Tag Archives: kids

Tips For Long Journeys With Children: Don’t Miss Out On Adventure

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Taking a long journey with young children in tow is never easy.   Aside from the military-type organizational procedures that have to be followed before anyone can leave the house, the actual journey itself can be stressful and leave parents tearing their hair out!  The good news is that there are ways to relieve the stress and keep the journey fairly trouble-free.

keeping children entertained on car journeys

Occupying the kids

 

One of the main issues with any long journey, whether it be by car, train or plane, is that children do get bored.  Anyone with regular experience of long trips with kids will know that making arrangements to keep the children occupied is essential.  When traveling with kids, it is a good idea to allow them to take along a few games or books.  This will help to stave off boredom and is particularly useful when travelling by train or plane where there are usually small lap tables for them to use.  It is important to make sure that they do not get out all of their toys and games all at once.  They should be rationed throughout the journey so that the children do not get bored with everything in the first half hour.  They can pick the toys and games themselves before leaving home, but their choice should be vetted to make sure that they are practical for the trip.

 

Crayons and pads allow children to color or draw their own pictures.  Parents who offer prizes for the resulting creations will find that this helps to keep the children focused for a little longer but need to take care to keep this balanced – each child should win at some point in order to avoid any tantrums!

 

Get a little creative

 

Sometimes a standby like books or travel versions of games like Scrabble just will not keep the kids occupied for long enough.  This is where parents need to show a little creativity.  Children can be encouraged to engage with the journey by talking to their parents about what they can see as they travel – this is a good one for a car journey.  Looking out for landmarks can be turned into a game.

 

Parents can also read up on the places they are going to be visiting and spend some of the journey time talking to the children about them.  It is important not to make this sound like a history or geography lesson – it should be as fun as possible.  For example, a child with an interest in dinosaurs might want to hear about the natural history museum at the destination.  Travel journals are a good option for those who have older children.  Children can describe what they see and add things such as postcards and photos during the stay.  This can be useful when they return to school and are asked to talk about their vacation!

 

Any journey taken with children can be challenging but, with a little forward thinking, it can actually go smoothly.  Giving the kids activities that are relevant to the destination also helps them to feel a part of the trip and not as though they are just along for the ride.

 

http://www.roughguides.com/article/20-tips-for-travelling-with-children/

http://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/387689/jewish/TipsforEasierPlaneTravelingwithKids.htm

 

 

Nearly Half of Men Feel Under Pressure To Juggle a Career With Children

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Dads left out in the cold: one in five fathers would like more time off work to bond with their children

  • Nearly half (42%) of men feel under pressure to juggle a career with having children
  • Almost half of fathers (46%) don’t think their workplaces offer enough flexibility to adequately juggle childcare with work
  • Much discrimination against women surrounds preconceptions on their taking time off to have children

gorgeousbaby

It is a man’s world, a part from when it comes to children. Courts tend to favour the mother and many men don’t get to see their own children as much as they like, if at all. In fact, if a couple is not married, the man has no rights at all.

One in five fathers (22%) would like more time off work to bond with their children according to a survey by serviced office provider Business Environment. The research shows that modern men are finding it difficult to maintain a work / life balance that allows them to spend enough time with the kids.

Almost half of fathers (46%) feel that their workplaces do not offer enough flexibility to juggle childcare commitments with work life. While the debate usually revolves around flexibility for mothers, this research highlights that employers are behind the times by overlooking the importance of flexible working for fathers.

When asked about the changes in paternity law that will allow parents to share maternity/paternity from next year, 75% of men and women welcome the changes believing that it will help fathers bond with their children and decrease the discrimination against mothers in the workplace. Those who answered negatively cited reasons such as the cost of implementing new legislation and their belief that childcare is the domain of women.

Positively, more than half (56%) of respondents say they would share leave equally with their partner if given the chance, demonstrating the potential to affect changes in attitudes towards women if it were perceived that men were just as likely to take time off to have children.

