Theresa Smith's Blog, page 79
April 5, 2020
Book Review: The End of Cuthbert Close by Cassie Hamer
About the Book:
From bestselling author Cassie Hamer, comes a hilarious tale of warring neighbours in Australian suburbia, with a mystery at its heart.
You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your neighbours. (Trad. proverb, origin: Australian suburbia)
Food stylist Cara, corporate lawyer Alex and stay-at-home mum Beth couldn’t be more different. If it wasn’t for the fact they live next door to each other in Cuthbert Close, they’d never have met and bonded over Bundt cake. The Close is an oasis of calm and kindness. The kind of street where kids play cricket together and neighbours pitch in each year for an end of summer party.
But no one’s told Charlie Devine, glamorous wife of online lifestyle guru, The Primal Guy. When she roars straight into the party with her huge removal truck and her teenage daughter with no care or regard for decades-old tradition, the guacamole really hits the fan.
Cara thinks the family just needs time to get used to the village-like atmosphere. Beth wants to give them home cooked meals to help them settle in. Alex, says it’s an act of war. But which one of them is right? Dead guinea pigs, cruelly discarded quiches, missing jewellery, commercial sabotage and errant husbands are just the beginning of a train of disturbing and rapidly escalating events that lead to a shocking climax.
When the truth comes out, will it be the end of Cuthbert Close?
My Thoughts:
Well this was a nice slice of escapism! Fans of Liane Moriarty and Sally Hepworth will revel in this suburban contemporary tale of neighbourly intrigue and backyard betrayal.
Cassie Hamer explores many issues relating to marriage, parenthood, and work-life balance within her latest release. Each of the main characters have something big going on in their own lives, but playing out in the background is a mystery involving their new neighbour: Charlie Devine, a woman who seems to be intent on not fitting in with the Cuthbert Closers, right from the get-go.
There is plenty going on within this story to keep you intrigued and entertained. Cassie Hamer has a sharp sense of humour that often had me laughing out loud for the duration. If you’re looking for something to just sit back and relax with while social distancing, I can recommend The End of Cuthbert Close as a good choice for your next read.
‘When it came to passive aggression, Alex had a particularly highly tuned antenna. There were only two things that threw it out. One of them was Botox, and the other was genuine sincerity, which Alex found very difficult to pick, mostly because it was so rare.’
Thanks is extended to HarperCollins Publishers Australia for providing me with a copy of The End of Cuthbert Close for review.
About the Author:
Cassie Hamer has a professional background in journalism and PR, but now much prefers the world of fiction over fact. In 2015, she completed a Masters in Creative Writing, and has since achieved success in numerous short story competitions. Her debut novel, After the Party, was published in 2019. Cassie lives in Sydney with her terrific husband, three mostly terrific daughters, and a labradoodle, Charlie, who is the newest and least demanding addition to the family. In between making school lunches and walking the dog, Cassie is also working on her next novel, but she always has time to connect (or procrastinate) with other passionate readers via her website – CassieHamer.com – or through social media. You can follow her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
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The End of Cuthbert Close
Published by HQ Fiction – AU
Released 23rd March 2020
April 3, 2020
#6degrees of separation: from Stasiland to Home is Nearby…
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It’s the first Saturday of the month so that means it’s #6degrees of separation time! This month’s starting book is Stasiland by Anna Funder.
You can find the details and rules of the #6degrees meme at booksaremyfavouriteandbest, but in a nutshell, on the first Saturday of every month, everyone has the same starting book and from there, you connect in a variety of ways to other books. Some of the connections made are so impressive, it’s a lot of fun to follow.
I’ve been intending on reading Stasiland for the longest time, so when it came up as the six degrees title last month, I truly had the best of intentions. Alas, all three of my children celebrate their birthdays in March, one of which was a milestone occasion: 18! Plus, my eldest son has a savage case of tonsillitis, going on two weeks now; alas, with further symptoms popping up, it turns out he has glandular fever! 
April 2, 2020
The Week That Was…
Another rollercoaster of a week, but that’s the new normal, isn’t it? My daughter turned 18 on Monday, which was a lovely way to begin the week. Celebrating was significantly quieter than any of us could have envisaged, but we still tried our best to make the occasion a special one with homemade pizza, lemon cheesecake and champagne.
