How many days was your child away from school during the last school year? If it was more than 3 weeks, chances are you’d have had a call from the Education Welfare Officer.
The Education Welfare Officer is employed by the Local Authority to liaise with parents whose children are not being brought to school. In extreme cases, he/she can refer the matter to the courts and ask that these parents be fined for not taking their children to school regularly enough.
Local Authorities which have detected high levels of absenteeism during term-times have cracked down on the number of days that children can be off school before the Education Welfare Officer is called in. One local authority, in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, for example used to allow children to be absent from school for 20% of the school year without sanctions being made against the parents; when absenteeism began to creep up, though, it changed that to say that children who were absent for 15% of the school year would be notified to the Education Welfare Officer. That meant that if a child was taken out of school for a two-week holiday and then was ill for a different week during the year, the Education Welfare Officer would call.
Statistics are clear that significant amounts of missed school (whether the amount missed is over one period or is cumulative) equates to lower academic results. It is by no means difficult to see that a child who misses lessons will be missing information and methods of learning that they will need to do their work effectively.
Anyone who works in a school will tell you that the first few days after a child has been away from school for any length of time is hard work for the child. As early as Year 1 or 2 they may have missed vital instruction on things like how to do multiplication, division or partitioning. If the school has time, they will try to help the child to catch up by taking them to one side to teach it to them one-to-one, but this in turn makes them miss further work alongside their peers. They also miss out on the social aspect of school life, playing games with their friends and keeping up with the latest games.
On the other hand, a child who is taken on holiday gets the chance to spend good quality time with their parents and siblings, and gets to play, relax and (if it is a holiday abroad) get to see another culture. Those can be extremely valuable things (though of course, some children are left to play on their own on the beach whilst their parents soak up the sun or recover from hangovers… not exactly a stimulating experience for the child), and out of term-times the cost of a holiday rockets.
If a parent cannot afford to pay school-holiday prices, then it becomes a matter of choosing between not having a holiday or not going to school. Many parents don’t want their child to miss out on a holiday and take them out of school. It does seem unfair that only rich children should be allowed to go on holiday.
This issue has come to the fore this week as Michael Gove apparently said that he would remove headteachers’ current ability to authorise some absence within term-time. As a rule-of-thumb, headteachers can currently allow children to stay away from school for up to two weeks (to allow flexibility to deal sensitively with issues such as bereavement, ill-health and so on) if the parent requests. Michael Gove wants there to be no such thing as authorised absence, and that any absence for any reason would count towards the number of days a child is off before the Education Welfare Officer is called in. He is also keen to introduce stricter penalties for absenteeism – at the moment, the fine of £100 is a drop in the ocean compared to the increased cost of a holiday in school-holiday time. If a parent can pay £1000 for a holiday during term-time, but would have to pay £2000 in school-holiday time, they’re likely to go in term time and pay the £100 fine…
The changes might also mean that schools will lose points in the league-table system if their levels of absenteeism are deemed too great.
Many people say that this is the wrong way to tackle things, and that instead of punishing parents for wanting to take their child on holiday, the government should be tackling the grossly inflated prices put on holidays by travel companies during school holidays.

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December is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, when major cancer charities join together to raise awareness of the horror that is childhood cancer.

Fewer children suffer cancer than do adults, but that is little comfort to the families of those 1,700 children who do suffer from the disease every year in the UK.

The cancer charities are seeking to raise awareness of the sort of symptoms to look out for, to maximise the possibility of early diagnosis. They’re also seeking to raise funds to carry on vital research and caring work to support sufferers and hopefully reduce the incidence of childhood cancer.

One of the charities, CLIC Sargent, says that parents and families of children who have cancer have enough to worry about without struggling financially, yet some two-thirds of them have to take out loans to cover their living expenses whilst their little one is going through treatment. Parents understandably want to spend as much time as possible with their child, which can mean that they lose their jobs, making life even harder. The chief executive of the charity says, “Everyone is suffering in this economic climate, but parents of children with cancer are amongst the hardest hit. The extra costs can be significant. We’re dependent on the generous support of the public and other donors to fund our vital work to support young cancer patients.”

Some childhood cancers can have very mild symptoms and are often mistaken for viruses: fever, headaches, aches and pains, vomiting and night sweats. If these symptoms carry on for longer than normal, or if the symptoms are getting worse, you should see your GP.

Nearly eight out of ten children with cancer will survive the condition for at least five years and most will be completely cured. But treatment, including chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy, can last for months and take its toll on family life and family finances.

To help to support these families, consider buying charity Christmas cards etc that support children’s cancer charities this month.

