Parent Pages information for families

Research by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) estimated the costs of providing an acceptable standard of living for a child until the age of 18 to be £143,000. That figure, which takes into account spend on items such as food, clothing, childcare and toys, rises to more than £155,000 for lone parent families. The [...]

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Olympic athletes can end up with medals and memories – but no qualifications for a future career, warned former athletes at London’s Olympic Park. “You can only ride for so long on your medals. Athletes can find it very hard to integrate after sports careers,” said sprinter Frank Fredericks. He was speaking at the launch [...]

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The school run is already stressful enough for most parents, and it can add £52 to the average family’s annual fuel bill. A combination of congested roads, cold starts and short journeys that don’t allow a car’s engine to warm up all contributed to poor fuel economy in tests carried out by What Car? on [...]

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William Shawcross, the biographer and journalist, defended the work of public schools such as Eton, where he was educated, insisting they provided “considerable public benefit”. During questioning from MPs, he brushed aside calls for private schools to be stripped of their special status – which brings millions of pounds of tax breaks – insisting that [...]

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A group of doctors, who have treated five toddlers in the past 18 months, said the liquitabs were a ‘significant public health issue’ and maufacturers needed to take urgent action to improve packaging. The doctors, from the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow, said the number of enquiries to a poisons information service about [...]

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An Australian doctor has been struck off after he prescribed a drug to ‘cure’ a teenager’s homosexuality. Mark Craddock, 75, from Sydney was found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct over his treatment of the 18-year-old in a 10-minute consultation at his home in 2008. Dr Craddock, who practised in the radiology field, and the patient [...]

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Secondary school maths lessons have changed little over time, with pupils still spending time copying down notes and listening to the teacher talk, a study has found. It reveals that maths classes in the 21st century still rely on traditional teaching methods, with little time for interactive activities, or chances for students to relate the [...]

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School children in Greeley, Colorado, are upset over an anti-gang policy that prohibits them from wearing football star Peyton Manning’s No. 18 jersey to class. Jerseys emblazoned with Manning’s name and number have been a huge seller throughout the state since the quarterback signed from the New York Giants during the off season. “They told [...]

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Nobody could ever say that Noah Kalina isn’t committed. Since the age of 19, the New York photographer has taken a photograph of himself every day for 12-and-a-half years. He began the Everyday project on January 11, 2000, and has recently released an extraordinary video showing 4,514 pictures of his face. In each one, he [...]

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The horror of mafia wife Maria Concetta Cacciola’s final days shocked even a country where tales of mobsters’ cruelty are ten-a-penny. In August 2010, she apparently decided that drinking a bottle of concentrated acid was preferable to the torture she was suffering at the hands of her mother, father and brother; the family with ‘ndrangheta [...]

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Researchers discovered that between the ages of six months and one year, small children learn what is absurdly funny by watching the reaction of their parents. A study of 30 children carried out by Dr Gina Mireault of Johnson State College and Dr John Sparrow at the University of New Hampshire, in America, involved recording [...]

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A four-year-old girl has been found hiding inside a British-registered car in which three bodies were discovered eight hours earlier, French police say. The three are thought to be British – a husband and wife, and a grandmother. They were found near Lake Annecy, a popular tourist destination. The girl had been under the legs [...]

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On Wednesday night in London’s Aquatic Centre Oliver did that and more, beating his big brother to gold on a night that saw British swimmers collect another six medals. Oliver and Sam, who both have the degenerative condition neuromuscular myopathy, which weakens their legs, had already emulated Olympic triathletes Alastair and Jonathan Brownlee by standing [...]

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A brave schoolboy has had 40 operations as doctors try to cure him of an eight-year headache. Football-mad Laughlan Dougall has suffered pains in his brain since the age of two after diagnosed with a frontal lobe arachnoid cyst – a growth that swells and causes pressure to build up in his skull. Since then [...]

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A mother died within hours of giving birth at home after a private midwife committed a horrifying catalogue of errors, an inquest heard. Claire Teague, 29, was left bleeding in bed after Rosie Kacary allegedly pulled out her placenta following the delivery. The midwife is also accused of failing to realise a large section of [...]

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If players receive repeated knocks to the head, causing concussion, they could be at a higher risk of developing different types of dementia in later years, according to the charity The Alzheimer’s Society. A new report from the US shows that former professional American football players have a markedly increased risk of neurological problems. The [...]