David Saul, managing director, Business Environment said: “Since I founded Business Environment 20 years ago, I have seen a huge shift in perceptions about both men and women at home and in the workplace. The view that women should stay at home and look after the kids while the man brings home the money is archaic to say the least. However, our research suggests that employers are not keeping up with the times. We hear a lot about ensuring there is flexibility in place for working mothers, but today it is just as important that men are considered equal in sharing childcare commitments – and that means making allowances in their working schedules too.”

While men may be feeling under pressure, much of the gender discrimination that takes place in the workplace centres on women having children. The research found that more than a quarter of employers would be reluctant to hire a women if she were of child-bearing age (27%) or already has children (26%).

David Saul explains how the change in paternity law may have a positive effect for women, as well as men: “I believe the changes in paternity leave will have a two-fold effect. Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, more men taking time out when their children are born will reduce the stigma that still surrounds women in the workplace, opening up more opportunities and making bigger cracks in the glass ceiling. Secondly, of course, it will allow fathers to spend more time bonding with their children.”

 

 

Does Having Children Hold Women Back?

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gorgeousbaby

Something has been annoying me for a long time and I need to write about it. Yes, women and how they are discriminated against if they have children, and if they don’t have children, Yes, basically just the fact that women can’t win when it comes to their ovaries. No one has every asked a man how he balances his work/life balance. Or how having children affected his career. And many famous men don’t have children and it is not pointed out in every single article about them a la Jennifer Aniston. But that has gotten me thinking: does having children hold women back? A lot of women in the June 2014 edition of Bazaar magazine thought so.

 

Zaha Hadid was interviewed and said: ‘With architecture, if you stop, it’s hard to go back. It’s long hours, lots of travel. If you have kids, it’s not obvious how to make it work.” and went on to say “When I could have kids, it just didn’t occur to me.”

 

Artist Phyllida Barlow said: “I don’t think having children and being an artist are compatible at all. I don’t mean that as a negative thing, just that both require full-time attention. Both are emotional and hazardous. Things go wrong” Phyllida has five children and a successful career so I am not sure what her point is.

 

This is an extract from the piece on artist Marina Abramovic: “She also knew she’d never have children. Every person, she argues, has only one source of energy, which can be transformed into work, family, children, creativity; anything. If you have children, you divide it.’ It isn’t a fashionable view, the article goes on, but there’s no doubt in her mind that it is not possible to be a great artist and have children: Maybe if you’re very rich and have nannies but then the children suffer’, she qualifies. The evidence is all around us she insists. ‘Why are there so many more male artists than female. Because a man doesn’t have to sacrifice as much as a woman.’ How sexist. She then goes on to cite Louise Bourgeois who had an amazing career post-60: husband dead and children who had left home, ‘So many artists start wonderful, talented, and then the children come.” Then how come so many men manage both? Oh, right, the woman gives up her life and career. Am I the only one who reads this and wants to scream the point that children have two parents? Surely the father could look after his own children at some point? And don’t get me started on men who refer to looking after their own children as ‘babysitting’. You contributed half of the DNA you idiot.

 

Weirdly enough, the sanest comment came from an Olsen in the June 2014 edition of UK Marie Claire: Elizabeth Olsen has been thinking about the working-women-having-kids-thing. ‘It’s more important for women to do well in their families lives because they end up doing better in their job if they pay attention to their family. There was a time when you’d have a career, get to the top and then have children, which I always thought was weird- as opposed to having kids witnessing the ebbs and flows, starting somewhere and growing together as a family’ Can someone please give this women a medal?

 

Oprah Winfrey has stated many times that she couldn’t achieve what she has if she had children, but how does she know? How can she honestly say that? Oprah is also quoted saying: “If I had kids, my kids would hate me, They would have ended up on the equivalent of the “Oprah” show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would’ve probably been them.” Do children say this about their fathers? In a typical family set up men are away a lot. Kids don’t hate them, they just miss them. People don’t give children enough credit. They know adults have to work.

 

Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was interviewed in the Telegraph and she was asked, once again, about her child-free status. She said: ‘I’m comfortable with my choices. It gave me my chance to work as an PM’.  I mean, why ask a former Prime Minister about her career when you can question her ovaries instead?

