Maggie Dent's NUMBER ONE thing parents need to know

Categories: General Parenting

Maggie Dent is one of Australia’s most prominent and popular parenting educators, and it’s easy to understand why. Dubbed as the ‘Queen of common sense’ on parenting matters, Maggie’s fans adore her for her practical, no-nonsense advice on parenting today. Some of this advice is so widely applicable that it’s become part of our vernacular, like the terms she uses to describe the temperaments of children – roosters and lambs. You immediately understand what they mean, and that’s the essence of Maggie Dent’s approach. She’s not interested in confounding people with the science behind her wisdom, although there’s plenty of it to back her up. Instead, she says, she wants to ‘give parents strategies they can go home and implement tonight or tomorrow morning.’

It’s music to the ears of tired and confused parents across the country!

As a mum to four boys ‘who have now, happily, all developed prefrontal lobes,’ and a gaggle of grandbabies, Maggie is an outspoken advocate for letting kids be kids and giving our little ones time and opportunities to learn through play before we put them behind desks in classrooms. She’s been on our team at ParentTV right from the beginning (and has saved founder Sam Jockel from tearing her hair out about what’s going on with her own three kids many times!). We were thrilled she agreed to contribute a chapter to our book, Parents – this is the one thing you need to know, and even more thrilled when she told us what the title of her chapter was: Why children need a go-slow childhood to grow up healthy, happy and capable.

Notable quotable: 

‘Every age and stage of childhood will have a gift and a challenge,and some stages are messier and noisier than others. We can give our children an amazing gift if we choose to slow down – we can give them the gift of a childhood as nature intended. Slow, messy, chaotic, unpredictable and full of moments of exquisite joy. Trust me, before you know it, they are gone.’

Maggie Dent

We recommend this top video from Maggie:

How you can have more fun with your kids – why we all need to lighten up!

Here are some simple, small ways to have more fun in your home – and why creating more fun memories and rituals might actually help your family run more smoothly.


Our new book, Parents, this is the one thing you need to know is coming out soon and we want you to be the first to know about a special offer! If you want to be in the know, get on the list now by click here: https://parenttv.com/parenttv-book-launch/