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The family of Kristen Fonseca, the 16-year-old girl killed in a jet-ski accident by an Australian tourist while they vacationed in Hawaii spoke of their anger as he was released today. Tyler Dagley, 20, pleaded no contest to third degree negligent homicide charges – a misdemeanor – and will be released due to time served [...]

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The thoughtful parents of twin boys who brought sweets, ear plugs and a kind note for the people on their cross country plane trip today explained why they went to such great lengths to appease their fellow passengers. Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Christina Diaz, 38, and Michael Rubinstein, 32, said the bemused travelers thought Ms [...]

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Bestselling author Judy Blume has revealed that she has been receiving treatment for breast cancer. Blume’s young-adult novels are famous for confronting issues including teen sex, masturbation and bullying at a time when people preferred to gloss over those issues. In her blog post, !@#$% Happens, Blume explains her response to the June diagnosis with [...]

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Maria spoke about her daily life to Save the Children, which has launched a campaign to target child poverty in the UK. I survive on food from food banks, and by selling things I own. I often go without meals, but always ensure Taiu eats. I’m told that families like mine normally spend £35 a [...]

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Birth control was a highly controversial subject whose advocates had braved public abuse and even prosecution. In 1877, for instance Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant were convicted of publishing “an obscene libel” for discussing birth control in their book The Fruits of Philosophy and sentenced to six months in prison. The sentence was quashed at [...]

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They are horrific pictures which show the brutality and destructiveness of war. As doctors battle to save injured children, blood runs through the streets of Aleppo in Syria following an air strike by government forces. Residents of the battered city are seen struggling to cope following the devastating attack. Grief stricken parents are pictured desperately [...]

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Canada has long been a welcoming destination for international students seeking the North American university experience. This vast country has some of the world’s most respected universities and they’re situated in lively cities and towns spread across a great natural environment. Today, around 10 per cent of Canada’s university population comes from abroad. Making the [...]

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The organiser of a children’s beauty pageant featuring a swimwear round and girls younger than two years old wearing make-up has defended it as harmless fun. The Miss Glitz Sparkle competition, held in Lincoln on Sunday, has been criticised by the charity Kidscape which said it was part of a “disturbing trend”. It was organised [...]

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The cartoonist looks at the influence a teacher might have had on Edward Hopper’s Early Sunday Morning, Hans Holbein’s The Ambassadors, Chris Burden’s 1971 performance piece Shoot and Marcel Duchamp’s The Large Glass via Peter Duggan’s Artoons: Is this the world’s best art teacher?? | Art and design | guardian.co.uk.

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It’s the first day of classes this week for thousands of Cuban youngsters, too, and Ramon Espinosa was there to capture a photoessay of the experience at Angela Landa school in Havana. Espinosa, a photographer for Associated Press, is also known for images taken in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake via Buzz and bother as [...]

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Parents of a baby girl whose heart stopped for four minutes believe she came back to life thanks to her great-grandfather who died just five days before from a heart attack in the same cubicle. Eloise Wilmshurst was discovered by father Michael in her cot at the family home in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, suffering a fit [...]

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A major British-based charity today launched its first campaign to help children in the UK. Save the Children said Britain’s poorest youngsters were bearing the greatest burden of the recession – having their parents go hungry to feed them, missing regular hot meals, unable to afford warm coats and new shoes and suffering enormous emotional [...]

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Concluding our magical series from the TV star of the Olympics, with a brutally honest account of the years she spent battling with her weight — and a doomed love affair with an Army officer. As I swung my leg over Respectable Jones, the horse I was riding in the 3.30 pm at Chepstow, I heard [...]

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We can’t escape the fact that maths skills are not only core to our understanding of other subjects but integral to the vitality of a modern economy. This assertion can lead to apprehension among teachers, pupils and parents alike; non-specialist primary school teachers who are concerned about gaps in their knowledge and students who are [...]

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The cost of raising a child to pre-secondary school age has risen to more than £90,000, figures reveal. The average annual cost of raising a child up to the age of 11 in Britain has increased by £1,085 in the past five years, up 15 per cent from £7,222 in 2007 to £8,307 in 2011, [...]

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School children in Estonia will be one step ahead of their UK counterparts in digital literacy this September as 100% of publicly educated students will learn to code. As part of a new education programme, ProgeTiiger, first graders this Autumn in pilot schools (starting from aged seven) will be able to sign up for classes [...]

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A group of pregnant women protested against proposals to close the maternity and A&E services at a south London hospital by daubing the message “Save St Helier” on their bumps. Kathy McGuinness, the founder of Carshalton Mums, who is helping lead the campaign, said: “The welfare of our unborn children is at risk and we [...]