 

But this hasn’t answered my original question. Does having children hold women back? Probably. I don’t have children myself, although I may one day, but I think the main question should be: if having children doesn’t hold men back, why should it hold women back? The answer is obvious. Women are supposed to sacrifice everything for their children and burn their ambitions and wishes on the alter of motherhood. And some of the worst critics for women is other mothers. I know married friends in their thirties, some of whom don’t even want children, who can’t get a job or a promotion because employers don’t want to risk hiring a women in their thirties, too worried that they will just get pregnant and then cost them maternity leave. Women are discriminated on the fact that they have wombs, whether they use them or not.

 

A book I will be reading is I Don’t Know Why She Bothers by Daisy Waugh. It rages against the social pressure of women sacrificing their entire life at the alter of motherhood and is an antidote to maternal guilt and pressure. Because you know what can stop children holding women back? Men picking up the slack and doing their fair share.

 

What do you think? Does having children hold women back?

 

 

Nikki Gemmell Interview | Books

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Nikki Gemmell is a talented Australian author, best known for writing the best-selling erotic trilogy The Bride Stripped Bare, With My Body and I Take You. She has recently released her first children’s book, The Kensington Reptilarium. Scarily talented and productive, it was an honour to interview her.

 nikki glemmel interview

You have written eight novels and four works of non-fiction. How do you manage to be so prolific?

 

In that exhausting lifestyle triumverate of the modern harried woman – work/family/social life – something has to give.  I just don’t believe you can have all three.  In my case it’s the social life that’s been sacrificed.  I just get too knackered.  Having kids has also made me much more disciplined.  I don’t spend their school hours unpacking the dishwasher and tidying the house – I write, solidly.  Am constantly gleaning little pockets of time to get it all done (in fact am typing this now, in the car, on the side of the road, having just dropped off my son to a basketball match.)

 

You write a lot about female sexuality. What draws you to write about it?

Honesty connects.  Nowhere more powerfully than in the sexual sphere.  There is so much vulnerability, bewilderment and misconception about sexuality, and it feels exhilarating (and necessary) to write about it utterly truthfully.

 

Lire included you in a list of the fifty most important writers in the world. How did that feel?

It’s a little tuning fork in my head – to try and live up to it!

 

You have written your first children’s book, The Kensington Reptilarium: what made you choose that genre?

Several of my own children who were too addicted to their wretched screens.  I wanted to write a kid’s book that would ignite the flame of reading passion in them, because I just couldn’t get it to catch alight (to my despair and mortification.)  Lo and behold, the Grand Scheme of Maximum Distraction actually worked.

 

Do you have a favourite book that you have written?

Shiver, my first novel – a story extremely close to my heart.  The Bride Stripped Bare – because it transformed my life.  And The Kensington Reptilarium – because it was such enormous, liberating fun.

 

What is your writing routine?

Get the kids, work solidly, then pick them up and give my life over to them.  My trick is to get household chores done around them – never in cherished writing time.

 

How do you come up with your ideas?

I’m constantly on the prowl with a notebook in my handbag – it records ideas, titles, quotes, conversation scraps, magazine articles.

 

Do you ever get writers block?

I used to but not anymore – writing is a business to me now, as well as a passion.  It pays bills, so I just have to plough on or my kids won’t be fed.  I literally can’t afford to be blocked anymore.

 

How long does it take you to write a book?

Usually a couple of years, but I’ve actually written one of them in three weeks (not saying which!)

 

What’s next?

The publishers want a sequel to Kensington Reptilarium, as it did well for them.  Then I’m thinking of an historical novel after that. Something different for me.  I’m addicted to change, trying new things. Not afraid of failure in the slightest. It’s how you progress in life.

 

Advice for wannabe writers?

Tenacity is all. And discipline. Focus. The capacity for hard, gruelling work. Talent only gets you so far.

 

Best piece of advice you have ever been given?

Write as if you’re dying – it’s a great motivator.  It stops you making that seventh cup of tea.

