Author: Scottish Mum
The Tweeny Teen Effect with Social Media
Teens are infuriating, and tweens and teens who don’t follow house rules are even more infuriating.
There are times when I wonder if I was hit with a forgetting stick the day that I decided having kids would be a good idea. In among all the good and the not so good comes the infinitely worse growing up stage where they assert their growing limbs with the determination of a dog with a bone.
Arriving home late every night doesn’t stop them deciding that parents came from outer space with ten heads, geeky glasses and the uncool stick strapped to their heads as babies. They never remember that we were once kids ourselves, and know EXACTLY what it’s like to have peer pressure, little crushes and huge anxieties.
Watching eldests Facebook is how I keep tabs on what he is doing. Yes, I allowed Facebook because the alternative was to say no, and have him set one up at a friend’s house that I had no knowledge of at all.
I’ve mentioned this before, and have been pilloried for allowing my child to be on Facebook at all, yet, I look at his friends list and see very few kids who don’t have an account. Even children whose parents have told me their kids aren’t allowed Facebook are there in all their self taken seductively photographed glory.
What worries me most is watching how some scenarios play out. I delete inappropriate things and I can talk him through some of the things that happen, and I think we’re doing quite well with it. Kids seem to be going online earlier and earlier and I’ve seen some very young children online.
I’ve spoken to parents recently who think their kids don’t have any social media accounts, but the reality is that if we don’t allow them, the parents of other kids will make those decisions for us and allow them to use it there.
I’ve heard too many parents say they don’t understand it all, or totally blast social media without the slightest idea of what it’s all about. By law of averages, anyone reading my blog is likely to be reasonably technically aware and responsible, but how sad that so many don’t take an interest in their kids online activities.
Do you allow your children to use social media? If you don’t, how do you know they don’t have accounts that you don’t know about? Do you approve of social media for kids? These are questions that all parents who are able to need to tackle.
I think our schools should be teaching our kids about the Internet from a much earlier age than they do. We can’t stop our kids accessing inappropriate content, but we can help them to deal with it when they come across it. The Internet and it’s good and bad points is not going to go away. We all have a responsibility to all our kids to help them cope with it. We tell them not to talk to strangers on one hand, but many of us let them talk to anyone they want to online.
From an early age our kids can negotiate parental controls, history deletion and sneaking on with smartphones on friends wi-fi systems.
Isn’t it time that parents who don’t use social media, or don’t approve of the Internet got with the programme and actually learned what it’s all about so they can help their kids with it instead of burying their heads in the sand and thinking it will all go away.
A Trip Down Memory Lane. It’s Messy.
My boys are fine for pictures of the early days of their adoption going online. I don’t mind as they are completely unrecognisable now and they love to look through some of them. I will always regret not having a decent camera when they were little and always being so busy that I rarely found time to take any pictures.
The kids arrived and we just got on with it. They were foster children as a last minute favour placement while we looked for our own family children and we thought they would be moving on. They settled in really quickly and just took over. When social services and the courts decided they were to go up for adoption, it just didn’t seem right to ask them to move on.
It took the dog a while to adjust and I love the picture of her sizing up the noisy thing in front of her. They used to cuddle up with the little one fast asleep in her stomach and I so wish I had managed to get some pictures of that.
There’s not much difference here is there? How much effort does it take to use the spare room for a cat before the kids arrived, and then sleep anywhere you drop once the kids arrive.
Those were the days that the animals were young, fit and healthy.
And the last time that mum was a fit healthy gym bunny with plenty time on her hands that evaporated with the arrival of the boys. I have no photos of me at the moment and I hate meeting people who knew me a few years ago. I look nothing like this now, but you won’t see a pic of me online 🙂
The early days when we had a party with sweet treats, before the days we knew they were laden with bad stuff that send you bananas. Yes, I know that colour is well out of date, those walls are almost white now and the wrecked table and chairs saw the skip long ago.
What that sugar rush led to.
Review: How Cool Are Your Trainers
I don’t know about everyone else, but when my boys get their feet in a pair of trainers, they really don’t last for terribly long. The hardwearing ground they pound daily – along with endless hard leather ball kicking takes its toll on cheap trainers, and they tend to last less than a fortnight.
