NZ Single Parents Trust

ASG’s “Mum, Dad, I’m Bored” e-guide lists 100 great free or cheap activity ideas to entertain children during the holidays. ASG is New Zealand’s largest independent parent co-operative specialising in education benefit programmes that assist parents and grandparents in planning for their children’s and grandchildren’s education.

ASG’s General Manager of Development, Ms Michelle Hunder, says many parents find the usual holiday outings a little expensive, particularly now so many families are trimming their household budgets. “That’s why we have compiled this e-guide for parents, grandparents or anybody who is keeping children entertained during the school holidays,” she said. “Ideally, the holidays are a great time to just be together and enjoy activities that won’t break the budget. Of course it’s fun to go to the movies or have a day out at an aquatic centre or a stage show – but who can afford to do that every day?”

“Parents can easily pay around $35 to $55 a day for each child to attend school holiday programmes,” Ms Hunder says. “With a bit of planning, they’re often the sorts of things children can enjoy just as much doing at home.”

The e-guide is divided into ideas for at home, in the park or yard, around the neighbourhood and in the car. Some of the activities will remind parents of the games they used to play as children, while others will be completely new. Some suggestions will involve using a computer or being in the kitchen, while others simply require imagination.

Ideas in the e-guide include:

* Perform a play and let the children choose their roles and dress up
* Make a special pizza and let the kids choose all the toppings.
* Host a paper plane building and flying contest.

Download the “Mum, Dad, I’m bored” e-guide and visit ASG’s website www.asg.co.nz for more information.

Julie Fun things to do, activities for children + families

The stereotype of a single parent is a Maori sole mother under 20 on Domestic Purposes Benefit with kids to different fathers and lazy to boot.

Sole parents are often identified as an economic and social “problem” in political debate and by the media. But these stereotypes themselves affect social attitudes and undermine the mental and emotional well-being of sole parents and their families.

Demographers suggest that single parent families are an inevitable reflection of an
increasingly complex and diverse society. Greater sexual liberalisation has meant that today less than 50 per cent of the adult population is married and 20 per cent choose to cohabit.

And while marriage rates have declined, divorce rates have increased. Only 3 per cent of sole mothers are under 20 and almost 60 per cent are Pakeha. Statistics New Zealand figures project single parent families to increase from 31 to 38 per cent of all families with dependent children, between 2001 and 2021.

The child poverty rate in New Zealand, at 16.3 per cent, is high by OECD standards, but for children in single parent households this figure increases to 47 per cent.

The DPB provides single mothers and their children with a below subsistence level income. In 2004, 60 per cent of single parent families in New Zealand were considered to have low living standards.

Unsurprising if we consider that half of all single parent families rely on the DPB as their only source of income, and that the level of this income is set below the income poverty threshold.

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Julie News, Research, Separation

MP Paua Bennett

Long-term unemployed and solo mothers receiving a benefit were put on warning today by Social Development Minister Paula Bennett that they will have to find work – once the recession is over.

Following a week of controversy after Ms Bennett released the income details of two solo mothers, Natasha Fuller and Jennifer Johnston, who criticised cuts to the Training Incentive Allowance (TIA), she has remained staunch in her position.

Ms Bennett said the women could continue with their tertiary study without the TIA.

“I can certainly say from experience that it’s going to be hard work,” she told TVNZ’s Q+A this morning.

While she supports women who chose to stay at home with their young children, Ms Bennett believes women should be working at least 15 hours once their children are at school.

Ms Bennett said parents on the Dependent Persons Benefit (DPB) should work 15 hours a week once their youngest child is six.

“I mean I’d actually like to see, since we’ve got 20 hours (free early childhood education) there as well, that we have those sorts of training opportunities for women to be (at) while their children are having that 20 hours of early childhood education.

“That we get them skilled up, so that by the time they get to that youngest being six-years-old they can get that sort of part-time work that hopefully fits in with the hours that the kids are there.”

Ms Bennett, who famously put herself through university while a single mother on the DPB, said she was a “better mum” when she was working.

“It suited me. I actually needed the adult stimulation and my brain to be ticking over.”

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Julie News, Research, Separation, Study Assistance

The topic of managing work, self and family arises from the ever-increasing emphasis on the economy and economic life as the only valued and visible expression of human activity. It is also a gendered dilemma which rests on men’s and women’s relationships to the unpaid work of reproduction and care provision and the mainstream economy.

The split between work and family was once distributed mainly on gendered lines, leaving women financially dependent on men’s earnings, and men separated from the hands-on unpaid work of cleaning, laundry, shopping, and personal care of infants and sick and aged relatives. Women’s increased participation in the paid workforce from the mid-1970s onwards has, to some extent, dismantled the rigid separation of gendered roles.

Women and mothers now expect to work, and fathers are increasingly expressing a desire to spend more time caring for their children. In practice, working hours for many full-time workers have been steadily increasing and men have not been overly enthusiastic about actually doing domestic work, but women’s growing presence in the workforce is emptying the population of unpaid care providers, or stretching their time ever more thinly.

Unpaid care work is economically invisible, unrewarded and unvalued, yet the personal relationships forged in unpaid care work – with our partners, our children, our parents – are the bedrock of our personal and social lives. Without the care and work of another human-being, none of us would make it to adulthood. Every adult is an expression of endless parental hours of feeding, soothing, changing, washing, teaching, helping and protecting, and as old age and illness strike, there is again a need for many hours of care provision.

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Julie News, Research

Writer’s choice is AntiVir-Personal-Edition … free download here … because it is fast, reliable, updates itself … though you can manually update here … AND my favourite reason, it doesn’t ask you what to do with things detected. It decides what to do itself which is good if you don’t know whether to delete a virus, heal it, or what ever other options there are.