 

http://www.nikkigemmell.com/ 
Nikki Gemmell’s Threesome: The Bride Stripped Bare, With the Body, I Take You
Honestly: Notes on Life

 

The Current State-of-Mind of Working Mums Today

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GUILT-RIDDEN, TORN BETWEEN TWO ROLES AND OVER-LOOKED -The current state-of-mind of working mums today

* Over three quarters (80%) of women feel guilty about going back to work and worry about leaving their child in the care of others compared with just 39% of men.
* Childcare responsibilities still fall on the mother’s shoulders, even when both parents are working.
* A fifth of dads (20%) say they wished they hadn’t gone back to work after having a family, saying they wished they could have looked after their child while over a third (37%) of men say they work full time with NO flexibility at all.

competitionNew research into the state of mind of working parents in the UK has found that we are a nation divided with women battling to find a healthy work-life balance, taking on the majority of childcare responsibilities while not at work. The research, undertaken for The Work & Family Show which is due to take place for the first time on 21st and 22nd February, found that over three quarters of women (80%) feel guilty about going back to work after having a family. Men, on the other hand, are relatively confident about returning to their jobs with just 39% feeling guilty about leaving their children in childcare.

The biggest concern for more than 35% of women was not having the help or understanding from their employer when dealing with the difficult transition from working woman to working mum. They also worried that their employers would be discriminatory towards them, entrusting them with responsibility and fewer big projects.

One mum who struggled to return to work after having a baby is 31 year old Leah McGrath. She returned to her role as an HR Service Manager at a large agra-pharmaceutical company after a year at home with her daughter. The plan was for Leah to do a job share but this fell through and she found herself fitting in a full time job into her contracted three days a week. She says: “I was finding it such a struggle, commuting three hours, three days a week, and trying my best to be a good mum. I was getting ill all the time; whenever there was a virus going around, I would catch it as I was so run down and my little girl’s behaviour was becoming very challenging. After a while I realised there must be more to life and resigned. It was extremely scary but I am so pleased I did.” Leah has since re-trained as a yoga teacher, running her own Yogabellies franchise, teaching pre-natal, post-natal and baby massage classes in her lo cal wellbeing and community centres. She has managed to get a healthy work-life balance and work flexibly but only by leaving her past career behind her.

Ben Black, Director of MyFamilyCare.co.uk who, together with Clarion Events, are organising The Work & Family Show says: “Due to the lack of support from their employers on returning to work, women often feel forced to give up the careers they have trained and worked so hard for in order to fit in their new role of motherhood. However, it shouldn’t be like this. Staff need to be supported as they return to work and deal with the challenges that being a working parent can bring. Employers who respond to their needs will be rewarded with engaged, productive and loyal employees.”

The research also asked fathers how they felt about the transition from working man to working dad. More than a third (37%) said they returned to work and received no flexibility at all. One in five, meanwhile, said they wished they had never gone back to work at all, wishing they could take on the full-time role of child carer.

Ben Black continues: “So many big companies like Barclays, Discovery Channel and Rolls Royce have made big improvements to their policies to help their parents who work, but these results show there’s a huge deficit. Women shouldn’t feel restricted in work when they become a mother and a man’s role in bringing up a child has evolved so much in the past 30 years and it’s time that businesses recognise this too.”

The Work & Family Show has been born out of the high demand from families in need of help when returning to work or starting up their own business. Jenny Willott, Minister for Employment Relations and Consumer Affairs, will introduce the show while inspirational experts and employers on the lookout for motivated staff will be on hand to give working parents and career break women access to practical advice. Organised by Clarion Events and My Family Care, it takes place on Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd February 2014 at the ExCeL London. Tickets are available from www.theworkandfamilyshow.co.uk from just £12, and people coming to the neighbouring Baby Show will have free entrance*.