Along with tree climbing, scooter ground trailing and plain old kick your heels off the chair trauma, it’s no wonder that we tend to through loads of pairs of the things.
I was the typical bad mum at the start of winter. After buying a fresh pair of supermarket trainers for one of my boys, I put his foot clothing out of my mind, only to be faced with a tough nut of a friends mother phoning me a few days later and giving me a hard time over the state of his trainers that had come apart from the sole to the heel and flapped as he walked.
Mortified, I went to pick him up and found him with trainers so badly used that they looked like they were more than 6 years old, let alone the 6 days old that they actually were. I don’t know who those trainers were made for, but it wasn’t for active kids.
I try, whenever I can to get a pair that I know are going to last the test of time. Our local Clarks store in the Mothercare branch stop at size 2, so I’d got out of the habit of looking for Clarks shoes, although I think my kids lived in them until they outgrew the sizes in our local shop.
Being offered a pair of Clarks to try for my eldest was a lovely chance to try the old kind of shoes we used to buy for the kids. He chose the In-Play Blue Combi Sports Shoes and he seemed tickled pink to get trainers like he used to wear as a wee tootie.
They arrived really quickly, and somehow I have managed to lose the PR’s e-mail address so I am sorry for not being able to thank her in person.
Eldest is chuffed to bits as they have strong toes which are perfect for playing footie with.
He’s tickled pink as the shoes are really very trendy and the bright colours sit well with him.
Now I know it’s easy enough to order from their website, I can see there will be some more Clarks coming back into our house.
I’ve actually missed them this last couple of years as they lasted so well when my kids were little, so I really would like to hug the PR, but unfortunately, I can’t get back in touch. If you know her, could you point her in my direction so I can say thanks.
Disclaimer: We were sent Clarks In Play Blue Combi Leather Sports Shoes to Review
Silent Sunday – 19 May 2013
Featured: House Renovations on a Budget
It’s the easiest thing in the world to ignore things in our homes when they begin to start looking a little tired and drab. Our homes should be places that we can relax, unwind and simply get ourselves back into the right frame of mind to move on with the next days, weeks and months of our lives.
It would be fantastic if we could sit in the middle of luxurious surroundings and gorgeously sumptuous carpets to sink our toes into, but we can’t all have those privileges. As lucky as we are to have a nice house and a family to fill it, there are things that I would like to change about it. I can’t see it happening until the kids leave home, and that’s not likely to happen any time soon.
I love my kitchen, which I did on a budget by buying all the pieces separately on the Internet and getting them sent to me. It already needs a freshen up and a repaint and I regret not getting my granite backsplash higher up the wall, but I’m stuck with it now. I have two of these blinds in my kitchen and they were £28 each from B&Q. They look much more expensive.
I know I am lucky to have a decent kitchen to make food for my family with, and shopping around was the only way we could afford to do it. As usual, labour costs tend to make things very expensive, but it’s also worth shopping around for those too.
Our homes are the biggest expense that we are ever likely to make, and doing the maintenance is important to get them to increase in value, or even just maintain its value, depending on where we live.
In reality, there is always something to change, fix, repair or replace as our tastes change and develop and home improvements can cost a bomb. To keep home maintenance to a premium, so many of us forget to keep things like our gutters cleaned out or drains clear and they are always worth doing to stop future problems further down the line.
There are ways we can look for savings to help us with our renovation needs, whether we need to call in professionals or not. I did my front lounge on a budget last year and was so pleased how it came out. I just have to move onto some more rooms one by one.
Competitions
There are lots of them. Some brands carry them and entering is usually quite easy.
Home and Garden Exhibitions
If one comes to your area, it’s worth going. Some brands might carry giveaways or have some good tips to help change your home on a budget.
Internet Searches
When I got my granite worktops, I had mine priced by kitchen and DIY companies locally, then went on and got them for less than half that price from a company in England who came up and fitted them bespoke. It was well worth it.
