Molly Weasley's Practical Guide to Magical Childcare

Mischief, Muck and Mayhem

The baby stage is completely over, my dear. The cosy afternoons you spent holding your smartly-dressed, sleeping infant are a thing of the past. As your child becomes four and five years old, mischief, muck and mayhem arrive to stay. It's alright; just have a good cry now over your cup of tea and be done. Their mild manner (if it ever existed) dwindled away with their baby fat. Your children are now skinny, leggy things with fiercely independent spirits and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. As they acquire that knowledge, they won't hesitate to use it to their advantage. Pick your battles carefully, dear. Being correct with regard to a minor matter isn't worth the headache of the major row it will take to convince your children they're wrong.

Physically, your children are quite adept by this point. The blessing is that they are now excellent help around the house; and I do believe each child should have household chores. The curse is that they can get into a lot more mischief without your assistance or permission. The chores tire them out so that they have at least a bit less energy for mayhem (if you're lucky).

Mischief

Leg-Locker Curse (locomotor mortis) - This is, unfortunately, the age when children begin to get cheeky. Percy had a wretched habit of refusing to cooperate and then walking off in a huff with his nose in the air. I took great delight in shooting the leg-locker curse at him after such displays. The feeling of his legs locking together and the usual resulting tumble helped bring him to his senses as well as immobilize him. Then, while he couldn't get away, I'd proceed to give him a great healthy piece of my mind.

Silencing Charm (silencio) -- We've always been a boisterous family. Arthur and I love a house that sounds lived in. We like that our children are inquisitive and enthusiastic. There were days though, when they were too inquisitive and too enthusiastic. Ginny was famous for her thousands of questions. You can ask her brothers--she absolutely never stopped talking. If Ginny wasn't questioning everything, she was singing loudly to songs made up on the spot. Some afternoons I'd put a silencing charm on her room. Then she could sing all she wanted and I could have a moment's peace.

A quickly-muttered silencing charm can also be a life-saver in public settings or on social visits. Of course your children are proud of what they know and like to show off what they've learned from you. Bill was decidedly loose-lipped and, unfortunately, usually chose to recite comments he'd heard which were particularly unsuitable for the moment. You can save a lot of professional and personal relationships with a quick and surreptitious use of this charm.

This is also a good time to mention the opposite of silencio. The sonorus charm (sonorus) amplifies your voice. We had quite a large garden with a paddock and groves of trees near by. On those lovely summer days when the children were all outside running amok, sonorus would allow them to hear me when I called them in for meals.

The broomstick is one of the first magical items your child is likely to wield. From the day they were born, my husband happily anticipated teaching our children to ride their first broomsticks. I must admit I was apprehensive at the idea of my little ones flying. Actually, apprehensive may be too mild a word. The very thought filled me with dread. Arthur insists that I worked myself into a veritable frenzy every time he so much as breathed in the direction of a junior broomstick. To hear him tell the tale, every time we walked past Quality Quidditch Supplies, I looked more like a fire-breathing dragon than a woman. Since he couldn't purchase one for Bill without risking our marriage, well-meaning relatives took the matter in hand and gave our eldest a junior broomstick for his fifth birthday. Bless them.

To my surprise and relief, junior broomsticks are well-cushioned, quite stable and only hover a few feet off the ground. It's virtually impossible for a child to fall off a toy broom unless that child leaps off or climbs up on the handle. Don't assume your child won't try both of those manoeuvres. You can retrofit your children's toy brooms with temporary sticking charms (afixa). Use those only when you're out actively supervising your child because they'll not be able to end the charm on their own when they need to get off to use the loo.

At some point after their first broom, the Quidditch bug bit most of my children. They began following games on the wireless and in the Daily Prophet. We learnt Maths using Quidditch scores for examples and grammar while writing reports of the previous week's games. They were completely obsessed.

We were fortunate to live in the country and have a hidden paddock surrounded by an apple orchard where the children could fly. If you don't have a naturally hidden place for your children to fly, a simple engorgement charm (engorgio) beautifully expands a playroom. We often used this charm on the attic during very rainy afternoons. Additionally, I have it on authority that the Cleansweep company will soon market a new line of children's brooms featuring Adams' Muggle Repelling S.E.P. Fields (a clever bit of innovation based on Knight Bus technology allowing muggles to pass off extraordinary looking things as somebody else's problem and pay them no mind). These fields are compatible with S. Quill Lab's newly developed Garden Expanding Charm (hortus expandere). What wonderful new developments for town-dwelling wizarding families.

Muck

Impervious Charm (impervious) -- Rainy days and puddles hold such a fascination for children. Ron absolutely adored stomping around puddles in his Wellington boots (he still may). He'd tromp inside soaked to the skin, grinning like a mad fool, and trailing muck all over my floors. I hated the mess and the washing up that followed. Truth be known, laundering clothes is my least favourite task. A lovely impervious charm made his hair and clothes waterproof so he could splash around to his heart's content without much in the way of leftover mess for me.

This charm was also excellent for the creative side of our home studies. All the children loved painting and working with modelling clay. Creativity is such a wonderful thing. But the mess. The mess drove me mad. Since clothing is quite dear, an impervious charm helped preserve their clothes from paint and ground-in plasticine.

Floo Travel -- I'm digressing into a bit of a History of Magic moment. But, I think the history is important. You may have heard your grandparents' generation tell stories of travelling with their families by magic carpet. While it was convenient to have your family all together for a journey, flying carpets were notoriously unsafe for small children. There were no restraints of any sort and turbulence meant it wasn't always possible for parents to keep a strong grip on their children in-flight. Falls were common-place and often tragic.