Opening times:
Friday 21st February: 9.30am – 5pm (trade and press entry from 8.30am on Friday for a networking breakfast)
Saturday 22nd February: 10am – 5pm
**Ends**

*Free entry will be for everyone who has a paid-for ticket to The Baby Show

We have six tickets to the Work and Family Show to giveaway

Reasons My Kid Is Crying by Greg Pembroke Review

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20131101-144258.jpg Every now and then we get sent something at Frost Magazine that changes our way of thinking. For me Reasons My Kid is Crying was one of those things. I don’t have any children, and, boy, did this make me happy about that.

Ingenious and hilarious, possibly inappropriately so. This is the funniest book I have read since ‘Who Moved My Blackberry?” which was YEARS ago. Buy someone this for Christmas, they will love you forever.

It all started when busy father Greg Pembroke posted a few pictures online of his three-year-old son, mid-tantrum, alongside the reason his son was crying: He had broken his bit of cheese in half. This book collects together photos sent to Greg from parents around the world, documenting the many, completely logical reasons why small children cry. (‘I let him play on the grass’ . . . ‘We told him the pig says “oink”’ . . . ‘The neighbour’s dog isn’t outside’). Together, they are both a fond portrait of the universal, baffling logic of toddlers – and a reminder for burned-out parents everywhere that they are not alone.

I love this book and I if I never procreate, this is why. Check out Greg’s Tumblr here.

Buy Reasons My Kid is Crying here.

Michael Finnegan tops parent poll of most irritating nursery rhymes of all time

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Campfire singalong ‘Michael Finnegan’ has been named by parents as the most irritating nursery rhyme of all time.

The tune and its lyrics were said to be so “utterly catchy” that mums and dads found it impossible to stop humming it for the rest of the day.

It has 10 known verses but continues on a perpetual loop. Parents say this puts them in an impossible position of either starting again or ending it abruptly and sparking a tantrum.

Old MacDonald, meanwhile, was voted the nation’s parents’ favourite nursery rhyme, beating Row, Row, Row Your Boat, She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain and Pop Goes the Weasel to the top spot.

The farmyard classic was said to strike “the perfect balance” between educational benefit and adult interaction.

Unlike Michael Finnegan, which was said to wind kids up “into a frenzy” just before bedtime, Old MacDonald was found to have a surprisingly soothing and soporific effect.

The research was carried out by AudioGO to mark this week’s release of its new ‘Wheels on the Bus Singalong’ audiobook.

It polled 1,000 parents with children aged five and under, and asked them to name their 10 favourite and 10 most irritating pre-school songs.

 

The Top 10 Most Irritating Nursery Rhymes

10. Miss Polly Had a Dolly

9. Humpty Dumpty

8. She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain

7. Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

6. Rain, Rain, Go Away

5. Pop Goes the Weasel

4. Pat-a-Cake

3. London Bridge is Falling Down

2. Polly Put the Kettle On

1. Michael Finnegan

 

The Top 10 Favourite Nursery Rhymes

10. Humpty Dumpty

9. Hey Diddle Diddle

8. Polly Put the Kettle On

7. Cockles and Muscles

6. Pop Goes the Weasel

5. This Old Man

4. Row, Row, Row Your Boat

3. The Big Ship Sails

2. She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain

1. Old MacDonald

The Pre-Baby List: Things To Do Before You Have Children

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gorgeousbabyA pre-baby what? A pre-baby list. Not for women who are pregnant and the dad-to-be, but for people who haven’t had children. Kids might be great but you can’t say they don’t cramp your style. My nephew is now two-years-old and has expanded my brothers life, but also allowed him less freedom. So I am not only compiling a list of things to do in your pre-baby years, but I am also writing a book on it, and I would love you to contribute. Just comment below on the things you think everyone should do before they have children. I have a few of my own below to start things off. I will be adding to the list and also keep you updated on the book. Here goes!

1) Go to Paris on the Eurostar.

2) Go to a music festival.

3) Go to London Fashion Week

4) Go scuba diving.

5) Get your driving license and have a roadtrip around America.

6) Have a roadtrip around Europe.

7) Spend weekends sleeping in late and doing absolutely nothing.

8) Read books

9) Buy the Sunday papers and read them (almost) cover to cover.

10) Learn a new skill

What do you think should be added? Comment below.