New Year Sales
If I plan to buy any furniture, I always plan to buy just after New Year. It’s amazing the savings and offers that come up on the 1st of January. When we bought the suite in our family room, it fluctuated between £1600 – £1800 the four times we went to look at it, but on the 1st January, we got the same thing which was a corner suite with two reclining chairs, an extra TV unit and an extra chair for £1200. The wait was well worth it.
DIY
There are things you can do on a budget. I rarely have anyone come in to do any painting for us. Maybe that’s why the whole house is now in need of a refresh from top to bottom, but I will get there in the end. I’m a bit of an all thumbs person when it comes to making things for soft furnishings like curtains, blinds and cushions, but some people find they have the equivalent of green fingers once they start. If you don’t try, you’ll never know.
This is a featured post.
Sticky BBQ Chicken, Cherry Tomatoes & Cucumber
Much easier than it looked, I think I’m now hooked on cooking in the bag. This time round, I bought Maggi So Juicy to try it, but after seeing it is a Nestle product and knowing the boycott around them for the advertising campaigns at mothers in third world countries to get them to buy baby formula, I doubt I’ll buy it again. My next attempt will just be a roasting bag with herbs and spices in it.
I didn’t see anything to worry me on the ingredients list, although I’d have preferred to do without the Maltodextrin if it was at all possible.
All there is to it, is to open the top, take out the bag and pop your chicken into it. Then shake the seasoning into the bag, tie the end with the clip provided and turn the bag over and over until all the seasoning coats the chicken.
I used chicken breasts from my favourite online butcher. I forgot to pierce the 4 small holes in the top of the bag, but it didn’t seem to do any damage. I added 5 whole chicken breasts to the pack and there was plenty of room for them to cook despite being huge.
The bag expands a fair bit so make sure you put it in the lower to middle of your oven, otherwise, you could end up like me with the top of the bag sticking to the upper rack and having to peel it off.
Thankfully the bag stood up to a fair bit of punishment all in all, and I did spend longer cooking it than was recommended on the pack. I cooked for an hour, whereas the recipe said 30 – 40 minutes for drumsticks. I reasoned that the big chicken breasts would take longer to cook and they came out just perfectly.
I served with Potato fritters, cherry tomatoes and cucumber.
My next job is to try it without the ready made herbs and spices.
Children And The Music Machines
Who really stops and thinks when they’re passwording their Internet and thinking they’re being clever by saying their kids can’t get access to anything untoward in our homes? I remember duly locking down my kids Facebook, our browsers and the Apple gadgets, only to be faced with an afternoon of gyrating by way of our TV music channels.
The idea amongst our Film and Music video producers seems to be focussed on selling sex to our minors as a way of enticing them to spend money and time on their music. Watching the videos and children gyrating in time to the beat in discos and kids parties is sometimes enough to make me gag and feel like throwing up my dinner.
The artists demean themselves by promoting junk while they pretend their music is not for anyone under a certain age. Why then, can I turn on the music channel any time of day and be confronted by scantily clad women and men pouting and birling to the tune of suggestive content? Most of these artists made their name from the kids who they now profess not to be singing for, and wouldn’t be far short of being thrown off the top shelf in a newsagents.
In 2011, the Guardian reported that music videos faced a “crackdown over sexualised content with a Government report into sexualisation of childhood set to propose tougher regulations on retail, advertising and video industry.” Rhianna was reported to allegedly be “unrepentant for filming a music video in which she shoots someone who raped her.”
How on earth do you explain the likes of her S&M Video to kids who have no idea that grown ups even have a sex life? I remember a friend running from my kitchen to the family room like a demented banshee when she heard the opening bars to Sexy and I Know It coming on to the TV early on a Sunday afternoon. It’s not one of the worst videos I’ve seen, but no parent should have to feel like that when it was the kids who bought that music in their droves.
While there may be some inroads into the regulations and ratings for music videos, I’m not fully aware of how far these have gone, and I still feel uncomfortable watching the world of usually female artists plying their wares and looking for sales on the back of the sexualised content of their videos.
As a child, I don’t remember any of this type of thing, and music channels and videos were usually restricted to Top of the Pops and not much else.
