Maggie Dent is an Australian parenting author, educator and speaker. She has written a number of books, holds and speaks at events in Australia, and appears on radio and television. She is the host of the ABC’s Parental As Anything podcast.
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. 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, however, also became involved in palliative care and worked as a counsellor, in suicide prevention, and as a funeral celebrant. She has four sons.
Career and work
Dent is the author of 11 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 citing the health and psychological benefits of nature play. 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, 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. She is an advocate for children’s rights, especially the right for children to play, to learn from their mistakes, and to learn to be resilient. Through this work she has been referred to as the “queen of common sense”.
Charity work
Dent is a patron of the Bold Park Community School in Perth, Peel Youth Services in Mandurah and the Western Australia Association of Teacher Assistants. She is an ambassador for The Sanctuary – The Hills Women’s Shelter in New South Wales. 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.
