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Maggie Dent
Born1955 (age 68–69)
NationalityAustralian
EducationBA, DipEd, DipCounselling
Websitehttps://maggiedent.com

Maggie Dent (born 28 March 1955) is an Australian parenting author, educator and speaker.[1][2] She has written a number of books, holds and speaks at events in Australia, and appears on radio and television.[3][4][5] She is the host of the ABC’s Parental As Anything podcast.[6]

Life and early career

Dent was born in Wandering, Western Australia, on a sheep and wheat farm, where she was raised with her five brothers and sisters. The siblings helped on the farm, and Dent attributes the farming lifestyle and working with animals to giving her an insight into life and death.[2][7] Dent attended boarding school and then university in Western Australia, where she decided to study teaching instead of journalism as planned. She became a teacher,[8] however, also became involved in palliative care and worked as a counsellor, in suicide prevention, and as a funeral celebrant.[2][9][10] She has four sons.[2]

Career and work

Dent is the author of 15 books on parenting. In her work she recommends that growing children receive plenty of fresh air, exercise, good food, freedom to take risks and explore. She advocates for limited screen time and more time spent with friends[7][1][10][11][2] citing the health and psychological benefits of nature play.[12] She also promotes play-based learning in the early years, claiming that the education system in Australia is behind that of other countries because it follows the UK and American models of one-size-fits-all, standardised testing and pushes formalised education into early years.

She has stated that a ‘crisis’ exists in the education of boys which she claims has been acknowledged by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), which found girls are less likely to drop out of school than boys and the gap in their reading levels was equivalent to one year's worth of schooling.[13] She is an advocate for children's rights, especially the right for children to play,[14] to learn from their mistakes,[15] and to learn to be resilient.[1] Through this work she has been referred to as the "queen of common sense".[12][16]

Charity work

Dent is a patron of the Bold Park Community School in Perth[17] and the Western Australia Association of Teacher Assistants (WAATA). She is an ambassador for The Sanctuary – The Hills Women's shelter in New South Wales.[18] Dent is an ambassador for Telethon in Western Australia, a trust established 50 years ago to financially support the medical & social welfare of children and which funds research into children's diseases. She is an ambassador for Smiling Mind, a not-for-profit web and app-based mindfulness meditation program.[16]

Criticism

Reader criticism of Maggie Dent's published work includes that it often reinforces gendered stereotypes of boys and men and provides western centric advice[19] Maggie Dent also supports and cites the work of experts whose theories have been disproven.[20] One theory that she regularly uses to explain male child behaviour includes a theory made popular by Steve Biddulph and Maggie Dent that says boys have a surge of testosterone at around age four, but which has been debunked.[21] This calls in to question the 'expert' label that Maggie Dent is afforded given she has no expert qualifications to substantiate her popularity and advice.

Bibliography

Her books include:[22]

  • Saving Our Children from Our Chaotic World: Teaching Children the Magic of Silence and Stillness (rev ed, 2009)
  • Nurturing Kids’ Hearts and Souls: Building Emotional, Social and Spiritual Competency (rev ed 2010)
  • Real Kids in an Unreal World: How to Build Resilience and Self-Esteem in Today’s Children (2nd ed 2017)
  • Saving Our Adolescents: Supporting Today’s Adolescents through the Bumpy Ride to Adulthood (2010)
  • Black Duck Wisdom (rev ed 2011)
  • 9 Things: A Back-to-Basics Guide to Calm, Common-sense, Connected Parenting Birth-8 (2014)[23]
  • Some Secrets for the Modern-Day Mammoth Hunter: Becoming and Being a Good Man (2014)
  • My Cool Plastics Cupboard (a picture book illustrated by Linda True-Arrow) (2015)
  • Building Children’s Resilience: Essential Tips for Parents of Children Birth-12 (2015)
  • A Dog’s Life Wisdoms: 21 Life Wisdoms from a Dog Called Jess (2016).
  • Building Children's Resilience: One building block at a time (2016)
  • Mothering our Boys: A guide for mums of sons (2018)[24]
  • From Boys to Men: A guide from one of Australia’s favourite parenting authors on how to help tween and teen boys to develop into good men(2020)
  • Parental as Anything: A common-sense guide to raising happy, healthy kids – from toddlers to tweens(2021)
  • Girlhood: Raising our little girls to be healthy, happy and heard (2022)

References

  1. ^ a b c "Let children judge risks, be resilient". www.couriermail.com.au. 22 May 2012. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  2. ^ a b c d e Corporation, Australian Broadcasting (18 February 2011). "Maggie Dent offers her ideas on raising children". Conversations with Richard Fidler. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  3. ^ "Events". Maggie Dent. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  4. ^ Sunrise (6 October 2018). "Author Maggie Dent joins us to discuss the power of mothering our precious boys in a fair and fun way! @Queenofcommonsepic.twitter.com/MROm0eMUZh". @sunriseon7. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  5. ^ Huntsdale, Justin (26 February 2019). "Parenting expert says embrace toddler meltdowns, anxiety and sleeping trouble". ABC News. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  6. ^ "Parental As Anything". www.abc.net.au. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  7. ^ a b "Boys, Boys, Boys – Feature article". Maggie Dent. 26 September 2014. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  8. ^ "Maggie Dent". ABC Radio. 22 August 2016. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  9. ^ "Maggie Dent – Home | Resources for those who live & work with children". Maggie Dent. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  10. ^ a b "Maggie Dent". ABC Radio. 22 August 2016. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  11. ^ Myler, Carmen (30 August 2018). "Raising boys to become good men with Steve Biddulph". Maggie Dent. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  12. ^ a b "{INTERVIEW} A moment with Maggie Dent". I AM Montessori. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  13. ^ King, Madonna (17 September 2015). "Boy, oh boys". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  14. ^ "Maggie Dent weighs in on school chasey ban". The West Australian. 23 June 2018. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  15. ^ Huntsdale, Justin (26 February 2019). "Parenting expert says embrace toddler meltdowns, anxiety and sleeping trouble". ABC News. Retrieved 27 July 2019.
  16. ^ a b "Maggie Dent". Smiling Mind. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  17. ^ Cross, Daile (11 September 2017). "The death of childhood: play disappears from Perth primary schools". WAtoday. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  18. ^ "The Sanctuary women's refuge". www.dailytelegraph.com.au. 4 April 2016. Retrieved 23 July 2019.
  19. ^ "Reviews of Parental As Anything, with Maggie Dent". chartable.com. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  20. ^ Myler, Carmen (27 June 2018). "5 tricky times in boyhood that every parent needs to understand". Maggie Dent. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  21. ^ Steinbeck, Kate (23 October 2017). "Health Check: do boys really have a testosterone spurt at age four?". The Conversation. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  22. ^ "MAGGIE DENT – BOOKS". Maggie Dent. Retrieved 20 July 2019.
  23. ^ Dent, Maggie (1 December 2018). 9 Things: A Back-to-basics Guide to Calm, Common-sense, Connected Parenting Birth-8. Pennington Publications. ISBN 9780975125885.
  24. ^ Dent, Maggie (1 November 2018). Mothering Our Boys: A Guide for Mums of Sons. Pennington Publications. ISBN 9780994563286.
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