NZ Single Parents Trust

The VoteNO.org.nz website has all the information you need regarding the upcoming anti-smacking Referendum including
frequently asked questions,
quotes of interest,
summary of polls,
summary of media releases on this issue,
how to enrol,
background of the Referendum
even a cartoons page!

But there are also
FREE downloadable brochures and posters
(and banner adverts and sidebar adverts for your blogs and website). The brochures are even in other translations including Maori, Tongan, Samoan, Fijian, Chinese, and Hindi! Download them – photocopy – and distribute to family and friends!

So GET THE WORD OUT on what this Referendum is all about.

There’s no copyright – we won’t sue you for plagiarism! GO FOR YOUR LIFE!! But especially – encourage people to vote!

We can also make the videos available to show to your group including Simon Barnett, Referendum proposer Sheryl Savill and Maori Child Advocate Bev Adair – simply email us admin@familyfirst.org.nz for the files.

There’s also a blog, we’re on Twitter, and a group of supporters have started a Facebook group

You may also see our Billboard campaign underway also.

……………

From Julie.

I seriously encourage you to have your say on this important issue. After all, single parents make up the most of CYFS clients.

Julie News, Research

2-5 Toddlers/Preschool

The Benefit of Nature and the Outdoors to Children and Families
When your family is very busy, spending time outside can seem like a luxury. However, time in green areas is important to the overall health and well-being of children as well as adults.

6-12 School-Age

The Benefit of Nature and the Outdoors to Children and Families
When your family is very busy, spending time outside can seem like a luxury. However, time in green areas is important to the overall health and well-being of children as well as adults.

13-18 Teens

The Benefit of Nature and the Outdoors to Children and Families
When your family is very busy, spending time outside can seem like a luxury. However, time in green areas is important to the overall health and well-being of children as well as adults.

NEWS

O-1 Infants

Study: TV can impair speech development of young children

A study released Monday adds to the debate over whether television impairs children’s language development.It found that parents and children virtually stop talking to each other when the TV is on, even if they’re in the same room.

2-5 Toddlers/Preschool

Study: TV can impair speech development of young children

A study released Monday adds to the debate over whether television impairs children’s language development.It found that parents and children virtually stop talking to each other when the TV is on, even if they’re in the same room.

13-18 Teens

Alcohol risks greater in teen-onset drinkers

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Delaying the start of alcohol drinking might curb subsequent rates of alcohol-related injuries

Depressed teens worry about family reaction: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Some teenagers with depression may not want treatment because they worry about the stigma attached to the disorder, a new study suggests.

Enjoy!

Julie Children, Research, Support

Diane Levy

Renowned family therapist and parenting author, Diane Levy, explores the Nature vs Nurture debate regarding children’s personalities and the various models and categories developed over the years to explain the four basic personality types.

First Aid Kits

What safety kit do you have for an emergency at home, in the car, in the boat or at the bach? Check out the range of First Aid kits at Caring Concepts.

School Holidays

The next School Holidays are looming. Have you planned any outings for the kids? Read our guidelines on holiday planning. Check out our list of over 12 different Holiday Outings Providers.

Surviving the Recession

What strategies do you have in place to survive the recession? Consider some of the tips and tidbits in our article on Surviving the Recession.

Queen’s Birthday Weekend

Remember that Monday 1 June is a holiday … Queen’s Birthday Holiday. Yay!!!Wishing you and your family a wonderful and safe long weekend.

Joke of the Week

You don’t need to enjoy fishing to love this rip-snorter about Fishing – NZ Style !

kiwifamilies.co.nz

Julie Children, News

http://www.motherhoodstudy.net/newzealand/

New Zealand will be the first country targeted in an international survey that aims to provide insights into the reality of motherhood in the 21st century.

An anonymous internet questionnaire will go online at midday on Sunday, Mother’s Day, and remain open for several months.

It will ask mothers to talk about their thoughts and feelings on their role.

A similar questionnaire will go live two hours afterwards in Australia and parallel studies will run in the United States and Britain later this year.

The women behind the project, New Zealand author Jodie Hedley-Ward and Australian clinical psychologist Dr Angela Huntsman, are both mothers.

They say the survey has the potential to improve the provision of services to women bringing up children.

The results would be analysed to provide information relevant to policy makers and health practitioners.

Ms Hedley-Ward, 32, believed the education, employment and travel opportunities open to women today had resulted in different expectations about motherhood.

The survey follows a parenting advice book she released last year entitled You Sexy Mother.

She said she was swamped by feedback from readers.

“The response was phenomenal,” she said.

“In one day, we had up to 1600 emails come through to me, just from mums wanting more from their motherhood experience than they are experiencing.”

In the book, she talks about the need to have a strong support network and to maintain interests and passions to help women through the ups and downs of motherhood.