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From that starting high, it was all downhill. My eldest son (16yo) was sick last week with a bad case of tonsilitis. It was apparent at the beginning of this week that the penicillin wasn’t working and he was getting worse. A change of antibiotics saw a minor improvement in his throat but then he began developing a range of other symptoms: abdominal pain, fatigue, a rash, swollen glands, puffy eyes. Back again to the doctor and a diagnosis of glandular fever has been made, pending blood test results. I’ve had friends with glandular fever and in every instance I’ve encountered it, it’s been debilitating and gone on for months. I guess there’s a flip side to online learning next term: at least he can do it from bed? He’s as thin as a rake as it is and six foot tall. He’s likely to blow over in a breeze at the end of it.
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I’ve been struggling this week with feelings of guilt. I am on leave from work as per my doctor’s recommendation due to chronic asthma and lung weakness. To give you some background, I have had recurrent bouts of pneumonia over the last ten years and three years ago, my left lung collapsed. A common cold is now disastrous for my lungs, and while I take a range of medication daily for my asthma to keep it under control, it’s never actually under control, as such. I feel effectively as though I have abandoned ship at the most difficult time. Schools are scrambling to set up online learning and working all hours to get this done. I asked my doctor if I could go back with less students. She recommended I remain isolated at home indefinitely. I know how sick I can get, the struggle to breathe, what it felt like to only have one lung working at 20% while the other was not functioning at all. I know what the recovery for that was like: slow. I still bear the effects. So I’m not going to argue with or go against medical advice, particularly when my doctor has said to me: you are exactly who we don’t want getting this virus. But I still feel bad for being at home when everyone else is at work, as we have zero cases of Covid19 in our town at present. I absolutely have to choose my health over work, I know this. This will be an ongoing internal rollercoaster for me, I expect.
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Useful resources:
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I downloaded this for my daughter but thought I’d share here in case it’s of use to any of you.
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Joke of the week:
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Book of the Week:
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What I’ve been watching:
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Sometimes this irritates me but for the most part it’s entertaining and doesn’t require too much of my attention to follow. I like it enough to proceed to series two, so that’s something.
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What I’m reading right now:
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Until next week… 
A Month of Reading: March
#BookBingo2020: 0 books
#2020ReadNonFic: 1 book
#aww2020: 8 books 
April 1, 2020
Author Talks: Nicole Alexander on Crafting The Cedar Tree
When I began crafting The Cedar Tree, I wanted to explore the idea of what it means to be free; individually, as a community, a society and ultimately, as a country. How far an individual/s is willing to go to obtain their freedom, is matched only by the cost associated with gaining that liberty. And then there is the very real question of what happens afterwards. Can a person ever truly begin their life again?
Selecting two time periods, the 1860s and the 1940s and the distinct locations of the NSW Richmond Valley and the Strzelecki Desert allowed me to follow two generations of the Irish O’Riain family. My background research included discovering the rich history of the cedar-cutting industry. These intrepid axe-men scanned the newspaper reports of the day and followed the journeys of our earliest surveyors and explorers, knowing that the brilliantly coloured red cedar that was coveted by the Royal Navy, furniture-makers, ship and house builders could often be found near waterways. Their fortitude places them as true pioneers in our history. And the timber industry is credited with the establishment of inland towns and the creation of a strong shipping industry. However, the demand for ‘red gold’ and other quality timbers decimated The Big Scrub. This uniquely named forest once located between Byron Bay, Ballina and Lismore, was at 75,000 hectares pre-European settlement, once the largest low land sub-tropical rainforest in Australia. Today only remnants remain.
You can’t write about the Irish in Australia in the 1860s without stumbling across the many accounts of anti-Irish sentiment. At the Lismore Historical Society I was told stories of riots breaking out, eggs being thrown, and at the most petty level, Protestants and Catholics walking on opposite sides of town streets. The Irish famine was fresh in people’s memories and those who suffered at the hands of the Protestant English were not quick to forgive.
Despite these differences NSW was changing. Those who had success in the timber industry or the goldfields or who arrived as emigrants with coin in their pockets were keen to settle down. The NSW Robertson’s Land Act of 1861 was passed to break the squattocracy’s hold in the colony and open up NSW for selection and sale. Some squatters viewed this law as illegal and disputes arose over land ownership with conflict occurring between pastoralists and would-be selectors, whether speculators or honest farmers.
It is into this period of turmoil in The Cedar Tree that Irish Catholic cousins Brandon and Sean arrive from County Tipperary. Brandon eager to start a new life. Sean, unable to let go of the past. Their individual choices during their lives affect their descendants and no more so than Italian raised Stella Moretti who marries into the O’Riain family nearly a century later during World War Two. She unwittingly finds herself living on a sheep property on the barren edges of the Strzelecki Desert in Far West NSW, and slowly her life unravels.
