The Parent Squad
If it takes a village to raise a child, it must take a whole country to raise a family! Newstalk ZB’s Parent Squad helps to do just that. Joined by expert guests The Weekend Collective team delves into the complexities of Kiwi family life.
Episodes
The cost of having or raising a child is often the most considered issue among couples planning to start or grow their family.
It's not just the shopping trips for prams and cots and nappies - it's the income loss over the months of parental leave and the endless sick days once daycare starts up.
Plunket estimates a medium-budget cost for raising a child for the first year comes to just under $16,000. That works out to ...
There's a new trend sweeping through social media - when your child is lost in a tantrum or a pre-teen spiral, you call out for your imaginary helper named Jessica, and more often than not it will confuse them enough to stop them in their tracks.
Distraction methods like this one have been used for years and years, but why do they work?
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Doctors are seeing an increasing number of young people coming in with unexplained symptoms.
The prominent ones parents are probably seeing most frequently are the random headaches, stomach aches, difficulty sleeping or sleeping too much.
Parents will often treat their children with panadol and electrolytes, take their devices away before bed to avoid blue light, and hope the problem resolves itself.
But these are all c...
You always hear stories about the different ways a person's childhood has had an ongoing impact throughout their life.
There are some horrible stories out there, but it could even just be the way your parents would cook growing up, or how the way they would react to you relaxing results in habits that follow you into adulthood.
So at the end of the day, are we all doomed to mess up our children in one way or another?&n...
It's school holidays, and boredom is setting in...
While it can send parents into a bit of a spiral hearing their children complain about how bored they are all day long - being bored is one of those skills we all need to learn at some point.
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Our children are becoming increasingly involved in politics and current events, and they're getting involved younger and younger.
We want to support their interests, but the news can get pretty dark, and these kinds of events or protests always come with a risk of danger.
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Social media giants Meta and YouTube have been found liable for deliberately designing their platforms to be addictive.
We don't need to look too far into the details of this specific trial, because parents everywhere will have stories of their own to some extent, but how much of the blame falls on the parents? There are countless things in the modern world that young people risk becoming addicted to - they don't even have to...
Most kids will take part in some kind of sport throughout their childhood.
It's a great opportunity to keep them moving and allow them to burn off some energy, but how early should we be getting our children into these teams?
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Kids push limits - it's just what they do.
From as early as the toddler years, it's completely developmentally normal for children to figure out just how for they can push their parents before a very clear line is drawn - but what about those times where behaviour you never would have imagined doing yourself as a child rears its head?
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Early childhood education is darn expensive.
You want your kids to socialise, make friends, learn some basics - but it costs an arm and a leg.
So how long can you put it off?
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Whether it's a friend, your own parents, or you may be going through it yourself - we've all heard the question of whether a couple should 'stay together for the kids'.
Realistically, a divorce does have a significant impact on children, even if they're prioritised and not put in the middle of it.
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Child safety reform in the world of big tech is sweeping the globe at the moment.
Australia's leading the charge in the social media ban for under 16s, and California has expanded the Coogan Law to cover child influencers, to name a few.
Although we haven't seen any change here in New Zealand, the conversation has truly started and we may see moves being made soon.
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Many parents will be starting to feel the exhaustion from getting back into school and extracurriculars.
We often go into the new year with high expectations of ourselves - like completely homemade school lunches, no takeout, keeping on top of house work - but quickly realise there was a reason we weren't accomplishing all that last year.
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A new report this week found nearly 90% of Auckland primary school say there's an increasing number of new entrants starting school without bare basic skills like being toilet trained and talking properly.
These are 5 year olds who are otherwise capable, but some stage of their early childhood seems to have been neglected - they can't even identify the letters of their name or hold a pencil.
As harsh as it may be, the blame d...
Schools have started back up and we all, obviously, want our children to do well.
Parents will be doing drop off and pick up, making sure the homework is done and forms are signed, keeping an eye on grades and reports.
But how involved should parents really be in their children's education?
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One of the hottest topics of the modern era is kids and smartphones. As we've seen more of the what the internet can do (for better or worse) they seem like an essential part of life. Wallet, Keys, Phone, that's what you always keep on you.
A first phone is typically only for texting mum and dad, so why do you need a device that has the capability for so much more?
Child Psychologist Sara Chatwin joins Tim Beveridge to ...
NCEA results are officially out.
Most kids would have genuinely worked as hard as they could to get the grades they hoped for - even the kids who act like they don't really care.
And for many it won't have turned out as hey had planned - whether that meant not quite meeting the dizzying heights of their ambition or an actual fail grade. But it's unavoidable - at some stage through their school career - and life for that matte...
We've all seen the videos - we may have even seen it in our own living rooms on Christmas morning...
A child, even teenager, opens a gift their loved one has especially picked out for them, and they proceed to complain about how it's not the one they wanted.
The wrong colour bicycle, wrong model phone, it could be anything.
So how do we teach our children to be grateful for anything they're given this Christmas?&n...
What are the essential life skills our kids truly need to know before they head out into the real world?
How often to wash their sheets, how to cook a basic meal, managing bills and payments, doing laundry without turning their white shirts pink - these are things that most of us learnt well before we moved out, but they don't seem to be as common today.
Only 21% of parents of children aged 5-17 years say their kids are...
In just a few days, a law banning the use of social media for under 16s will take effect in Australia.
For many parents, social media has been a daily part of family life for years - allowing kids to stay connected with their friends and family, sharing life updates with people they may not get a chance to speak with very often.
Generations before have been relatively ignorant to just how seriously harmful it can be - f...
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