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There are many important types of insurance cover that you should consider investing in, depending on your personal circumstances. Amongst these, life insurance is ne of the most unusual in that it is an insurance policy which the policyholder him or herself, will never reap the benefits of. However, if you have a family who are dependent on your income for financial support, it is absolutely essential that you think seriously about securing the appropriate life insurance cover. No one wants to consider the prospect of serious illness or death, especially if they have a family, but should the worst happen to you, it is preferable that your family are not left in financial – as well as emotional – distress.

As the name suggests life insurance policies are ones which pay out in the event of you losing your life, but there are a number of different types of policy that come under the umbrella term ‘life insurance’ and it is important to secure the one that fits your needs. The types of life insurance policy available include: term life insurance, which pays out to your dependents if you die within the fixed period agreed in the terms of the policy – usually around 18-20 years; whole of life insurance, which guarantees a lump sum payout to the next of kin when the policyholder dies, regardless of when this happens; decreasing term insurance, which is usually taken out to ensure that mortgage payments are covered in the wake of death. The payout with this type of policy decreases over time, just as the mortgage itself will; and critical illness cover, which pays out in the event of the policyholder being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.

The type of policy you should choose will depend entirely on your individual situation and you should make enquiries with different providers before deciding on the right policy type. You may wish to take out more than one policy, combining say a whole of life policy and a decreasing term one, if you have both a family and a mortgage. In terms of cost, again this varies between different providers, but rates amongst the top companies are competitive. Many of these companies offer a quotation via the company website – for example www.endsleigh.co.uk.

Source:
www.moneynet.co.uk/Product-Guides/Life-Insurance/life-assurance-policy-types/37

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When I was still in hospital after having delivered my first child, somewhere through the haze of sleep-deprived and pain-deprived delirium, I heard a nurse (or someone) telling me about co-sleeping with my baby. She said that a lot of people were afraid to do it now because of the known risk of cot death associated with the practice, but that I shouldn’t discount it as it could be a very valuable tool in aiding sleep (for parent and child) and in developing the parent-child bond.

I didn’t need any help with the bond bit, because I had fortunately loved my baby from the moment I’d known I was pregnant with him, but the sleep part was rather attractive…

So I looked it up on the internet one night at about three a.m. having been woken roughly every half hour or so to breastfeed. Most of what came up from the search engine focused on the negatives: namely, the likelihood that your baby could die if you sleep together in the same bed. There were positive articles in there too, but I chose to err on the side of caution, all things considered, and decided that having my baby in a crib beside me and getting less sleep was, on balance, better than having no baby at all.

Now that I’ve had chance to sleep (my ‘baby’ is now five years old, though actually he doesn’t sleep that much) I can put things in a bit of perspective and I’m rather sad that I didn’t sleep with him in the same bed when he was a baby. It might have stopped me rooting round in the covers for him, as I was prone to do in my sleep-deprived state (I’d wake up thinking that I’d fallen asleep without putting him back into his cot, and hunt madly in the duvet for him before my husband grunted ‘he’s in his cot…’ I’m told I’m not the only mum to have done this.)

I did sleep in the same bed as him from the age of about seven months, after he went on a breastfeeding strike (I had rather inadvisedly yelled out in pain when he’d bitten me… he subsequently refused point blank to return to the breast, which was rather distressing since I hadn’t planned on stopping that early … ). The Breastfeeding Advice Line gave me the advice to co-sleep and to feed my son when he was half-asleep and relaxed, which worked at treat. And since I hadn’t smothered him, and we’d both slept better than we had since he was born, that was that.

The benefits of co-sleeping are that you get that lovely, cosy time together. Your sleep is disrupted less even if you need to feed your baby in the night (certainly if you’re breastfeeding) and you can respond quicker to your baby if he wakes.

It is believed (though is hard to prove) that babies who co-sleep grow up to be more secure individuals, with better self-esteem and being more able to manage stress.

The downside is that it can be very hard to move your child into their own bed when they’re older, since all they’ve ever known is to sleep right beside you and it suddenly seems a very lonely, scary thing to be in a bed all alone. It also puts a bit of a dent in your love life (though perhaps no more than surviving on three hours’ sleep a night would do anyway).

You have to be sober, not on any medication or drugs, and not exhausted in order to co-sleep safely (Department of Health guidelines 2009. And the rules about not sleeping with your baby on a chair or sofa remains the same – don’t do it, it’s too easy to smother them.

Most parents who co-sleep don’t like to admit it, in these times of the all-knowing, hyper-critical baby experts who favour things like naughty steps and cry-it-out harshness. But actually it’s one of the most natural things to want to do – we’re mammals, we’re designed to breastfeed and to do that we need our young close-by. It’s perfectly acceptable in many other societies.

