How ridiculous! I have been stopped from purchasing items in my shopping by the government. Items they deem unsuitable and dangerous (I presume!) not alcohol, not cigarettes or lighters or flammable liquids or solvents… Oh Noooooo.
In order to make International Mamma a truly global insight into child-rearing, I need information and input from Mummies around the world. I have been blogging for a while now from my own personal, English viewpoint but, I also want to write about what happens in the rest of the world and I need you to tell me.
I welcome your information / advice on any child-rearing topic from any country in the world – if you have photos too, that would be great. You can send me an email and I will write up your information and include your name and Country (with your permission).
The way we raise our children varies so much from country to country, I am convinced we are restricted by the information we are fed and that by sharing the knowledge and skills of mummies from around the world, I can open a whole world of choice and information and a fascinating comparison for all.
Email me at : Diny@InternationalMamma.com
I have been home-schooling my seven-year old daughter for about 3 months now and my strategy has changed yet again. I’ve come to realise much of home-schooling is about facilitating learning, encouraging independence and learning through experience. Consequently, I have now made my daughter responsible for her own learning through good old fashioned bribery!
As a mum who has exclusively breastfeed all three of her children, I have have a few words of wisdom to spout on the subject of breastfeeding outside the comfort and privacy of your own home.
Firstly, it is a mother’s right to feed her breastfed child where-ever and when-ever baby requires. However, it is also important to remember many people are uncomfortable with the unexpected sight of stray nipple! Strangely, it is often other women rather than men who are offended. This became particularly apparent to me when a friend I was with – one who normally wouldn’t even wear a low-cut top, sat down to breastfeed her daughter at a busy outdoor event. Being rather proud of the fact she was able to breastfeed her daughter, she fully opened her shirt and sat feeding her daughter in the middle of the event with her breast totally exposed. Many people stared quite openly and I must admit that I felt embarrassed by her – which was very weird as a committed breastfeeder!!
For the past few weeks (pretty much since we started actually!) I have been tackling number placement with my seven year old (year 3) daughter. We had begun to look at calculations involving money, when I realised that first of all, she didn’t know how to do vertical addition or subtraction and secondly, she had no concept of lining up the units, tens, hundreds and thousands – let alone the decimal place. I am not sure where this fits into the curriculum, because they seem to touch on money and measurements here and there but never in enough detail.
This weekend, my two younger daughter’s had a party to attend and so I suggested my husband spend a couple of hours doing some maths with our newly home-schooled seven year old. He’s great at maths (I’m not!) so I thought it was an opportunity for my daughter to brush up on some new skills. I left a couple of pages for them to complete and went off to the party happy in the knowledge they would have some Daddy and daughter time and learn lots too.
Whether you are educating your child at home, just want to find some great resources for additional learning or you would like to find some fun and safe places for your child to visit online – this page should help. I am listing all the websites my children visit, ones I use as learning resources and sites that are recommended to me. I cannot guarantee internet safety with them as I have no control over their content or external links but, I will only list websites I would allow my children to access.
This week I became a political activist! We all bemoan the system, but what do we ever do to change it? Well, this week I have changed the habit of a lifetime by posting an e-petition at No. 10 following my previous rant about school admissions, (see church schools). If you agree with the following petition, please follow the link to add your signature:
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Stop Church schools discriminating against children of UK tax payers who do not attend church.
Church maintained and funded schools are part-funded by the taxes of non-church-goers; therefore we should not be discriminated against applying for school places when a church school is also our local school.
Children have a right to access good quality education and a freedom of choice in whether or not to adopt a religion, regardless of the faith of their parents. To insist parents must attend church on a regular basis is to discriminate against the undecided child, based purely on the beliefs of their parents.
By allowing church schools to insist on church attendance as a criterion for admittance is divisive on the part of the government; encouraging parents to falsely adopt religion and morally corrupting good people who’s only agenda is to obtain a decent education for their child.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/churchschools/
I’ve now been home-schooling for about four weeks – I think I’ll call that our ‘bedding-in’ period.
I’d been told that it was necessary to ‘de-school’ my daughter before commencing mom-school, which means allowing the child time to unlearn/forget the whole school regime/way of thinking and prepare to learn in a different style and in many different environments.
According to the BBC news today, Asian Judge Sir Mota Singh QC has criticised schools for banning Sikh children from carrying the Kirphan – one of five articles of faith: a KNIFE!!!
Whilst I am totally in favour of religious freedom, a knife is a weapon, whatever the label and to suggest children/teenagers should be allowed to carry such things in school of all places, is a line where religious freedom and child safety clash. I truly believe child safety should always be an over-ruling factor in every situation where children and young adults are involved.