I selected this area specifically for its isolation, so that Stella’s expectations of her new life – one she’d chosen for love and to escape her strict Italian culture, were constrained by more than just her husband’s attitude. The owners of the property I visited northwest of Broken Hill were very welcoming. I’d enquired in advance if I might access the property to study the environment and ended up spending my nights in the main homestead, delving into the station archives, while the days were spent walking deep into the desert, the taste of salt on my tongue.
The Strzelecki Desert is an extraordinary environment made up of quartz rock deposits, gibber plains and rolling red dunes. The light glitters across the landscape. There is a clarity to the air that stuns. Combined with the rich red of the land, the ceaseless dunes and infinite space, the spirituality that whispers of those who dwelt in these areas long before the arrival of white man is tangible. But the desert can be a harsh place and is not for the ill-prepared. While I ensured my day pack contained a compass, map, food and two full water bottles, eons ago the Aboriginal inhabitants of this region existed on sparse vegetation and limited animal life and accessed shallow seepage wells between dunes for drinking water.
My in-the-field research is an essential aspect of writing Australian historical fiction. Apart from the authenticity that in-depth hands-on sleuthing provides, as my novels explore Australia’s history studying the environment where a story is set is also crucially important. Our environment moulds and defines us as individuals, as it can characters in a novel and a strong setting evokes a sense of place that becomes the tapestry that the narrative unfolds upon.
The Cedar Tree is a story of love, faith, destiny and betrayal, of stubborn men and the women who have to try and find the space to survive around them.
About the Book:
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Spanning two centuries, Nicole Alexander’s compelling new novel is a story of love and faith, destiny and betrayal, in a land as richly diverse as the secrets it keeps.
In the spring of 1949, Stella O’Riain flees her home – a sheep property on the barren edge of the Strzelecki Desert. She leaves behind the graves of her husband Joe and her baby daughter.
With no money and limited options, Stella accepts her brother-in-law Harry’s offer to live at the O’Riain cane farm in the Richmond Valley. There she hopes to get answers to the questions that plague her about her marriage. However Harry refuses to discuss Joe or the family’s secrets, even forbidding her to speak to the owner of the neighbouring property.
Nearly a century earlier in County Tipperary, Irish cousins Brandon and Sean O’Riain also fled their homes – as wanted criminals. By 1867, they are working as cedar-cutters in New South Wales’s lush green Richmond Valley.
But while Brandon embraces the opportunities this new country offers, Sean refuses to let go of the past. And one cousin is about to make a dangerous choice that will have devastating consequences down the generations . . .
Published by Penguin Random House Australia
Released 3rd March 2020
About the Author:
A fourth-generation grazier, Nicole returned to her family’s property in the early 1990s. She is currently the business manager there.
Nicole has a Master of Letters in creative writing and her novels, poetry, travel and genealogy articles have been published in Australia, Germany, America and Singapore.
She is the author of nine novels: The Bark Cutters, A Changing Land, Absolution Creek, Sunset Ridge, The Great Plains, Wild Lands, River Run, An Uncommon Woman and Stone Country.
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March 31, 2020
#BlogTour #BookReview: The Deceptions by Suzanne Leal
About the Book:
Long-buried family secrets surface in a compelling new novel from the author of The Teacher’s Secret.
Moving from wartime Europe to modern day Australia, The Deceptions is a powerful story of old transgressions, unexpected revelations and the legacy of lives built on lies and deceit.
Prague, 1943. Taken from her home in Prague, Hana Lederova finds herself imprisoned in the Jewish ghetto of Theresienstadt, where she is forced to endure appalling deprivation and the imminent threat of transportation to the east. When she attracts the attention of the Czech gendarme who becomes her guard, Hana reluctantly accepts his advances, hoping for the protection she so desperately needs.
Sydney, 2010. Manipulated into a liaison with her married boss, Tessa knows she needs to end it, but how? Tessa’s grandmother, Irena, also has something to hide. Harkening back to the Second World War, hers is a carefully kept secret that, if revealed, would send shockwaves well beyond her own fractured family.
Inspired by a true story of wartime betrayal, The Deceptions is a searing, compassionate tale of love and duplicity-and family secrets better left buried.