If you do decide to co-sleep with your baby, enjoy it. Get your partner to watch you for a few minutes after you’re both asleep – he’ll be amazed to see that you both naturally sleep face-to-face, and that your breathing becomes synchronised. He’ll also see (once your baby is old enough to do so) that your baby will reach out and immediately re-settle if he touches you – it’s sort of a reassurance that ‘it’s okay, mummy’s there, I can go back to sleep’ response. Mums will often briefly rouse in order to check on their baby, adjust the covers and so-on, and then go straight back to sleep without even registering the disturbance (far less than they would on hearing an unsettling noise over the monitor).

Babies less than a year old don’t have ‘object permanence’, which means that if something is out of sight then to them it ceases to exist. If they can’t see mummy, then she’s vanished from the earth. This can be quite startling (understandably) if that happens in the night in a dark room, and for that reason co-sleeping can prove very reassuring and restful for babies.

Be safe, but be assured that co-sleeping can be a very positive experience for all concerned.

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Asperger’s (pronounced As-per-gers, with a hard ‘g’ sound) Syndrome is a form of autism. It is usually regarded as being at the higher-functioning end of the autistic spectrum.
People with Asperger’s Syndrome are born that way and as children the condition can often be missed as they are usually very clever and academically-able. The problems they encounter are on the social side of things, and since many children up to about age 4 years tend to play alongside other children rather than with them, and may lack eye contact or awareness of others, Asperger’s can often go undetected until the child reaches about 6 or 7.

It’s a lifelong condition but social communication can be taught and this in turn can improve social awareness and functioning.

Unlike in autism, people with Asperger’s tend to have good speech and language skills and are usually of average or above-average intelligence. They don’t usually have learning difficulties as such, but they may have some specific learning difficulties like dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia. They may also show signs similar to those seen in ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).

Social communication is hard for people with Asperger’s. They find it hard to understand the nuances of conversation and take many things literally. They may find it hard to translate non-verbal communication and understand this in the context of what is being said. They can also find it hard to say what they want, and may end conversations abruptly and may simply refuse to do/say anything that doesn’t interest them. To aid this, speakers need to be concise and clear.

Many people and children with Asperger’s find it hard to make friends, to relate to people sufficiently to want to engage fully with them. They may not understand many social ‘rules’ like turn-taking in conversation. They can seem aloof and disinterested, which can make them isolated from their peers. They also find it hard to imagine things – like what will happen next in a series of events, or the type of imagination required in play with other children. They may have limited games that they like to play that can border on obsessive, like knowing everything there is to know about a hobby (e.g. trains – timetables, engines, lines etc) and lining up toy trains in a particular order that may have complex reasoning and rules behind it.

Many children with Asperger’s don’t like it if routines are disturbed without notice. So lessons should be planned with short timetables so that if changes need to be made the child may not be aware of them. In schools, they may not respond to the normal ‘social rewards’ like stickers for good behaviour or the threat of loss of golden time for unwanted behaviour. Instead, finding out what they like and promising them, say, five minutes to talk about that with an adult at playtime can motivate them to behave as desired or to do the work that is required.

If you think your child has Asperger’s, the first step is to see your GP who can refer you to a Paediatrician who can make a formal diagnosis. It may be that your child needs a Statement of special needs to provide him with one-to-one support, particularly around playtimes and other social times. This needs to be obtained via the school who will liaise with the Local Authority.

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It’s that time of year when every cough and cold seems to make its way into your house through the viral hothouse that is your child. Whether it’s a cold or ‘flu doesn’t matter so much in terms of diagnosis, since they’re both pretty miserable to live with, but if

