This month we meet the award-winning blogger behind www.childhood101.com – Christie!

How did you choose your blog’s name? Did you deliberately set out to create a blog which would help new parents? Or was it about being a first time parent yourself?

As a new parent I really felt like I was setting out on a whole new journey. I realised that all of the choices I made from there on would impact on my child’s childhood, that each and every day we were creating new memories as a family. And I want my daughter to have a happy, memorable childhood. That is how the name, ‘Childhood 101,’ came to be, here I was, an early childhood teacher who was in theory meant to know it all, stepping along this new pathway into childhood and finding that all of the theory I had advocated during my years as a teacher was very different to the reality of being a parent! The blog became my commitment to my child and our family to keep it happy and make it memorable.

Your blog is a bit different to typical mum blogs – because you had 15 years experience as an Early Childhood Teacher before becoming a mum yourself in 2008. How does that change the content or the tone of your blog?

I like to think of Childhood 101 as a resource blog. A place parents can go to not only hear about one parenting journey but also to read information about the theory behind child development and a philosophy of early education, and to share in discussion about parenting and childhood. When I worked, I shared this information regularly with the parents of children I taught so now it is just like I have a wider parent group to collaborate with!

When did you first start blogging and what made you first hit the keyboard?

I started Childhood 101 in May 2009. As a new stay at home Mum, I found that I missed having something for me as my work had always been such an important part of my life, although I was busy with a baby it was like that whole driven to succeed part of me was missing. Although the blog is about my child and family, it is mine, I am the driver of it and it is nice to have something that is mine. I am sure other parents will understand what that is like, when you can’t even go to the toilet in peace and you feel the need to have something that is yours, something that you don’t have to share :)

What is the thing you most enjoy about blogging?

I love the connections you make with others through blogging. It is like this little community of likeminded people grows around you – contributing to the discussion, offering support and sharing ideas.

What is the coolest thing your blog has helped you to do?

It took me to Singapore! Thank you Nuffnang :) The Asia Pacific Blogging Awards were awesome and I felt so honoured to be selected as a finalist, let alone to win the title of Best Parenting Blog. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I won, especially given that I was in the company of other fantastic parenting bloggers many of whom had been at it a lot longer than me. The trip to Singapore allowed me to meet and spend time with some great Australian bloggers and I learnt heaps, which was really valuable because at the time I had only been blogging for five months.

What piece of advice would you give to someone just starting out their very first blog?

Invest in your own domain name and fully explore the various blogging platforms before you begin. I am with Blogger and have never had any issues with them, I find it really easy to use but I do recognise that WordPress offers a lot more flexibility.

And what about people who’ve been blogging for a while – have you got a pro tip for them too? What’s something really useful you’ve learned in your blogging travels?

While I am certainly not a pro, I have learnt that given the time and effort committed blogging takes, you really should consider it as a job. In my case, sponsored posts and banner advertising help to put food on our family dinner table and I get frustrated when I am contacted by PR companies and businesses who want me to promote their brands for free as it shows that they clearly don’t respect the time and effort I put into blogging. So if you have been blogging for a while and you have a growing readership and good statistics don’t be afraid to push back and say, “No, I won’t do it for free but would you like to know more about my advertising and promotion rates.”

Tell us about your pets, friends, hobbies, star sign, shoe size… whatever!

I am a cat person, an Aquarian, with a size 8 1/2 foot, and I like to be crafty when I have the time (ha ha, at least before I blogged, I was crafty). I am an A type personality and a problem solver. I am terribly unco-ordinated and can’t sing a note. And I must learn to say ‘no’ more often :)

Do you have a particular favourite post you think is Childhood 101 at its best?

The most loved posts on Childhood 101 are the DIY Kids tutorials and the first ever was the DIY Kids Kitchen, so I think that would have to be one of my best.

Recommend a blog to us! If you like Childhood 101, maybe you’d like….

Wow, that’s a hard question, there are so many great Australian blogs out there. If you like Childhood 101, I think you would like Let The Children Play, a great blog by another Australian preschool teacher.

What do you love about Nuffnang?

I love that Nuffnang is raising the profile of blogging within Australia; by building bridges between corporations and bloggers, hopefully the ‘work’ that we do will continue to become better recognised and fairly compensated.

Visit Christie at Childhood 101 for ‘information, education and and inspiration’ for parents!