Raised in Dunedin and now living on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, Ms Hedley-Ward said figures showing that one in seven women experienced post-natal depression were “pretty staggering”.

“It’s a lot of factors, but it’s a huge transition into motherhood,” she said.
“You get a sense of losing your freedom, losing your career and losing the self-esteem that came with that prior to motherhood.”

Ms Hedley-Ward, a former marketing executive who has two pre-school children, said the survey would be large scale, with about 130 questions.

She hoped to get responses from at least 5000 mothers in New Zealand and more than 10,000 in Australia, with much higher numbers expected in the United States and Britain.

“The results will be valuable to anybody who provides a service or product to mothers,” she said.

“It will change the way our mothers are marketed and how we are represented in the media.”

The survey questionnaire will be available at www.motherhoodstudy.net.

Julie Research

You may not have known this…but a lot of non-living objects are actually either male or female. Here are some examples:

FREEZER BAGS: They are male, because they hold everything in … but you can see right through them.

PHOTOCOPIERS: These are female, because once turned off … it takes a while to warm them up again.
They are an effective reproductive device if the right buttons are pushed … but can also wreak havoc if you push the wrong Buttons.

TYRES: Tyres are male, because they go bald easily and are often over inflated

HOT AIR BALLOONS: Also a male object … because to get them to go anywhere … you have to light a fire under their butt.

SPONGES: These are female … because they are soft … squeezable and retain water.

WEB PAGES:
Female … because they’re constantly being looked at and frequently getting hit on.

TRAINS: Definitely male… because they always use the same old lines for picking up people.

EGG TIMERS: Egg timers are female because…over time…all the weight shifts to the bottom.

HAMMERS: Male … because in the last 5000 years … they’ve hardly changed at all … and are occasionally handy to have around.

THE REMOTE CONTROL: Female. Ha! You probably thought it would be male…but consider this: It easily gives a man pleasure, he’d be lost without it…and while he doesn’t always know which buttons to push….he just keeps trying

New Law:

With the high rate of attacks on women in secluded parking lots … especially during evening hours … the Edinburgh City Council has established a ‘Women Only’ parking lot at the Tesco shopping center. Even the parking attendants are exclusively female so that a comfortable and safe environment is created for patrons.
Below is the first picture available of this world-first women-only parking lot in Edinburgh !

Julie Humour

BATTERED Ian McNicholl revealed today how he lied for his twisted fiancée – who subjected him to 12 months of shocking abuse.

As Williamson began a seven-year jail sentence, Ian opened his heart to The Sun. His story shows that, while women remain the main victims of domestic abuse, men can suffer as well. Ian’s list of attacks include:

SCALDED with a steam iron, BOILING WATER poured over his genitals, cigarettes thrust up his NOSE and stubbed on his CHEST, and a gin bottle SMASHED in his mouth — on top of numerous PUNCHES and BEATINGS.

Read full story

Julie Research

1. Children Penalised in Parenting Orders
Fathers Missing Out
Family First Media Release 30 April 09
Family First NZ says that children are missing out on access to both their parents as a result of parenting orders being made in the Family Court, and that there appears to be a clear bias against fathers. Figures obtained by Family First NZ under the Official Information Act show that only 13% of disputes results in a 50-50 parenting split .

“These figures are a tragic reminder that children are the ultimate losers when there is a breakdown in the parent relationship,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. “The greatest injustice is that a parent can lose regular and sufficient access to their children when they may have done nothing wrong and never agreed to the separation in the first place.”

The figures for the three years since the passing of the Care of Children Act also show that mothers are more likely to be granted the most time, gaining sole day-to-day care in 2/3’rds of cases , but the father has only a 12% success rate .
READ MORE

2. Ethnic Groups Confused by Anti-Smacking Law
Family First Media Release 28 April 09
Family First NZ says that research just released from the Families Commission shows that immigrant families are confused by the anti-smacking law and still see non-abusive smacking as a viable option for correcting their children. The research report funded by the Families Commission and carried out by Victoria University entitled ‘ SETTLING IN: parent-adolescent family dynamics in the acculturation process ’ documents the experiences of migrant and refugee families in New Zealand adapting to NZ culture and laws.

The report said ‘A major issue of both frustration and change in the families studied was discipline and the rights of children. Most of the families came from a culture where physical discipline was the norm. Many of the parents mentioned that they found the New Zealand law concerning the rights of children difficult to understand and to follow. The corporal punishment of children was still seen as a viable method of reprimand by some parents, although they knew that this was against the law .’

…“The Families Commission needs to pay attention to their own research and the views of the majority of parents if they want to maintain any credibility as a voice for families.”
READ MORE

The Families Commission responds
READ the full report – (if you can handle it!)

COMING SOON…
VOTENO .org.nz
PROTECT GOOD PARENTS!
Referendum August ‘09
“Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a crime in NZ?” (of course not!)

