for families running on a tight week.
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17 articles
Running a Household
The mental load is a scheduling problem with a name
The invisible work of noticing, planning and remembering is real work, and it is distributed far less evenly than the visible kind.
Running a Household
Feeding a family on a week that keeps changing
Meal planning fails when it assumes a predictable week. The version that survives is built around flexibility rather than schedule.
Teenagers
Revision that works, and the kind that only feels like work
Rereading and highlighting feel productive precisely because they feel easy. That fluency is what makes them fail.
Running a Household
Chores that are actually worth the argument, by age
Small children want to help and are useless at it. Older ones are capable and unwilling. The window between those two closes…
Running a Household
Laundry is a throughput problem, not a chore
Laundry does not pile up because of the washing. It piles up at the two points where it stops moving, and neither of them is the…
Running a Household
The school run is a problem you solve the night before
The morning contains far too many decisions for the number of minutes available, taken by people who are not awake. Almost all of…
Running a Household
Where a family food budget actually leaks
Most of the money is lost after the shopping rather than during it. Waste, top-up trips and the evening the plan collapsed account…
Running a Household
Six weeks of school holidays is a logistics problem, not a treat
The holidays cost money and childcare in exactly the weeks everything else stops. Planning them like a project is unromantic and it…
Teenagers
A first job teaches things no parent can teach
Being told you are late by somebody who is not related to you lands differently. That is most of the value, and it is not really…
Teenagers
Independent travel is a skill they have to be allowed to practise badly
Nobody becomes competent at getting across a city by being driven across it. The first solo journeys are supposed to be slightly…
Teenagers
The family holiday a teenager does not want to be on
The trip that worked for years stops working, usually without warning. The fix is a different design rather than a better attitude…
Running a Household
One family calendar, and the rule that makes it survive
Most households run several partial calendars and one shared assumption. The assumption is the problem, and it always fails on the…
Running a Household
Everything a child outgrows has to go somewhere
A family home accumulates faster than it releases, and the outflow is a decision nobody has made. That is why the house fills up…
Running a Household
Presents in and presents out: the gift admin nobody budgets for
Between birthdays, festivals and other children’s parties, a family with two children handles a startling number of gifts a year.…
Running a Household
Pocket money works better as a system than as a sum
The amount matters far less than what it is expected to cover. A small amount with clear responsibilities teaches more than a…
Running a Household
The repair backlog a family house builds, and how to keep it small
Small faults accumulate faster than anybody fixes them, and each one makes the house slightly harder to run. The backlog is the…