Parenting

The following bedtime meditation for kids combines relaxation and visualisation techniques to encourage kids to calm themselves before sleep. Before you try it, carry out your usual bedtime routine, tuck them in and turn out the light. Meditation can literally make your brain bigger. A study by Harvard neuroscientists found that just eight weeks of […]

By Catherine Deveny I vividly remember tea in the ’70s. On most nights it was chops with two veg, sausages with two veg, rissoles with two veg, ki si ming / chop suey / chow mein (or whatever your family called the dish made from mince, a packet of chicken noodle soup, Keen’s curry powder […]

By Zoë Foster Blake I enjoyed a simple, semi-rural upbringing in the ’80s. It was EXACTLY like Stranger Things, just with less paranormal activity, and more wheatgrass. My parent’s completely biodynamic, self-sufficient approach to food pissed me off so hard, cos it meant junk food was completely off limits, (“White death” mum screeched like a […]

While adults have news bulletins, films like An Inconvenient Truth and books such as Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers to draw on for knowledge on climate change, what about kids?   How do you even begin to address an issue as monumental as the impacts of climate change? Walking a fine line between being well-informed about the planet and just […]

Mixed Berry Buckwheat Crunch Muesli Bar. Makes 12 muesli bars. You’ll need a 20cm square baking tin, baking paper, a small saucepan, a wooden spoon and a medium sized bowl. 1/2 cup buckwheat groats 1 cup cornflakes 1/2 cup rolled oats 3/4 cup dried berries – such as cranberries, dried raspberries, goji berries 1/2 cup […]

How different is a kid’s brain from an adult’s? The short answer: extremely. We’ve always known that a child’s brain spends its early years absorbing and processing information, but it’s only recently that we’ve begin to understand what exactly it is about a kid’s brain that allows it to be so receptive to new stimuli. […]

When Dee Tang lost her almost four-year-old daughter Kawa Leaf in a drowning accident, her life changed, and so did her perspective on the bigger picture. Here Dee shares her thoughts on life, death, love, universal grief and what’s most important to learn from loss.

A CONVERSATION with AUTHOR Christine Gross-Loh, who spent years researching the myriad ways parents raise their children around the world.

So, it’s official, we’re now in our second year of Lunch Lady. With us launching issue four and FINALLY waving goodbye to issue five, we see the second summer Lunch Lady complete. And while we manically finished pages and moved stuff around to make it the most perfect issue it can be, we were juggling kids on school holidays, endless requests for snacks and managing activities so it wasn’t all about the screen.

In between all that, we had a birthday in the house. I thought, this time I’d make a birthday cake I could pig out on too. Just when I thought I had run out things to search for on the internet, I find out I can’t eat gluten or fructose. A whole new world of google opened up before me! New cakes, bars and other weird looking stuff presents itself to me!

This week’s bestie is one of my GIANT lady crushes. She’s so clever, inspiring and a giant spunk. I love watching everything Tai gets up to, ever since she bought a coffee at my cafe 11 years ago. Thanks for sharing with us Tai (check out her AMAZING kid’s books, my girls and I LOVE them to bits). x

Happy Wednesday lunch ladies and lunch fellas. I hope you’re all getting that sneaky hint of spring in your life, like I have here.

Today’s Lunch Lady Bestie is the ace Yumi Stynes. She’s the lady who had my music obsessed 20 something dream job. She works on telly, runs a lot and has four kids. She also writes stuff for Lunch Lady. When I read Yumi’s writing I often find myself exclaiming to whomever maybe nearby, “OMG, YES, THAT’S EXACTLY ME!”.