Julie News

Practical workshops for parents of babies through to teenagers…

The Parenting Place, located at 300 Great South Road, Greenlane, is a facility designed and run by Parents Inc. to provide support and solutions to all parents. It includes a comprehensive range of parenting resources and books, a child-friendly café, parenting and life skill workshops on a wide range of topics, online advice and a family coaching service.
Workshops starting Monday 4 May include:

* Getting our children to do as they’re told – Diane Levy
* Music for 0-12 months – Alison Broom, Julie Moore
* Firm, fair & friendly discipline – John Cowan
* Dads and sons – Ian Grant
* Raising your introverted child – Sue Blair
* Picky eaters – Sheena Hendon
* Sibling rivalry – Tony & Heidi Versey
* Teaching children to read & write can be easy – Anne Marsh
* Parenting from a united front for separated couples – Bruce & Amanda Pilbrow

Don’t miss our lifestyle workshops

* Home management Part 1 & 2 – Val O’Donovan
* Money tips for tough times – Greg Knowles & Jamie Hansen
* Keeping ahead while keeping your head – Naomi Cowan
* Dealing with life’s difficult changes – Carole Chamberlin

Plus many more…
Download our What’s On for Term 2 timetable now!

For more information, workshop descriptions and to book a place go to www.theparentingplace.com or phone 524 1387. All workshops are $10 unless otherwise stated.

Julie Support discipline, money tips, Parenting, seperation, workshops

By Paul Revoir

Women have won the war for equality but it has left many of them imprisoned and exhausted, a pioneering feminist has claimed.

Campaigner Erin Pizzey, who founded the world’s first refuge for battered women in 1971, claims the idea of women happily combining a career and a family has proved to be a myth.

The 70-year-old said women’s ‘freedom of choice’ to have both has left them with less spare time than they had before.

But she added that many now did not understand what they had lost.

Speaking as part of a BBC programme about the role of women in the workplace, she said many are mothers who are having to juggle jobs at the same time.

She said: ‘There’s been a subterranean war between men and women which has been won by women and they don’t actually understand what they’ve lost.’

The campaigner added: ‘I don’t think anybody foresaw that what a freedom of choice would do is imprison many.

‘Many women, they don’t have a choice now, they have to work, they have to work hard, and I just see an exhausted generation of women trying to do it all.’

Her comments feature on the first episode of BBC2’s The Trouble With Working Women, which is to be screened in June.

The programme looks at why men still dominate the top jobs and on average earn £369,000 more than women across their career.

Miss Pizzey’s comments come days after the publication of Labour’s Equality Bill which gives employers legal powers to discriminate in favour of women and ethnic minorities.

Erin Pizzey pictured in 1976 outside the High court with campaigners battling to keep women's shelters open in Chiswick

Julie News, Research, Study Assistance erin prizzy, Feminism, feminist, women in the workforce

When is the best time to educate your kids on sex? Some parents say “age appropriate NOW”, and some say “leave it to the schools”, with many other parents somewhere in between. This is a delicate subject, involving lots of emotion, cultural norms, religious beliefs, and subjectivity, but we suggest parents be fully informed when considering and deciding for their own family.

Sex Education
What did your own sex education consist of? Was it the ideal way to learn about sex? What did you (or will you) do differently for your kids? To guide your thinking on this sensitive subject, check out our four Sex Education articles – “An Introduction” ; “The Practicalities” ; “STIs” ; and “Emotions“.

Special Offer – Counsellor & Parenting Coach

Self-Development therapist and Counsellor for couples, parents and children, Caroline Beazley, has a Mother’s Day Special Offer for Mums. Check out her wonderful offer.

After School Care

Phew … the kids are back to school! But what about after school care? Check out the latest on SKIDS, a fast expanding provider of Before school, After school, and Holiday Programme care, now in 45 locations throughout NZ.

Eating Tips for New Mums

Our resident Dietitian and Nutritionist, Fiona Boyle, provides some excellent tips on eating for new Mums.

Simply Nappies

Confused by your nappy choices? Simply Nappies is the ultimate trial pack. Four nappies from three leading nappy companies. Only $79.95, Normally RRP$125! Visit www.simplynappies.com

FREE Naturopathic Consultation

Skin problems? Stressed? Sleeping poorly? Tired? Don’t be shy, contact our resident Naturopath and Medical Herbalist, Tracy Harris, for a FREE naturopathic online consultation.

Learning Difficulties

Is your child struggling at school or disinterested in learning at home? Have a read of learning difficulties specialist, Rosemary Murphy’s general articles, plus articles specifically on Dyslexia and on Dyspraxia.

Julie Children, Health after school care, dyslexia, dyspraxia, learning difficulties, nappies, sex education