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My Thoughts:
The Deceptions is a stunning novel. On the one hand, it documents an incredible story of survival, and indeed, at the end of the book, the author deftly separates fact from fiction for the reader and elaborates on her source of inspiration. The other aspect to this novel is the intimate exploration of human nature and human relationships. Taken together, the result is a deeply moving and well articulated work of fiction.
At the beginning of the novel, we meet Hana as an old woman. Beneath her sarcastic wit are layers of pain and a legacy of reinvention. Hana takes us back to her experiences during the Holocaust. We aren’t privy to why she is recounting this to us; that’s to come. Hana’s story cuts to the quick, not just for what she endures, but for the way in which her story is told. Devoid of dramatic overture and thankfully all aspects of romance, the impact is all the more profound. There is much in what Hana tells us but even more in what she doesn’t. I became particularly invested in the friendship between Hana and Eliska, and the three other women who make up their ‘five’. This is not the type of Holocaust fiction that readers have encountered in recent years through commercial fiction: heroic, romanticised, palatable stories of ‘beating the odds’ and ‘willing survival’. No. This is so much more truthful and consequently, so much more painful, yet far more appreciated – by this reader, anyway!
Hana is not the only narrator within this novel. There is also Karel, the Czech gendarme who was Hana’s guard in Theresienstadt, his granddaughter Tessa, and Ruth, a minister of the church Karel’s family attends. Some of these connections to Hana are obvious – Karel, for example, but others are less so and these connections evolve as the novel progresses. The connectedness of these characters drives home the point of how far reaching the Holocaust was, and more pointedly, how it continues to be so. Holocaust survivors settled all over the world after liberation, but the wire that connects them all has no end; the connections are imprinted and passed down through the generations. To my mind, this is the most important ‘take home’ message from this novel. And it really is a thought-provoking novel in every sense of the notion.
This is my first taste of Suzanne Leal’s writing and I very much like what I have now experienced. There is a crispness to her prose that gives an unflinchingly honest representation. She has an ability to draw you in, as though her story is a pool of water, her words beckoning you to slip below the surface, despite the murky depths that await you. Questions of morality abound, particularly when it comes to truth and consequence. You know that expression, ‘heart in my mouth’? That’s how I felt right the way through reading this novel. As though I was on the verge, breathless, awaiting what was to come with my heart in my mouth. Just brilliant, fiction at its best.
Thanks is extended to Allen & Unwin for providing me with a copy of The Deceptions for review and for the invitation to be a part of their blog tour.
About the Author:
SUZANNE LEAL is the bestselling author of The Teacher’s Secret and Border Street. A regular interviewer and presenter at literary events and festivals, she was the senior judge for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards from 2017 to 2019. Suzanne is also a lawyer experienced in child protection, criminal law and refugee law. She lives in Sydney with her husband and four children. www.suzanneleal.com
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The Deceptions
Published by Allen & Unwin
Released 31st March 2020
March 30, 2020
Book Review: Budgerigar by Sarah Harris & Don Baker
About the Book:
A curiosity of everything you ever wanted to know (or realised you never knew) about budgies.
Budgies, budgies, budgies. Beautiful and cheeky, delightful and enchanting, wild or tamed budgerigars are Australia’s gift to the bird world.
They sing and dance, and yawn as contagiously as humans. They are masters of mimicry. They grasp simple grammar, can count to six and have memories that belie their size. They’ve been coveted by royals and been companions to the great and famous as well as grannies in suburban kitchens around the world. They’ve been painted by masters, rendered in the finest porcelain and graced fashionable hats and earrings of the highest order. Their image has been used to sell whisky, stamps and laundry detergent and everything in between.
Surprising, charming and occasionally alarming, Budgerigar is the book that at last opens the cage door on the incredible story of the little bird that grew.
My Thoughts:
This book was surprisingly compelling reading. What I thought was going to be a fluffy collection of anecdotes about budgies and their besotted owners turned out instead to be a complete and thorough history of the little parrot, from bush budgie to…well, what they are now, which also forms an integral part of this history. Honestly, I never thought I’d say this about a book on budgies, but this was excellent reading.
‘Generation upon generation of captive and selective breeding has produced, at best, a much-loved and cosseted companion and, at worst, a feathered Frankenstein that’s not so much a bird as a caricature of the original wild creature.’
As well as history, this book provides a commentary on aspects of society within the context of respect for nature. There is scientific enquiry from breeding through to research, examination of the very nature of budgies in terms of what makes them so appealing as a pet, changing ideals with regards to bird keeping, and of course, plenty of those anecdotes about budgies that I was expecting.