A clever carpet company eventually came up with the idea of fitting safety handles with built-in temporary sticking charms for children to cling to. They could even retrofit older carpet models. The Ministry of Magic made safety handles compulsory on all new carpet models. The accident rate declined slightly, but accidental magic still accounted for the failure of those handles on a frequent basis. Flying carpet sales declined and the Ministry acted to classify flying carpets as dangerously charmed muggle items and banned their use in this country.

Floo travel has been available for centuries, but it wasn't the way most wizards chose to travel because of the mess. It increased in popularity among families as the use of flying carpets declined. Thank goodness. It's much safer for children than carpets or brooms.

A temporary sticking charm, cushioning charm and bubble head charm were essential while floo-ing with small children. I'd place my infant in a sling and cast bubble head charms on all the children coming with me so they wouldn't inhale any ash. Then, I'd add a cushioning charm to the sling so the baby wouldn't be injured if we tumbled into a heap at our destination. Finally, I'd put the floo powder in a small cup and after casting temporary sticking charms on the sling and my hand, I'd grasp two small children in one hand while throwing the powder with the other. A tricky process dear, but it worked.

If scourgify doesn't take care of the state of your clothes when you're at your destination, you can use the modified impervious charm that Egyptian wizards use before sand storms. All you need to do is think of floo ash as you cast the charm and you've changed the intent of the spell.

By the time mine were seven they were old enough to floo alone and be trusted to stay put until I arrived. You know the capabilities of your children, dear. Trust your instincts when you decide to teach them to floo alone. You can owl the ministry and during certain off peak times, they can limit your connection to a small practice network of fireplaces which you can designate.

Although most of us keep our floo powder on the mantle, do remember to secure your supply, dear. Children are very adept climbers. You don't want your little ones getting hold of it and scooting off to who knows where. The collosedes sealing charm is quite useful here. The odd noise helps you remember that you sealed it. You can also cast an age line for added security.

Mayhem

Wizarding children, as you may already know, have a natural resistance to injury. The bad side of this is that once children realize their resilience they can become more daring. Six of my seven children did just that as they grew. They provided me with a constant barrage of injuries on which to practise these basic healing tips. Thank heavens for the one who kept his feet on the ground. I found that with a little preparation I could manage all but the most serious of injuries.

Cuts, scrapes and gashes are the most common injuries for any child, adventurous or not. My Charlie tried so hard to keep up with Bill who was two years older, fearless and much taller. Seven year old Bill was ecstatic when Charlie turned five and was finally old enough for a junior broom. The two of them spent their afternoons together in the paddock trying out Quidditch moves on their brooms. Both brooms had limited mobility, but the boys pushed those toys to the edge of their limits. They'd come in for tea sweaty, scratched, and bleeding. I'd cast a simple healing charm (medicor) over minor wounds and they'd heal up nicely.

Anything deep or filthy requires a dose of Wound Cleaning Potion before you cast a healing charm. The exception is injury inside the mouth; a hole in the tongue as a result of eating an acid pop, for instance. Why in heaven's name the twins gave that wretched sweet to three year old Ron is beyond me. He had no idea he was only supposed to lick it and not keep it inside his cheek. Wound Cleaning Potion is not to be ingested. It kills off helpful bacteria in the stomach and makes for one wretched stomach-ache after your children's next meal.

Wound Cleaning Potion is at its most effective when it's a deep purple colour. I'd advise against making it yourself if you're not an accomplished potions maker. Follow the instructions on the bottle for correct dosage amounts. It does smoke and sting, so be prepared for some struggling from your child. The lighter lavender formulas don't sting as much, but they don't disinfect as well either.

Any kind of burn, from sunburn to second-degree heat burn, benefits from a liberal application of Burn-Healing Paste. Look for paste with a bright citrus orange colour. It smells wretched but feels wonderfully soothing. My red-headed, fair skinned children have gone through great quantities of burn paste as we tended their sun-burnt noses and shoulders. My twins have used the paste the most. They have in intense love of experimenting and most of their creations end in smoky, fiery explosions. It's a wonder they aren't permanently tinted orange.

The Common Cold is a frequent visitor in houses with active children. Germs are passed between family members with wild abandon. When one child gets an illness (and colds are the most frequent) everyone else will get it as well. Pepperup Potion makes short work of most colds. The trick is to take the potion before the cold settles into the lungs. This is one of those mothering skills with a perk. The effect of the potion on your children is unbelievably amusing. The steam escaping from their ears is a sight not to be missed. With my children's red hair, they invariably looked like their heads were alight.

Of course, illness can be a blessing. It stills hyperactive children and silences loud ones. So before you administer the potion, you might want to enjoy a few days of the peace associated with mildly sick children abed and not underfoot. Then, dose your children and spouse only. If you run out of potion after you selflessly gave it to the rest of the family first, you can enjoy a couple of days in bed with your spouse running things. Take my meaning?

Sleep is essential for your children's proper health and development. They must get a minimum of ten hours rest each day, more if they are fighting an illness. Sometimes children are so ill or hurt that they can't sleep. After receiving an awful sunburn, poor Charlie hurt so badly he couldn't lie down to sleep. A small dose of Sleeping Draught allowed him to fall asleep easily so his body could heal faster. This potion is excellent for all childhood diseases. Your children will sleep through the night despite the pain and heal in quick fashion. You'll want to be very careful about dosage, though. I accidentally gave five-year-old Ron a full adult's dose. He was asleep on the kitchen floor before he could hand the cup back and slept for twenty-four hours. Poor thing was ravenously hungry when he woke. He wasn't harmed, but I felt incredibly guilty.