you have concerns that your child has ‘flu, you should see a doctor or phone for advice if:
your child has a high temperature for more than three days (obviously you’d be using paracetamol to bring the temperature down, but if it still raises after three days you need advice);
they have a runny nose for more than 10 days;
their runny nose becomes yellow and/or smelly;
they have a discharge from the eyes;
they have problems breathing;
they seem more poorly than they have been in the past;
they don’t respond as you’d expect (e.g. not crying or gaining eye contact);
they’re not drinking, or are getting dehydrated (i.e. they lack tears, they have dry nappies or don’t wee as much, their mouth is dry)
they have a seizure.
A seizure in very young babies and children that is caused by a high temperature (38 degrees Centigrade or over) is called a febrile convulsion. These don’t cause lasting damage, although some children who have them later go on to develop epilepsy.
Febrile convulsions tend to run in the family, with children being more susceptible if their parent(s) had them as children. They usually come on as a result of a high temperature caused by an infection of some sort, like tonsillitis, a cold/’flu, urinary tract infection. Very occasionally, they are caused by a spike in temperature following a vaccination, though this is rare (25 – 35 cases per 100,000 vaccines). Meningitis is also a possible cause that your doctor will want to check, with blood tests.
There are two types of febrile convulsion: simple (it lasts for a maximum of 15 minutes and only happens once during that infection) and complex (it lasts over 15 minutes and/or occurs several times during the course of the infection). The symptoms of a convulsion are the body going stiff, loss of consciousness, and twitching limbs. Afterwards the child seems dazed. They’re scary – more so for the adults – but aren’t dangerous in themselves. If your child is having a seizure, place them in the recovery position (on their stomach with their head tipped to one side to stop them from choking on any vomit). Keep an eye on how long the seizure lasts; if it goes on for less than five minutes, call your GP or NHS Direct. If it lasts more than 5 minutes, call 999. Of course, you may well want to phone 999 immediately if this is a new experience.
Don’t put anything in your child’s mouth during the seizure, it is a choking hazard. They won’t bite their tongue off.
To avoid a convulsion, make sure you give your child paracetamol if they develop a temperature (check the label for dosage) but don’t give them aspirin, and don’t give them ibuprofen if they have asthma. Use a tepid (not cold) cloth on your child’s face to make them comfortable, and remove clothing to cool them down.

Another option for speeding up the process of healing ailments and illnesses is Aloe Vera juice, though herbal remedies remain controversial this super juice has been a failsafe option time and time again. Aloe vera juice is safe for children and boasts soothing and anti-inflammatory properties. It is commonly used for helping to treat the following:

• Eczema and Acne
• Constipation
• Infections
• Immune Deficiency

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With the well-known need to keep babies safe from the risk of cot-death by putting them to sleep on their backs, babies are spending far less time on their tummies than they once did.
Tummy time is really important, though, so you really must ensure that your baby has plenty of opportunity during the day (when not napping) to lie on their tummies. Watch them closely, getting down in front of your little one on your tummy too. Tummy time builds important muscle tone in the neck and upper back, and it encourages babies to look up and eventually start to crawl. It also reduces the likelihood of your baby developing ‘flat head syndrome’ which is becoming more and more common as babies sleep on their backs more.
It also gives your little one a new view of the world – seeing things from such a different angle can be very stimulating for a baby. Lying on their tummies helps babies to practice the skill of holding up their heads, and also turning their heads in response to a noise or to look at their environment.

Start tummy time regularly as soon as your baby is born, and certainly by the time they reach a month old. Your baby might find it uncomfortable to lie on their tummy whilst they still have their umbilical stump attached, so use your judgement. The earlier you start, the more likely your baby will accept it and enjoy it.
Even if you share tummy time for just ten minutes a couple of times a day, your baby will feel the benefit. Pick up your child if they start crying, but if he’s just fussing then try distracting him first. Make it as much like playtime as you can by lying down with them, pulling funny faces, showing him or her some toys, or place them in front of a mirror. If your baby doesn’t like lying on the floor, place him or her on her tummy on top of your tummy instead or on your lap.
It’s advisable to wait at least an hour after a baby’s feed before placing them on their tummy, to aid their digestion.

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When I am out with my son, at children’s play areas, or a school play, or parks, or swimming pools or wherever, it has become a quiet obsession of mine to count the number of children in the room and then count how many of them are obviously overweight. I’m not talking about being a bit chubby, I’m talking about children who are seriously, uncomfortably overweight. If I counted the ‘chubby’ ones too I’d probably be even more horrified than I already am at the high proportion of unhealthy children in today’s society.