‘More than 150 years of intensive select breeding, favouring the qualities that humans want to see rather than those that might serve the bird if they developed naturally, have had an inevitable effect on the creatures’ physiology. They are shorter-lived, less fertile, more prone to disease, less adept at parenting and simply incapable of foraging for themselves.’
While always interesting, this book was also quite sad at times, the poor little budgie having been subjected to many indignities throughout its long history. This book has much to offer, even to those who don’t keep birds as pets. Really, anyone with a keen interest in history would enjoy this book. It offers many topics for contemplation and provides a wealth of talking points – just ask my family who know more about budgies now than they likely ever wished to! In all seriousness, this is an engaging read that I can highly recommend.
‘The point where you realise you have done a grotesque thing is always too late. That is human nature and maybe nature in general.’
Thanks is extended to Allen & Unwin for providing me with a copy of Budgerigar for review.
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Read for #2020ReadNonFic hosted by Book’d Out
Category: Published in 2020
About the Authors:
Very conveniently co-authors Don Baker and Sarah Harris are also a couple. Both veteran journalists, they flirted briefly with being fruiterers before deciding to stick to their knitting. They live on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula with their flying dog Smudge.
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Budgerigar
Published by Allen & Unwin
Released 31st March 2020
March 29, 2020
Book Review: The Banksia Bay Beach Shack by Sandie Docker
About the Book:
A year is a long time in the memory of a small town. Stories get twisted, truths become warped, history is rewritten.
MYSTERIES
When Laura discovers an old photo of her grandmother, Lillian, with an intriguing inscription on the back, she heads to the sleepy seaside town of Banksia Bay to learn the truth of Lillian’s past. But when she arrives, Laura finds a community where everyone seems to be hiding something.
SECRETS
Virginia, owner of the iconic Beach Shack café, has kept her past buried for sixty years. As Laura slowly uncovers the tragic fragments of that summer so long ago, Virginia must decide whether to hold on to her secrets or set the truth free.
LIES
Young Gigi and Lily come from different worlds but forge an unbreakable bond – the ‘Sisters of Summer’. But in 1961 a chain of events is set off that reaches far into the future. One lie told. One lie to set someone free. One lie that changes the course of so many lives.
Welcome to the Banksia Bay Beach Shack, where first love is found and last chances are taken.
A moving and heartfelt story by the bestselling author of The Kookaburra Creek Café and The Cottage At Rosella Cove.
My Thoughts:
Sandie Docker has a unique ability to tap right into the very depths of human nature: the good, the bad, the hopeful, and the hopeless. Whilst creating authentically realised characters, she also breathes life into her small-town settings, giving readers a colourful and quaint backdrop for some seriously considered themes drawn directly from modern Australian society.
There are some terrific characters that make up the cast of The Banksia Bay Beach Shack. I really enjoyed the dynamics that played out, the friendships that stretched across time and the new ones that were developing. Laura, the main character, was particularly well crafted. Lost in her grief for her grandmother, she focuses on uncovering a secret from her grandmother’s past as a means of working through her loss. I could totally understand this way of coping. Along the way, she upsets quite a few apple carts, and so the story unwinds, drawing us in with alternate views on the present day and what actually happened long ago in the past. I did wonder if the mystery would actually live up to the substantial build up; it definitely does!
This novel has a lot going on but Sandie paces her plot well, building the momentum for some fairly incredible and highly meaningful scenes towards the end. There are some shocks, some heartbreak, and some disconcerting realisations about Australian society from our not that distant past that beg deeper contemplation within the context of our society today. I highly recommend this one far and wide. There really is something in it for everyone.
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of The Banksia Bay Beach Shack for review.
About the Author:
Sandie Docker grew up in Coffs Harbour, and first fell in love with reading when her father introduced her to fantasy books as a teenager. Her love of fiction began when she first read Jane Austen for the HSC, but it wasn’t until she was taking a translation course at university that her Mandarin lecturer suggested she might have a knack for writing – a seed of an idea that sat quietly in the back of her mind while she lived overseas and travelled the world. Sandie first decided to put pen to paper (yes, she writes everything the old-fashioned way before hitting a keyboard) when living in London. Now back in Sydney with her husband and daughter, she writes every day.
