My children are like me in many ways, one of which is their love of sports. I have utilised this love of sport as a way of helping them to improve their maths and will explain how I do this in this article. Playing the sports themselves is also very good for them as a way of keeping them fit and away from the television, which most children watch far too much of in my opinion.

I will use my five year old son as an example of how I use different sports to help him with his maths. I will never forget the first time I thought about including maths in a sport. I basically did it just by chance, for example it was not exactly planned. My son loves playing cricket and originally we would take a bat and ball to a local park and use the dustbin as a wicket. When he was about four I decided to introduce the concept of runs into the game for the first time. If he reached the tree with one of his shots he would score two runs, if he reached the fence he would score four runs and if he reached the fence without the ball hitting the ground he would score six runs.

Every time he played a scoring shot I would then ask him how many runs he now had, for example eight plus two. Obviously at the start he made quite a few mistakes when adding up the scores but he soon picked up how to add either two, four or six to any given number.

I then thought about which other sports that I could also use to help him with his maths. I am sure there are many sports out there which would have been suitable but the other two we used were snooker and rugby.

Snooker is actually the perfect sport to use as the different colours are worth different points and this gives many more options than just two, four and six. These are the values of the different balls in snooker, the red is worth one point, the yellow two, the green three, the brown four, the blue five, the pin six and the black seven.

I am sure that many other parents could use these same ideas to help their own children to develop their adding up skills in maths.

Throughout the year, we see advertisements for children’s toys. These advertisements are on television, on the radio and in print, both in magazines and in the newspaper.

Of course the amount and intensity of these ads is multiplied the last few months of each year. Our experience has often been that many toys are just fads. They are promoted in a way that children are just begging to receive them, and then once received, they are often discarded after just a few uses.

Over they years, I have often opted for toys that encourage creativity or thinking. For example, we’ve always owned word games. We’ve owned Scrabble, Boggle and Word Yahtzee, both the adult versions and the children’s versions. These games have helped my children develop a love of words. My older daughter can not be beat at Boggle. I laugh that no one will play Boggle with her, as no one can win against her.

When my kids were young we owned blocks, Duplos and Lego. Building and creating are wonderful activities for children. My kids created all types of structures. They built homes for their dolls. They would follow patterns and build robot type figures and they would just create made up structures with no real definition. They loved building and creating. When they were old enough we bought the iron on bead designs and again they would create and create. They made magnets and bookmarks galore.

Crossword puzzle books, logic puzzle books and word find books have also always been very popular in our home. Of course these types of books are for older kids, not the under 5 group. We also always bought many workbooks, which both of my kids loved to sit and work on. Under 5, we bought a lot of shapes and counting games. Both of my kids loved Candy Land. They had to match their color cards to the space on the board. They could play this for hours upon hours. We also loved the game Sorry. Reading numbers and counting spaces was fun when they were young.

Over the years we have purchased hundreds of reading books. We actually discovered used book stores when the kids were young because we just couldn’t keep them in books. As the kids learned to read, they went through every book the library had that kids could read themselves. They read everything we had bought them and so we began visiting the used book store. Any gift giving holiday the kids knew they could expect at least a couple of books.

My final suggestion is an assortment of age appropriate art supplies. You can buy crayons, markers and paints. As my kids got older they also began loving rubber stamps. They loved making their own cards and wrapping paper with rubber stamps.

We almost always skipped the newest advertised fad and instead chose the educational and creative toys on the market.

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In the world of International Adoption, Guatemala is one of the most popular and least regulated Countries. Last year there were estimated to have been 1,500 Guatemalan Children and Babies who have started fresh lives abroad, but the spectre of Illegal Adoptions have haunted Guatemala for years. Stories have emerged of mothers being forced to give up their new born children and of a booming private adoption business that has now grown almost into a multi million pound industry.

One of the key questions to look into is, are illegal adoptions taking place and if so how widespread is the practice? Finally, what is in the best interests of the Children of Guatemala?
“With Overseas adoption, what is in the best interests of the children of Guatemala?”

Whilst organisations, such as UNICEF, do not claim that all of the overseas adoptions coming out of Guatemala are illegal or abusive, a new report issued from the organisation does highlight the increasing problem of child trafficking.

“Overseas adoption arose directly out of Guatemala’s harrowing history.”

Overseas Adoptions and International adoption arose directly out of Guatemala’s harrowing history. The 36 year civil war - which ended officially only four years ago - left nearly a quarter of a million dead or disappeared and one million homeless, half of them children.

Elizabeth Gibbons is the director of UNICEF, and a leading critic of adoption as practised in Guatemala:

‘Many, many orphaned children were taken into adoption by military officers - sent into international adoption. Originally a humanitarian activity, but it became obvious that it had the potential for being a lucrative business. And the higher demand in the West - the more birth control, more access to abortion - so you have the problem of a huge demand, therefore a supply must be created.’

In recent years there has been a tightening up of controls in many of the major embassies and the UK, US and Canadian embassies now carry out DNA tests of both the birth mother and the baby to check out that the woman giving the baby up for adoption is the real birth mother.

