Archives: January, 2007

So what do you do when you have children to look after and you are coming down with a bug yourself? Unless you are very lucky your children are unlikely to make allowances, so some tips for getting through the day are as follows:

Where do kids pick up their ideas?

My son announced this evening that he wants “lots of money” because then he can buy all the toys he dreams about. I can only assume he is copying a friend of his who came to visit at the weekend and who proudly announced this same bit of news to me!

I spent a few minutes explaining to my son that money doesn’t make you happy. To which the response was “What does make you happy?”.

My probably not so wise comment was “Oh, family and friends and spending time together”

Maybe it is just my kids, but they have a rather annoying habit of not waking up on school days but happily jumping out of bed at the crack of dawn come the weekends.

They are too young to be able to tell the time, so I am tempted to buy either the bunny clock (shown above) or the Kidsleep. Both work on giving children visual cues about whether it is day or night.

I just hope this works!

28th January 2007 is internet free day, so you are encouraged to shut down your computer.

An idea promoted by the online think-tank of social innovation the Global Ideas Bank, Internet-Free Day is a day to log off, get out and enjoy the real world.

Why an Internet-Free Day?

- Because there’s no replacing face-to-face interaction with real humans: we are social animals
- Because you can’t get your five a day from e-mails
- Because you can’t subscribe to an RSS feed from your grandma
- Because people’s faces are clearer in reality than YouTube
- Because your Blackberry is surgically attached to your hand…
- Because we all need a bit of R&R: reality and reflection
- Because if this has riled you, you really need it….

You’ve got to love Wikipedia. According to their entry for Christopher Robin

Christopher Robin (fictional) is believed to be an INFP according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

The classic children’s toy, Etch-a-sketch, has now been taken to the next level:

Source:catbhordhi

If your kids are mad on tree climbing then you should check out Cat Bhordi’s website where she explains how to knit a treehouse!

NB The site does come with a warning that it is potentially dangerous because you might fall out of the tree

Quite cool and creative. What will people think of next?

I don’t know if you saw it, but there was a very funny but true programme on BBC2 this evening called “The Madness of Modern Families“. It described the extraordinary lengths that parents will go to to ensure that their children get into the “right” school. The usual ploys were discussed:

1. Move house to within the catchment area of a good state school (or alternatively rent a flat in the area or pay someone else’s water rates who lives in that area)
2. Suddenly discover your faith by attending church regularly (or say that your child has found his calling to be a Priest)
3. Coach your children to pass the private school entrance tests (or put their names down on the waiting list whilst still a foetus)

I was reading a really good article in the Guardian yesterday all about the excess of toys children of today have. In days gone by, especially post-war, there just weren’t so many toys in circulation. That meant that children really relished the few toys they did have and took great care to look after them.

Most parents I know have toys bursting from the cupboards. Children are very savvy about what they want partly due to all the adverts on TV. However, there is definitely a bit of a backlash against too many toys at the moment. For example, I have heard that some groups of parents are putting a limit on the amount that is spent on party bags eg £2 per child and giving the same amount to a charity.

Source:Transporters

The Times recently reported about a cartoon called The Transporters that has been shown to help autistic children recognise human emotions after watching it for only 4 weeks.

The Transporters was developed at Cambridge University’s Autism Research Centre and it uses computer technology to graft human faces onto trains and other vehicles. The theory is that autistic children are often fascinated by predictable things such as vehicles but shy away from looking at human faces. By merging the two, autistic children are given a way to look at human faces without finding the experience too uncomfortable.