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The Banskia Bay Beach Shack
Published by Penguin Random House Australia
Released 17th March 2020
March 27, 2020
Book Review: The Two Lives of Lydia Bird by Josie Silver
About the Book:
The much anticipated and utterly captivating new novel from the author of the 2018 runaway sensation, One Day in December.
Lydia and Freddie. Freddie and Lydia. They’ve been together for almost a decade, and Lydia thinks their love is indestructible.
But she’s wrong. Because on her twenty-seventh birthday, Freddie dies in a car accident.
So now it’s just Lydia, and all she wants to do is hide indoors and sob ’til her eyes fall out. But Lydia knows that Freddie would want her to live her life well. So, enlisting the help of his best friend and her sister Elle, she takes her first tentative steps into the world and starts to live – perhaps even to love – again.
But then something unbelievable happens, and Lydia gets another chance at her old life with Freddie. But what if there’s someone in her new life who wants her to stay?
My Thoughts:
She’s done it again! Josie Silver has delivered another heart-felt deep and meaningful story that will have you smiling and crying in equal measure. What a perfect novel to be stuck at home with!
‘Grief is an odd thing. It’s mine and no one can do it for me, but there’s been this whole supporting cast of silent actors around me in the wings.’
The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is a story about love and loss; grief and acceptance. This is a story that explores love in all its many shapes and sizes, from family through to friendship. But it’s also a story about finding your way back to yourself – and not just for our main character, Lydia Bird.
‘The human brain is wired to cope with grief. It knows even as we fall into unfathomably dark places, there will be light again, and if we just keep moving forward in one brave straight line, however slowly, we’ll find our way back one day.’
Perfectly balanced plot wise, with a cast of authentic and beautifully realised characters, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is utter perfection.
Thanks is extended to Penguin Random House Australia for providing me with a copy of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird for review.
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The Two Lives of Lydia Bird
Published by Penguin Random House Australia
Released 17th March 2020
March 26, 2020
The Week That Was…
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I hope you are all well! As my first week in self isolation draws to a close, a vital delivery arrived just before the weekend:
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Quaran-TEA!
And you thought I got all of my jokes from the internet…
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Speaking of…
Joke of the week:
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What I’ve been reading:
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A new series for the blog!
I have been working behind the scenes with publishers on a new series for the blog called ‘Author Talks’. These are guest spots offered to authors who have newly releasing books that have had book launches and tours cancelled. It gives them an opportunity to give an author talk at my blog, in the way they might have done at a library or book shop launch. The first one of these went up yesterday with Natasha Lester talking about her upcoming release, The Paris Secret. If you missed it, you can catch up here.
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I wrote this up mid-week and posted it to Facebook, but I thought I might just pop it up here as well. It may help some of you out there who have children like mine…that is, children who are not begging their parents over breakfast for ‘more school work’ or staging productions of musicals they have written throughout the day in total harmony with each other, because yeah, siblings really like each other so much more now that they have to see each other non stop instead of the friends they actually like. Neither of my sons are up and coming Baz Luhrmanns, so, this is more my life…
So many of my friends are posting these awesome homeschooling timetables they’ve made for their kids.
In consultation with my two teenage sons, in the event of school closure here in Qld, our days are looking like this:
Morning: sleep
Noon: eat
Afternoon: xbox + eat
Late afternoon: netflix + eat
Evening: dinner
Night: eat more + netflix more + xbox more then sleep
I post this in utter seriousness. Teenagers are so much easier than younger kids on many fronts, but on others, they are much harder to get to do things that you want which they don’t. Plus, they are looking at their own newsfeeds and taking in the world situation just as you are. I work in education and understand its value. I would love to sit with my teens and work with them on the things they may need to do if their schools close. But I’m also a realist and have been a mum for 18 years now. I am fortunate in that neither of my boys are in year 12 this year. That’s different and a whole lot more stressful. Your child is probably more inclined to work with you in this situation.
I am writing this post as a way of reaching out to those parents who might be quietly freaking out about what they’ll do if they have to homeschool their teen at some point.
Just take it day by day. The Easter holidays are soon. You have time to figure this out. The above timetable will probably get boring at some point, and then you can get to work, meeting in the middle instead of butting heads and creating conflict.
Also, very important! Teenagers work better at night. Fact! Use that to your advantage.
Also, try not to feel inferior in the face of other people’s organisation. We are all different. You know your teenager best. Do what feels right.
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I have dug Scrabble out of the cupboard (literacy) and bought The Walking Dead version of Monopoly (numeracy). We’ll get there…
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Until next week…
