Are we normal??

After a full and stressful day at work, going from meeting to meeting, I find myself driving home listening to talksport and remembering that the Mighty Leeds United play tonight.  Excited, I pull over and phone my other half....

"what time will you be home tonight?"  I say

"I'll be setting off shortly, not going to the gym now, not feeling too well so gonna come home and have a bath.  Why?" he says.

"Leeds are playing tonight and I wanted to know if I could watch in peace..... I was also hoping you might bring me some beer home to watch the match with??!!"

"Not a chance" he says.

Cut to 7:30pm...

"are you going up yet?" I say

"Yes, I'm going now"

"Good, I can put the footy on now"

I then put the football on, while the other half goes for a nice relaxing bubble bath!!

While he is soaking his weary bones I am downstairs shouting at the TV..........

I'm pretty sure this is the wrong way round......

Christmas, the season of good will.....

It's early morning and the kids are excited that the big man has visited.
You lie in bed and wait til you can get in the bathroom
You jump out of bed, make your way to the bathroom and then return so you can begin Christmas morning...
Sound familiar???  How about if I explained it more....
It's early morning and the kids are excited that the big man has visited.  I am in a blind panic wondering if they will notice that all their toys come from the pound shop or the charity shop... I just don't want to let them down.
You lie in bed and wait til you can get in the bathroom.  All the other residents are using the bathroom, I am not sure who is in their and don't want to be seen by them in my bed clothes, especially if they are a man.
You jump out of bed, make your way to the bathroom and then return so you can begin Christmas morning... I am literally running down the corridor to the bathroom to get in next and to avoid other residents as they scare me.

Is this how you would like to spend Christmas Morning?  No, I didn't think so, but this is the reality for a lot of people this Christmas.
More and more families and children will be waking up in temporary accommodation, a refuge (if they are the lucky ones) or on the streets.  There is a staggering amount of children (75,000) who will be homeless this year.
Some of these children will be there because their parents have been made redundant and subsequently lost their family home.
Some will be there because they have been evicted from their home.
Some will be there because one of their parents may be fleeing domestic violence, imagine going to your local housing department thinking you will get help, you explain that you are currently staying with your family but you can't stay there as there just isn't enough room for you and your children, you have been asked to leave.  You tell them this and they try and find you a hostel, you get promised a place, when they phone you to complete the risk assessment you are turned down because you are pregnant.  It's now 5pm and the housing department are shut, you are forced to stay another night where you are not wanted, the next morning you go through the same thing, again you are denied a place in hostel because you have too many children. You repeat this process, and all the time you are slowly sinking into depression and beginning to feel like you don't belong anywhere.... maybe you should return to your abuser at least you will have a roof and that's got to be better right??  Anyway, you stick it out another night, and you don't get a hostel but are given a B&B for the NIGHT (you have to repeat the performance the next day), you go as it seems a better option, however, when you arrive you realise you are surrounded by alcoholics/drug users... what do you do?? (This is a true scenario)

These families need protecting and supporting.  Please help them.

Roofless vs Homeless

Whilst at work today, where I am a Family Support Worker, I was supporting a friend to help a relative of their's complete an application to the local Foyer.  This is a supported accommodation for young people aged 16-25yrs.  Whilst filling it out, it asked what his housing status was.  I was surprised to see the following terms and definitions:

□ Roofless (sleeping rough / on the streets) 

□ Homeless (e.g. living with friends / family but temporarily or on a sofa)

□ Difficulty with current accommodation (e.g. harassment/disrepair) 

□ Fleeing violence / Unsafe address 

□ Threatened with homelessness (e.g. told to leave home / notice to leave from landlord)

I guess for me it was the first one that puzzled me.  Most people think of homeless as being the 'sleeping rough/on the streets definition, I know I did.  When talking to people and they said that they were homeless it never occurred to me that the definitions had changed and there for when they sought housing from the local authority were they giving them the correct phrase to show their current housing situation??

How many of you, if you were in that situation, would know to describe your situation as Roofless rather than homeless?

We need more men.......

I was disappointed to read that men are less likely to go into Childcare because of the possibility of being labeled a Peadophile.  This not only shocks me to the core but also worries me that we live in such a narrow minded society.

It stated that it wasn't the other childcare professionals that they were worried would pass judgement but the wider society.  I ask you, what would you think if you took your children to nursery and were told their 'Keyworker' was a man?

I would like to think that most parents would be welcoming and professional with males within a setting and not automatically jump to any wrong conclusions.

Children who access nurseries deserve to have the best holistic care that can be provided by the setting.  Children should have positive male role models in their lives, for some children, the men in the setting would be the only male role models they have.

I like to think that we, as a society, would not pass judgement on men who choose to make childcare their profession.  We don't after all pass judgement on men who work within primary schools.... what is the difference?

I used to teach childcare and as the years we went on more and more young men decided to take up the career.  These young men were keen to do their best for the children in their care and wanted to make a success of their careers.  Yes, they got ridiculed by their friends for doing 'a womens job' and being 'puffs', but they stuck to it and the nurseries, parents and children embraced them.

The young men were very keen to learn how to protect themselves from allegations of abuse and this was sad.  Why should these young men, who have done nothing wrong AND have been through a CRB check with no history of any offences, be keen to learn how to protect themselves?  It just shows exactly where we are nowadays and how judgmental some of us are.

Lest we forget that more recently some women have been arrested and charged with children's sexual offences.  It is NOT just men who abuse children.

Men should be embraced in childcare, they give our children different experiences for bonding and relationship building and provide those with no male role models the one thing they need.