Turn on music channels now and we’re likely to be faced with as much content that would have gone on behind closed doors and been tagged as adult content a few years ago. How do we explain the coverage of 50 Shades of Grey and what S&M is to our kids when they’re not that long out of nappies?
It’s not like kids even have a choice. They might like a tune, and they might want to listen to an artist without having sex rammed down their throats. Do artists and their publicists not realise that kids shouldn’t be exposed to pornographic content over their marshmallows and cake pops?
It’s all for money, but our artists really are selling themselves short. In a fad for Rhianna and Eminem, the explicit versions were downloaded by more than a handful of kids at my boys schools, yet these are the same kids that keep their wallets fat and their platinum albums spinning on their precarious tops.
It’s done deliberately. Why else would Madonna still be gyrating to music and wearing clothes fit for teens, while she’s old enough to be the grandmother of most of the people buying her music?
I don’t let my kids buy anything with explicit content, but their friends will let them see it anyway.
Aren’t we meant to be the adults?
Aren’t the adults meant to be the ones protecting our young and keeping them safe, comfortable and protected?
If we stop buying the music from artists who seem to be promoting gratuitous porn, maybe our kids will be more protected with videos that are more suitable for both granny and child to watch in comfort. I want to choose what my kids watch, and not have it rammed down their throats by the music industry, whichever dentist surgery has MTV on while my kids sit in their chair, or the shop in town bumping out the tunes to show how great the clarity of the new HD TV’s are.
Our music industry certainly seems chained to values that are designed to maximise profit, but is it too much to ask for our kids to just be kids, and for parents to know that our kids aren’t watching things they shouldn’t at young ages?
Mango, Orange, Pineapple, Apple & Passion Fruit Smoothie
So refreshing and even tempts my little one to drink some goodness in a glass. He likes it to come out a bit like how Costco smoothies do, and I think McDonalds do a fruit smoothie with mango and one with strawberry and banana that seems to be getting more popular with kids nowadays.
Ingredients
Method
- Peel and chop the fruit roughy.
- Put all the fruit and crushed ice into a blender until smooth.
- Add some ice into a glass and pour the smootie on top to keep it extra cold.
Silent Sunday – 12 May 2013
Where are the missing kids? #blogging4madeline
I am taking part in the #blogging4madeline campaign this year. Yes, I can just hear some of you sigh, begin to switch off and think about clicking away, but just wait a minute and spare a few minutes for the kids who have all gone missing, including Ben Needham, April Jones and many other nameless and faceless children. What if they were your children?
If your children had been taken, no matter what the circumstances, would you click away then?
This isn’t about the parents, or the press, or the stories of who did or didn’t do anything right or wrong.
It’s about the children and nobody else.
I have watched people crucifying April Jones parents for having her out playing late at night, or the McCann parents for leaving the children alone, but neither of those things changes the facts that the kids are still missing. I think that we would all clutch at hope of any kind if our children went missing. I’ve accepted that I don’t have to agree with what parents might or might not have done to offer my support with helping to find those missing kids.
I’m posting for the kids.
Madeleine went missing from Praia da Luz, Portugal on Thursday 3rd May 2007.
I agreed to join the blogging4madeleine campaign to raise awareness that Madeleine McCann is still missing and to spread the word about her and the other missing children around the world. There are thousands of children missing from the UK, but far too few people know about any of them.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (run by the police) operates a website called Missing Kids UK that shows many of the children who are missing. I’ve added their widget to my blog footer. If you want to add the same as mine which is smaller than theirs, the code is.
<iframe width=”150″ height=”195″ src=”http://www.missingkids.co.uk/widgets/missingkidscrawidget.aspx” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>
Why are we posting now?
- Children deserve not to be forgotten.
- There are thousands of British children missing.
- Madeline McCanns birthday is the 12th May 2013. She would have been 10 years old.
- The 25th May is International Missing Childrens Day. Get involved over on Facebook.
Contact information to report any sightings or information of Madeleine and other missing children.
- Your local police force immediately, AND
- +44 845 838 4699 or investigation@findmadeleine.com
- OR Crimestoppers in confidence on 0800 555111
- OR www.crimestoppers-uk.org
This is what Madeline could have looked like at age 9.
