Smart Talk > Blog
By Lauren Miko
On 18 April 2024
Blog
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Who doesn’t love a good Bluey episode? My husband and I were at first sceptical about watching a TV show about cartoon dogs. We decided to watch one episode (Baby Races) and with tears in our adult eyes, we were hooked and rolled onto the next episode…. My kids absolutely love our family Friday movie nights. My girls get their treats of popcorn and apple juice and because of their younger ages, our ‘movie’ usually ends up being Bluey.

Last Friday night, I curled up under the blankets and started watching a new to us episode ‘Muffin Cone’. The episode starts with Muffin (Bluey and Bingo’s spirited younger cousin) in the car with her mum Trixie on their way to the Heeler house for a play date. Muffin gingerly looks around, finds her opportunity, and goes for it, she starts sucking her thumb. Wait, can Bluey get any better?? This…

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By Catherine Morris
On 29 April 2020
Online Therapy
4 Comments

by Kelly MacKean

Self-isolating? Social distancing? Concerned about the impact of all this isolation on your child’s development?

In this time of uncertainty, it is hard to know how to go about normalising our day to day lives and that of our kids. In an inconsistent world where hoarding toilet rolls and pasta seem to be social norm. It is so important to try and maintain some semblance of routine. Children love their lives to be consistent (even if they don’t know it!) so providing them with this consistency is super important in our current environment.

How Can Smart Talk Help?

 

At the moment we are living In a world where there is not too much we are in control of and the rules and routines we have lived by so far, are being changed by the day. So what can we do? Smart Talk is wanting to…

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By Catherine Morris
On 20 February 2019
School Age Activities
1 Comment

Do you ever get sick of asking what your kids did at school and getting a reply of “nothing!” Or, even worse, going on an exciting holiday and getting them to tell people what they did and they reply, “I don’t know”. It kind of makes you think you might as well have just popped them in a packing box with bubble wrap and saved yourself the money. Well, before you pull out the bubble wrap, here are some ways to develop storytelling skills and why it’s important.

In our visually overstimulated lives our kids “see” stories and get less practise “visualising” (seeing it in their mind) and “verbalising” (saying it out loud) so when they need to retell an event they can’t match the “mind pictures” to the “words” quickly and revert to “I don’t know” or “you know” or “nothing”. I personally spend a large chunk of…

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By Catherine Morris
On 8 June 2017
Activities
8 Comments

Let’s get the ball rolling (see what I did there). This mother guilt thing is real. You really want to spend time with your young child developing early language skills but you’re not really sure exactly what to do or how to do it.  Kids are demanding, the washing isn’t washing itself, your hair desperately needs a wash and you wonder if you’re even doing a good job.

First time mums struggle because they feel they are just fumbling along in this motherhood journey. Mums with older kids worry that their younger kids don’t get the one on one time they crave.We hear you- loud and clear. Playing constructively with your kids is actually a lot more involved than you think.

We all know play matters, it’s kids work, kids don’t get enough quality play time, kids get too much screen time etc etc. We hear it everyday but how…

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