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There is a series on Channel 4 on Tuesdays nights at the moment called “Never Did Me Any Harm”. Each week the children of a family are taken back to their parents’ era which generally means no TV/DVDs/Playstations.

There does seem to be a pattern in today’s society that families are divided by going off to their separate rooms and doing their own thing. Children would be at a disadvantage if they did not know about current technology because it is essential for so many jobs these days. However, surely a limit can be set on the amount of time that kids spend watching TV/playing on the computer etc.

With all the guilt placed on parents these days it is also very easy for parents to feel that they should be doing everything for their offspring. However, it is essential that children learn the practical life skills required to run a house and be part of a family. The difficulty can be that if kids are asked to help a huge amount of patience is required – parents have to sit back and bite their tongues rather than do the task in question themselves.

Although some basic changes might seem easy, it is rather more difficult to put these ideas into practice because it requires changing some very ingrained and lazy habits on the part of both the parents and the children. In a society where everything comes easily it takes strong parents to go against the norm.

I am sure that most parents with toddlers or older children have experienced the joy at having their walls re-decorated by their children. Whilst this obviously demonstrates their huge creative talents it can be a tad annoying, especially if you have just had your room painted!

Source:Graham Brown

There has been some great wallpaper around for a while now which actively encourages your children to draw on the walls. This might have the rather undesirable effect of leading your children to think that they can draw on any wall, but I still like the idea. When your children grow out of their drawings, I suppose you could just paint over it, or repaper the wall and start again.

Thanks to Blogging Baby for reminding me about this.

There’s a fun article over at Slate.com by Dahlia Lithwick called “Wiki-Parenting”. Even though it’s filed under, ahem, Low Concept: Dubious and far-fetched ideas, it struck me as a good way of explaining what wikis are to parents.

Parents collaboratively editing
Source:Mark Alan Stamaty

Take the following:

“… anyone who’s had a child can assure you that collective public authorship, collaborative editing, and anonymous generative correction – those wiki hallmarks – have been around since Mrs. Cain first brought Baby Cain over to Uncle Abel’s house dressed only in a too-thin fig-leaf onesie.”

If you’re a parent who has no idea what jargon like collective public authorship, collaborative editing, and anonymous generative correction means, read through the article. I bet you’ll begin to see how familiar all these things are

In the past, my DH (short for Darling Husband) has come under some severe criticism from me for his “hands-off” approach to children (mainly because his job entails working ridiculously long hours). Well, I take it all back. I have been feeling dreadful for the last few days and my DH has been an absolute rock. He has looked after the kids all weekend and let me stay in bed. What a star! The children have loved every minute. Whereas I usually nag them to tidy up their toys and eat up their greens, my DH is a more “go with the flow” type of guy and just concentrates on really having fun with them. I don’t know how he manages to play the same game ten times in a row and still be as excited as the kids are! So, this post is dedicated to supportive fathers everywhere (particularly my own DH!)

PS As it is now half-term I will be taking a few days off posting, but I will be back soon.

There is an invaluable post over on Little Mummy giving ten money savings tips for new mums. I have summarised it here:

1. Accept Hand-Me-Downs – then you only have to buy the extras you need

2. Don’t Go On A Spending Spree – you are likely to be bought many gifts for your first child

3. Bargain Hunt – search online eg ebay, freecycle, babywear exchange

4. Baby Basics – buy babygros etc from supermarkets

5. One Pram Only – and remember that most people do not need a “travel system”

6. Baby Food – make your own

7. Milk – breastfeed if you want to, but if bottle feeding use powerded milk rather than ready-made

8. Cheap Days Out – remember museums and galleries are free

9. Ask people to knit some clothes for your little one

10. Sterilizer – buy a cheap microwave one

A feel good Huggies ad:

There is an interesting article over on The Juggle about parents who sabotage their chances of promotion in order that they can retain a higher quality of life ie they can see their kids.

The subject raises many questions, such as: do all promotions entail longer hours? Do men hide their abilities as much as women?

This leads to the issue that if you don’t accept a promotion will you then be “written off” by your boss and overlooked for future promotions? Whilst advancing your career may not be top priority when you have very small children, you might change your mind once they have grown up and flown the nest.

The work vs family struggle continues …

There was a programme on Channel 5 last night called “Pushy Parents”. It focused on two mothers who are convinced that their daughters are extremely talented and are pushing them in order that they fulfill their potential.

Another TV programme along the same vein was “Strictly Baby Ballroom” on Channel 4. Again it featured parents who would go to extreme lengths to ensure that their children were noticed.

It is interesting that in this recent BBC News article

US sports psychology consultant Alan Goldberg believes that few children have the capacity to achieve such goals on their own.

“What drives children are their parents,..

“A lot of kids … will have dreams but whether they act on them immediately really depends on the parents that they have….

Most of the time when you get a kid with a lot of innate ability, the parents overdo it and that causes a lot of problems for the kid,

They achieve these great things but there’s a significant physiological and emotional effect on their lives.”

If your child is gifted it must be difficult to know how much to encourage them and how much to just let them be and let them do their own thing. It may be that a child has a particular talent but no passion in that area. The difficulty comes in recognising what your child actually wants rather than what you want to project that they want.

My children are generally pretty good at sitting in their car seats. Having said that, every now and then they get over excited or impatient and their little fingers can’t help pressing the release button on the seatbelt catch. Obviously there is not much you can do if you are driving along, so all you can do is stop.

Source: GLTC

Someone clever has now invented a “Safeclip” which fits over the release button and prevents children from accidentally or intentionally releasing their seatbelts. This is a very simple but clever idea and at £4.99 you can’t really go wrong.

Source: One Step Ahead

Check out this “Bumper Bonnet” to prevent babies up to three years from bruising themselves. Talk about taking the expression “to wrap up your kids in cotton wool” literally!