If you’re interested in joining the #Blogging4Madeleine campaign please contact CJ from A Mummy’s View blog via Twitter, Facebook or by emailing amummysview@gmail.com.
I’ll leave you with part of the message from Kate McCann on her website which stated that most children who are missing in the way Madeline was are for sexual exploitation. I found the statement she made further on very disturbing.
“What are the benefits for our children of being in a European Union where several member countries offer child pornography as a LEGAL past time? The most vulnerable members of our society are our children and they deserve better than this. Lack of sex offender registers, lack of reliable tracking systems for known offenders and no CRB check requirements , not even for those working with children are other major areas of concern within many parts of Europe. My eyes have certainly been opened to a whole new world out there – a very worrying one.”
Why and How to Steam Vegetables
Although we can create steaming recipes which also include meat, poultry and fish, I am going to concentrate on vegetables for this post.
It has taken me a long time to be convinced of the goodness that steaming vegetables gives. We can steam in our microwaves, in our specialised pots, or with our stand alone steamers, but the results are all the same.
What is Steaming?
The goodness of our fresh vegetables for our growing families is kept intact, and compliments any meal.
Steamed vegetables are full of nutrition, and quick and easy to get to our tables as accompaniments to our meals.
Learning how to steam vegetables is sensible. I wish I had cottoned onto this method in my twenties and not my late 30’s. There’s no fat used, no added calories, and the vegetables can remain crispy and crunchy if that’s how you prefer yours to be.
Basically, it is really using steam to cook vegetables and not actually putting the vegetables into water to cook.
Blanching retains more nutrients than basket steaming, but at home here we have a steamer that has 3 separate compartments.
Vegetables take different times to cook, so I find myself putting on the root vegetables first and adding ones that take less time to cook, ie broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus spears etc much later.
How to Steam Vegetables
Blanching
If you are blanching in a pan, it is most suited to green vegetables and needs the water heated with a good amount of water first. Approximately 1.5 – 2 litres of water for enough greens for about 6 people. Add some salt and bring to the boil. The salt helps the vegetables in the blanching process by helping raise the water temperature and keeping those vegetables delicious and nutritious. Most green vegetables will be ready in 30 – 60 seconds with this method.
Steamer Appliance
This specially made kitchen appliance is made just to steam food of all sorts. It can cook fish, chicken and much more and using it makes steaming vegetables really easy. We can buy steamers for a pittance nowadays so I’d probably say having one is a good addition to any kitchen. I have traditional steaming pots, but I have never, ever used them.
Steamers have a bottom section that contains a heating element. We fill that with water and that is where the steam is generated. The steaming baskets fit over the base and allow you to put your vegetables in for steaming.
My steamer has 3 baskets that can stack one on top of the other. With the steamer, you don’t have to worry about cooking your vegetables.
They tend to come with cooking instructions for different vegetables, with their times and suggestions to get the most out of your machine.
Pan Method
With the double boiler set up (ie a pan within a pan) you add water in the lower layers and bring that to a boil. The steam builds up pressure and cooks the vegetables in a pot that sits above the actual water. This isn’t how I would steam my vegetables as I’d not trust myself to have unburned veges, but it’s how my grandmother used to do them.
If we don’t have a steamer, and we want steamed vegetables, it does do the job, so read on if you want to know how to steam vegetables in a pot.
You need a nice big pot and it needs to be bigger than the vegetables that you plan to steam in it. Add a little water in the bottom, approximately an inch and boil the water. Add the vegetables when the water is boiled and most of them will be above the water line.
Make sure the water does not boil off, and add more boiling water from a kettle if you have to. Put on a tight fitting lid for the top to keep the steam in the pan, but preferably one with a little escape hole in the top.
Microwave
There are some very cheap steaming dishes for our microwaves these days. I got a fantastic one from lakeland. It works along the premise of a few tablespoons of water in the bottom, and the vegetables in the insert, that doesn’t sit in the water.
Microwaved vegetables done this way take around 5 minutes but the microwave is also cooking the vegetables along with the steaming, so the end result will be slightly different from using a pan or a steaming appliance.
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