Just another bad hair day! When Parents should override their children's wishes

While having yet another bad hair day (Sorry Donna if you read this - my hairdresser!!), I started thinking whether this was something I inherited or something I learnt from growing up.

Titch, my own flesh and blood, has perfect hair.  Hair we would all want, it is super blonde, has natural curls/waves that just fall so perfectly and even looks fab when she gets out of bed..... It's just not fair!!

I on the other hand grew up with hair like this:

Now in these pictures, not only do I have bad hair, I have bad clothes and bad glasses.  I asked my Mum WHY she would even let me out of the house dressed like this... her reply: "because you wanted them"

At what point should a parent override their children's wishes for how they want their hair and what they want to wear???

Good Mummy or Bad Mummy? Little white lies at Christmas

So this is what Titch (Aka my little girl) came home from school with today:

Imagine my surprise when I read the outside of the card and then opened it up for the inside (second pic).  What's so surprising I hear you say....
Titch's room is a TIP!!  She is your average 4yrs old and has toys EVERYWHERE.

Let me explain....

A few weeks ago, Titch and The Boy (Aka, my little boy as if you hadn't guessed) who is 6yrs old had all their toys removed from their bedrooms and "thrown away".  Now don't get me wrong, this wasn't some moment of madness and extreme parenting, this was a long fueled stand off between the kids and us (well me) about tidying their bedrooms.  After months, and I mean MONTHS, of tidying up after them and asking them to keep their toys in their boxes and put them away etc I reached the end of my tether.  After the tenth time of asking them to tidy up, I marched upstairs with bin liners and started "throwing out" their toys.  I even got The Boy to help put his in the bags, I then told them I had thrown them out so now they had no toys left. I secretly hid them upstairs in my bedroom... see I'm not THAT mean.

Anyway in the spirit of Christmas, which if you've read my previous blog I am not in favour of it starting before December but a little white lie won't hurt right?, I informed the kids that if they were really good in school and managed to keep their bedrooms tidy (by this time they had, somehow, accumulated some toys) then Santa had told me that his Elves had rescued their toys from the bin and will drop them off to see if they can look after them.  If they can show him they can then they will get some presents at Christmas (horrible Mum I hear you shout).

IT WORKED!! albeit briefly, but nonetheless it worked and I had two tidy bedrooms, so last weekend the 'Elves' visited while everyone was out and left their toys.

This was obviously my reward for helping her, see I AM a good Mummy.

When is it too early for Christmas??

As a person who adores the 'holiday', or Christmas as it will always be known in my household, period I have been questioning: When is it too early for Christmas?

I know  a lot of people out there will be of similar mind to me, Christmas happens in DECEMBER!!!  The build up is great and the planning and preparing does need to start earlier than December granted, however, the decorations DO NOT!

At the beginning of November people were seen to be putting their Christmas decorations UP, yes, in their homes they were putting their tree and all their trimmings up....... now I ask you, what is that all about??

So when is the right time to start putting up decorations?
I have one friend who puts her decorations up before her son's birthday so that it's all magical for him, a brilliant idea I hear you saying and to be honest I thought what a wonderful idea until I found out when his birthday was.... beginning of NOVEMBER!!!  Surely anyone in their right mind would get bored of seeing their Christmas tree for 2 months.  Also, does this dampen the excitement for the child? after all he does have 50 days to wait for the big man to come down the chimney.

Shops put their decorations up just after bonfire night which I get, they have to maximise their sales.  But do we need to be sucked into that?  I admire people that are saying they have completed their Christmas shopping and written their cards.... well done you!!  I like to think I am organised for Christmas, in that I know which family member we are going to for lunch on the day and other parties we have to attend, I have also put a deposit on the boy's bike and that, my friend, is as far as it goes. Every year I say I will begin my shopping earlier, I will buy my cards and wrapping paper in the January sales, I will be prepared but to no avail and probably to the disgust of my former Girl Guide Leader I failed in my promise to 'Be Prepared'

After all these musings and thoughts I still don't when it's too early for Christmas!!!

Time to remember our children ARE CHILDREN!!

Ok, so I don't profess to know everything but I am passionate about some things and Child Protection is one!! 
I have attached an article about the Deputy Children's Commissioner speaking about the recent grooming incident in Rochdale. This is not just about the grooming and the welfare systems in place in this country, yes there are drastic changes that need to be made, and this incident was horrific and never should have got to the scale that it did but it can only change by the government releasing more money to support local authorities/support agencies to provide the support that is needed and train professional and competent staff who can tackle these issues without the red tape that is currently in place.  Children's Social Care need to have enough trained, quality social workers in place to be able to deal with the growing numbers of children in need in this country.  There needs to be an easy referral route into Social Care and the thresholds in place need to be re-aligned in order to meet the needs of the children and young people we are striving to protect and look after.

As an aside to this issue we, as parents and a society have to now look at our young people and the images that they see.  I truly believe that our young people are being 'sexualised' far too early and the 'popstars' and 'celebrities' (and I use that in the loosest term possible) of today are NOT good role models for our children and young people.  If you look at children's magazines and TV, even clothes nowadays they are all about being 'sexy' and looking good... what's that about???
I have a 4 year old girl and I intend to keep her as a 'little girl' as long as possible.  She does NOT have crop tops, high heels and clothes that are beyond her years!!  These children are desperate to grow up and why??  Are we not allowing our children to be CHILDREN anymore? Are parents wanting their children to grow up quicker to make their lives easier??  I'm not sure.  What I do know is this doesn't help our young people when there are people out there who see them as sexual objects from such a young age.
I only hope that things change and children can be children again!!

http://www.newstank.co.uk/headline-news/england-child-abuse-report-thousands-raped-abused/03864/