Category: Parenting
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Dad, is God real?
This is question my 9 years old asked me and took me days to make a bedtime story for her: Imagine you are 3 years old again. Last month, we watched the spaceship rocket Test Flight 22 by spaceX. One…
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A Natural-Born Overthinker
I know a curious six-year-old who constantly asks, “What if?” What if the wall collapses when we leave the house? What if the roof falls? What if the ocean overflows while everyone else is playing at the beach? The worries…
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A Holiday Reflection: “It’s Boring!”
During the school holidays, the kids had been enjoying fun activities. Then we set off for a bushwalk in the national park. At the start of the walk I heard it: “Boring…” I’ve heard this word many times in such…
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The Interruption I’ll Miss
I was sitting on a cabin porch with an ocean view, reading my favourite book, the black swan. That’s the kind of moment you say is the ultimate relaxation. But… Every few minutes, my kids interrupted me. Each interruption carried two…
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The Boy Who Brought Balance to Numbers
Once upon a time, about 1,200 years ago, in a land called Persia, a curious boy named Muhammad al-Khwarizmi was born. Muhammad loved questions. He loved learning. Most of all, he loved books. As he grew older, his love for…
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Why 18 years old is a milestone? A brain story.
I want my 9-year-old to understand why we say “parents know more”. She often resists and says “I know more” so I have to remind her that the legal age to make independent life decisions is 18 for a reason.…
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Maryam Mirzakhani: Finding Patterns in Chaos
Maryam Mirzakhani was one of the greatest mathematicians in history. She was the first woman ever to win the Fields Medal, which is the highest award in mathematics. When she was still a teenager, she also won two gold medals…
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Self-Awareness: A Lesson from Ethics Class
Not long ago, my nine-year-old daughter had a habit of telling little lies. Therefore, I decided to enroll her in an ethics class, hoping it would help her understand the difference between right and wrong. After her first class, she…
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The Circle of Never-Ending Desire
I was packing lunch boxes while my kids were watching “Bluey”, the episode called “The Sign.” In that episode, Bluey’s dad gets a new job in another city, with better pay, which means the family has to sell their home…
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A lesson for my daughter – How to learn like a scientist
In one of our science nights, I will give you this lesson: let’s talk about two cool ways scientists understand the world around them. The first is called “empiricism”. Imagine when you were little and learned about fruit by tasting…