‘The existence of DNA doesn’t in any way tell you whether the mother is willingly giving up the child or whether she is being coerced. The second concern is that the children who pass the DNA test are not the same ones who go with the adopting parents on the plane, they could be switched. And thirdly, that the child who is rejected for having a negative DNA result by one of three embassies that offer this test, can then be offered to another embassy with parents of a another nationality.’

‘No one respects the law or the state; everybody just does their own thing. And it’s the same with adoptions’

So with all of this abuse of the system going on, why hasn’t the government of Guatemala done anything to stop it. The general consensus is that Guatemala is in chaos with the country, now a fledgling democracy, only just emerging from under the shadows of years of Military rule

Guatemala is a difficult place from which to operate from and it is very hard to know who is in charge of what. There doesn’t appear to be a Minister in charge of Social Affairs and Adoption is very much bottom rung on the ladder.

The Chair of the Commission on the Child and the Family in the Guatemalan Parliament is Nineth Montenegro who is a vigorous critic of her own system and is campaigning to pass the “The Children’s Code” to protect the rights of the Child in Guatemala explains:

‘We’ve been working on it for three years now and parliament still hasn’t passed it. They say, if we try to regulate adoption in this way we will deny children better opportunities in wealthier countries. There has been terrible resistance to the new law. You know Guatemala is a democracy only in name, not a real democracy.

No one respects the law or the state; everybody just does their own thing. And it’s the same with adoptions.’

Part Two of this article will deal with the fun and games (euphemism for hassle) of dealing with Lawyers and Orphanages

Starting your children off with a right view of finances is so important these days - especially when debt seems to be a common way of life for so many. Who knows if the young parents of today were ever taught such a vital lesson in life as being able to properly manage their finances. Perhaps their lives would have been so much different. We can never know - and can never change it. We can, however, change the way our own children look at money. Here are some important lessons to teach your children about such an important subject - their money.

1. Money Does Not Grow On Trees

Children do not understand, at least not at first, that there is not an unlimited supply of money at the bank, or on the credit card. If they see something they want to buy, you will often hear “Why don’t you put it on the credit card?”; or, “Write a check!” To them, who only see you pay for your purchases in this way, they do not understand that you have to pay for it sometime. Explain to them the process that they can only buy what you have money to pay for - somewhere.

2. Saying “No” To Some Unnecessary Things

One of the most valuable lessons a child can learn is to willingly choose to say “No” to some purchases - even if they want it. One of the greatest incentives a child can be given to do this is because something better can be obtained if they will save a little longer for it - and wait. Do not give them money every time they want it - this teaches them that there is a bottomless supply - when there isn’t.

3. It Is Important To Save

Besides saving for something that they really want, which is a good reason in itself, teach them to save for unexpected things. For instance, if they receive a regular allowance, or, are working after school and earning some money on their own, teach them to put aside a regular percentage - say 10-15%.

4. Comparison Shopping

Let your children know that there is a vast difference in the quality of similar products. There is also more than one place that sells most items, and somewhere there may be a better deal. Show them that by looking around, and waiting a little longer, they may be able to get the item they really wanted, and be able to have a little money left over.

5. Establish A Budget

Once your child is receiving a regular amount of money, you will want to show them how to plan for a wise use of that money. Help them to know how to set money aside for basically three different things: money to spend now, money for special purchases that require savings, and long-term savings.

6. Teach Them About Credit Cards

Credit cards and checking accounts are similar in that they provide ease of purchase, but without the necessity of carrying cash. Your children only see you handing over the plastic, or another piece of paper. But they never see that cash is involved - it is behind the scenes to them. Show them how that you must pay monthly for both and that you should never buy more than what you can afford - except for some larger purchases - because the bills for it will come!

7. Give Regularly To Good Causes

Probably one of the greatest joys that a child can have in the use of their own money is the joy that comes from willingly giving their money to causes greater than themselves. By learning to give some of their money often to causes such as their church, or a charity, they learn that their money can be a blessing to others, and it will prevent a stingy and selfish outlook on life and on their money.

Attachment parenting is a new parenting fad and its number of devotees are growing. This style of parenting places children at the centre of the mother-child relationship and flies in the face of how we have raised kids for thousands of years.

Attachment parenting means kids are breastfed until they choose to stop - four, five, six years of age. It doesn’t matter. They stopped when they want - no weaning please.

Attachment parenting means kids are not nappy or potty-trained. Mothers do the toiletting not the kids. They poo and pee when and where they want.

Attachment parenting means that the child sleeps with his mother, while their father is relegated to another room. Those who practise attachment parenting put their lives on hold.

For thousands of years we have raised kids to fit in with family or group norms. Healthy child-rearing is about children fitting in, rather than the other way around.

Developmentally, kids are required to grow away from the parents. Attachment parenting stops them from separating and makes children helpless and dependent on parents for longer than necessary.

Healthy families know a child’s place in the person, partner and parenting triangle. When we put the person first (yes, you do have a life) and the partner second (if you have a partner you nurture this relationship) we have the ideal conditions to be an effective parent. Attachment parenting denies the person a life of their own and places the mother-father relationship at the periphery rather than the centre of the family.

Attachment parenting reminds me of another child-centred fad - permissive parenting - that was similarly misguided and had disastrous results.

It is negligent to practise such unresearched fads on children.