It used to be, perhaps ten or fifteen years ago, that there was the odd one or two children in a class of thirty children who were ‘big’. They were often mercilessly teased, or were sometimes bullies themselves as they strove to stand up for themselves. They were the odd ones out. The other children were either unaware of their size, or were painfully aware of it and were under constant pressure from the media to lose weight to achieve skinniness, which was equated with happiness.
Of course, the pressure to be too thin led many children to develop eating disorders with sad and sometimes tragic outcomes. Not for one moment am I advocating a return to those times.
However, I do believe that as a tribal species, humans look at those around them and compare themselves to others. If everyone is getting bigger, then no-one feels out of place enough to want to lose excess weight. If a child looks round and sees that all their friends have large tums, then where’s the pressure to conform to a healthy lifestyle? I imagine that taking a handful of British children and placing them in a (typically slim) French school for a while would make them appreciate just how far off their healthy weights they really are.
The constant availability of tempting, but unhealthy, food stuff is everywhere and retailers are to take some responsibility for the obesity epidemic in our children. For example, a theme park I visited recently was selling ‘penny’ sweets – but they couldn’t be bought individually, no, they had to be bought by the pint-size plastic cup at a cost of £2.99. Profitable, yes. Destined to ensure that parents and children alike insist that the cup is as crammed full of sweets as possible in order to get their money’s worth – definitely.
But the parents have to take a good chunk of responsibility too. Don’t reward good behaviour with food; don’t offer food as comfort; don’t allow junk food to become staple food. Show your children a good example – for every large child I see I usually see pretty enormous parents not far behind. Take your children out to exercise more, and don’t give them sweets for the journey home. Make them feel good about themselves, certainly, but be sure that they are aware of the long-term dangers of obesity.
As if finally giving up on all this common sense, judging that its areas parents are a dead loss, Sheffield Children’s Hospitals is to start offering gastric balloons to children age 13 to 18 years. Gastric balloons reduce the size of the stomach, enabling less food to be consumed, leading to dramatic weight loss. The surgery is “intended as an option for young people where other treatments have not been successful”.
Of course, surgery will only be effective in the long-run if it is accompanied by real lifestyle changes. Not diets, changes in eating habits. For good.

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Would you like to earn a little extra cash? Would you like to fit your working hours around your family? Not sure if you could run your own business? Then a franchise opportunity could be exactly what you’re looking for.

It’s a cross between working for someone (as most franchises are well known names) and being your own boss. You choose your hours, you choose what to sell and you choose how it will go. You do need some sales skills and there is usually a startup fee which can vary from very small to quite a lot.

Have a look at www.workingmums.co.uk for information on how to start your own business, what fees are involved and there are advertisements from companies looking for ‘franchisees’ that you can peruse at your leisure. There’s even a section where you can ask questions and have them answered by someone working as a franchisee.

The section where the various companies are displayed is invaluable for beginners who are looking for more information before they commit. See which opportunites are suitable for your skills and which you think you would enjoy doing – life’s too short to be doing something you don’t enjoy. There’s everything from health and fitness companies to creative opportunites and working with children. There’s even some advice on how to fund your new venture, should you decide to go ahead.

If you’ve had a look and still aren’t sure, the case studies section of the website allows you read stories from real people who have taken the opportunity and have never looked back.

If you already have a business and are looking for franchisees, you can advertise on the site and generate interest. Try the event information for some other ideas on where to advertise.

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It is well known by most parents (and even teenagers themselves) that too much time sat in front of a screen, be that a TV, laptop or games console, is not good for them. It leads to a sedentary lifestyle, obesity, and a decline in social skills that can mean that they find it hard to relate to others and indeed to find gainful employment as adults. Not good. But despite all this knowledge, it’s estimated that on average children spend a massive two thousand hours involved in screen-based entertainment between the ages of ten and eleven years (given that a child of that age will be asleep for around ten hours per night, there are around five thousand hours of wakeful time during a year – and if two thousand or so are spent in front of a screen that can’t be good news).
Now Baroness Greenfield, former director of the Royal Institution, has added fuel to the issue by claiming that too much screen-based entertainment literally ‘blows the mind’, causing actual physical changes to the brain that cause problems in attention and behaviour. This happens when stimulating games and programmes that engage the senses can deactivate certain nerve pathways within the brain – temporarily or permanently.

Baroness Greenfield said, “The human brain has evolved to adapt to the environment. It therefore follows that if the environment is changing, it will have an impact on your brain. If you play computer games to the exclusion of other things this will create a new environment that will have new effects … every hour you spend in front of a screen is an hour not spent climbing a tree or giving someone a hug.” She stresses how important it is for children “to be outside, to climb trees and feel the grass under your feet and the sun on your face. Screen technologies cause high arousal, which in turn activates the brain system’s underlying addiction and reward, resulting in the attraction of yet more screen-based activity.”
She also said that the age we live in at the moment and the excessive, unconstrained use of screens (especially video games) is akin to living in the 1950s when smoking was rife and little was recognised about the dangers and long-term effects.
There have been several scientific studies that back up what Baroness Greenfield is saying. For example, earlier this year a report published by the journal PLoS ONE showed that internet over-use could rewire parts of the inner brain, and even cause the brain to shrink. As long ago as 2001, Japanese scientists said that as video games only stimulated those areas of the brain concerned with vision, sound and movement, other parts of the brain could effectively decay or not develop effectively (e.g. those parts concerned with behaviour, emotional and intellect).

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