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Last month, Suzy McLeod received the backing of more than half a million Facebook users after the airline charged her €300 (£236) to print out five boarding passes before a flight from Alicante to Bristol. Ms McLeod wrote on the social networking site: “I had previously checked in online but because I hadn’t printed out [...]

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A grandmother has become ‘trapped in World War Two’ after a police car ploughed into her back garden. The terrifying moment has sent Eileen Lee, 76, into shock and she now panics at the slightest noise. The grandmother now crouches on the ground with her hands over her head when she hears a noise, repeatedly [...]

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Dr Hilary Cass, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, called on the authorities to stop showing marketing for unhealthy food to reduce its influence on children. Current advertising regulations are too weak to prevent products that are high in salt, sugar and fat being promoted, Dr Cass said in an interview [...]

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I love my husband but I’m becoming increasingly frustrated by the extent to which I am the one who, despite working full-time, has to run the home and our children’s lives. He just doesn’t seem to notice or think about what needs doing. I look at my friends’ marriages and they don’t seem any different. [...]

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She’s recently signed up to be the face of Weight Watchers and is on a mission to shed the pounds after giving birth to her first baby. But like many new mothers, Jessica Simpson says she is finding the shrinking process a challenge. The 32-year-old singer gave birth to her daughter Maxwell Drew Johnson on [...]

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A mother with post-natal depression who attacked her seven-year-old daughter when the girl spilled nail varnish has been jailed for six months. A court at Llandudno heard that the child, who cannot be identified, could not breathe and begged her mother to stop after she gripped her neck. The mother, in her 30s, then told [...]

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“Everyone knows that writers send kids off to school to have unlikely adventures, and readers live lives of vicarious fun and horror. A teacher at my old school banned ‘school stories’, though. They were collectively preposterous, he said, because school was predictable, safe and filled to the brim with timetabled tedium. The teacher was cross [...]

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Film and entertainment giant Disney has threatened an independent British production company with legal action, claiming it is misleading consumers with a series of budget family DVDs which appear to be copycat versions of Disney’s own popular animated films. The Brighton-based firm, Brightspark Production Ltd, recently launched Braver, which Disney said was similar to its [...]

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The charity Save the Children, best known for helping some of the world’s poorest families, has launched its first appeal to help UK children. The charity says the UK’s poorest children are bearing the brunt of the recession, with some missing out on regular hot meals, new shoes or warm clothes. BBC Newsnight has spoken [...]

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Desperate times call for desperate measures, or so they say. But one couple have taken things to extremes by apparently embarking on a string of armed robberies with a baby in tow. The pair were caught on camera calmly smoking at a picnic table in Buckhead, Atlanta, before setting upon a 60-year-old man. Now, according [...]

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Cleansed of mascara, eyeshadow, lipstick and the body glitter used by her mother to make her tender young skin sparkle, Ocean Orrey looks like any other little girl. Yet a shiny pink sash hanging in her playroom, adorned with the words ‘Most Beautiful’, serves as a reminder of the four-year-old’s triumph at the Miss Glitz [...]

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Her last catwalk appearance may have been over 60 years ago, but Marion Finlayson looked as though she’d never been away as she made a triumphant return to the runway at the age of 80. The glamorous grandmother, who first modelled when she was a teenager before pursuing a career as a teacher, went down [...]

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A woman who was so anxious about giving birth she hired a private midwife bled to death after her placenta was “ripped out”, an inquest heard. Claire Teague, 29, hired independent midwife Rosie Kacary when she became pregnant for the second time in 2009 after she had lost one of her twins during an emergency [...]

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Changes to school careers guidance could put youngsters at greater risk of finding themselves out of education and work, research suggests. A new study raises concerns that the Government’s decision to axe the duty on local councils to provide a universal careers service could leave young people without the help they need to find jobs [...]

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Anthony Meyer, nine, his eight-year-old brother Lucas and friend Louis have been at the goalball. “It was quite interesting that they have no eyesight,” says Anthony, “and I thought I’d have a go covering my eyes and it is surprising how hard it is to go straight. I mean, it’s amazing. They play with their [...]

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A four-year-old girl has been found alive and unharmed hiding under the bodies of her mother, father and grandmother who were massacred in a car at a French alpine beauty spot. Police failed to spot the terrified youngster in the British-registered BMW car until midnight – eight hours after the shooting took place. A French [...]

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And without the 3G-connection upgrade, Dad says that tablet is essentially a very expensive brick. via Parenting Hasn’t Changed in 5,000 Years [COMIC].

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