But a second opinion is always good to have …. (see below)

Can You Trust Free Antivirus Software?

Free antivirus programs vary just as much as paid security programs do in the quality of their protection. And frugal computer users on the hunt for no-cost antivirus software–already faced with tons of options–will have even more to choose from when new free offerings from Microsoft and Panda join the programs currently available from Alwil (Avast), AVG, Avira, Comodo, and PC Tools.

To help you figure out which free antivirus app is right for you, we put packages from all of those companies through their paces. Our testing partner, AV-Test.org of Germany, employed its vast “zoo” of collected malware to test detection rates and scan speed. We then poked and prodded the apps to see which ones made stopping malware an effortless task, and which ones made it feel more like drudgery. For a summary of our findings, see our free antivirus software ranked chart. For our in-depth evaluations, see the individual reviews, linked in this story and in the chart.
Click here to read the rest of the article.

Click here to get other FREE anti virus programs.

Make sure you scroll down the page to see all that is available.

Julie Tech talk

Be very aware of job offers online

The Federal Trade Commission wants you to know that counterfeit cheque scams are on the rise. Some fake cheques look so real that bank tellers are reporting being fooled. The scammers use high quality printers and scanners to make the cheque look real. Some of the cheques contain authentic-looking watermarks; are printed with the names and addresses of legitimate financial institutions. And even though the bank and account and routing numbers listed on a counterfeit cheque may be real, the cheque still can be a fake. These fakes come in many forms, from cashier’s cheques and money orders to corporate and personal cheques. Counterfeit are being used in a growing number of fraudulent schemes, including foreign lottery scam, check overpayment scam, Internet auction scam, secret shopper scam and help wanted scam.

Check overpayment scams target consumers selling cars or other valuable items through classified ads or online auction sites. Unsuspecting sellers get stuck when scammers pass off bogus cashier’s, corporate or personal cheques.

A scam artist replies to a classified ad or auction posting, offers to pay for the item with a cheque, and then comes up with a reason for writing the cheque for more than the purchase price. The scammer asks the seller to wire back the difference after depositing it. The seller does, and later, when the scammer’s cheque bounces, the seller is left liable for the entire amount.

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Julie News

If you feel anxious about not being in a relationship, it may be time to adopt a whole new attitude toward single parent dating. Consider how these small changes could alter your perspective and help you enjoy the full, rich life you deserve.

1. Focus on expanding your social circle instead of “finding a mate.”

Change your definition of what it means to have an active social life. When you focus on finding “the one,” you’re bound to put a lot of pressure on yourself. This can have two negative effects: First, it can cause you to make poor decisions; and, second, it can lead to unnecessary disappointment with an otherwise fulfilling life.

When you place your attention on expanding your social circle, though, you free yourself from that pressure. This enables you to focus on friendships and being with people who lift you up and bring joy to your life.

2. Make your social life part of your self-care plan.

To say you are “extremely busy” working and raising your children is an understatement. In fact, you may even feel like you just don’t have time to date. If that’s the case, I’d encourage you to think of socialising as part of taking care of yourself. You deserve to get out now and then. Spending some time away from your home and work responsibilities can be a refreshing part of honouring who you are and getting to know yourself again. Rather than feeling guilty about social engagements, view them as a part of your personal self-care plan.

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Julie Separation, Support

The recent furore over the generosity of income support paid to sole parents on the Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB) is symptomatic of an undercurrent of discontent within our society. Put bluntly, taxpayers are sick and tired of supporting people who could and should be working for a living. To their credit, National appears to be listening.

For too many years welfare has been regarded as the sacred cow of New Zealand politics, fiercely guarded by the welfare lobby, feminists and other do-gooders who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. As a result, it has been almost impossible to have a sensible debate about the fact that the welfare system is now seriously out of kilter with the realities of modern-day New Zealand society.

This time, however, the revelation that many sole parents are getting far more money on the DPB than they could get in the workforce ignited public anger and outrage. The public now realise taxpayers (they!) can be saddled with paying for women who could and should be working, to stay on a benefit for almost a lifetime. Under the current rules sole parents on the DPB are not work tested and as a result are entitled to collect the benefit until their youngest child is 18 years old!

At the end of June, out of the 310,296 registered working age welfare beneficiaries 104,400 were receiving the DPB. Over half of those DPB recipients were Maori or Pacific Islanders, and three quarters had been on a benefit for longer than a year.
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Julie News, Research

This above picture is what our children will soon learn in primary school. This picture is shown on the back of buses in America.

This small essay focuses on the need for local Government to follow through on gender equality when providing guidance and well being in community services for the public.
To identify more clearly the opportunities and threats involved in such a stand it is useful to follow a PEST analysis of local government and its well-being services to the public. Pest is simply a framework for analysing the political, economic, sociological and technical environment within which local government operates.

To date, there has been popular debate on how best to produce true equality and equity between the sexes while New Zealand has passed laws deliberately enforcing accountability on gender discrimination. It is time for New Zealand to recognise this in the public community sector as all laws in New Zealand are carefully drafted to be gender neutral.

The main question that needs to be answered is whether males are deserving of the same rights and care as women in our societies when dealing with domestic violence. Finding answers to this question entails providing laws and policies, researching information on the way we deal with this in the present day and why, presenting documented reviews from interested parties and looking to the future.
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Julie News

The Parenting Place is a facility designed and run by Parents Inc. to provide support and solutions for all parents. With an Allpress cafe to relax in, workshops to encourage and inspire and a bookshop filled with specialist parenting books, parenting help has never been so accessible. We open 8.30am Monday to Friday and close 5.00pm, our cafe closes at 3.30pm.

New workshops and regular favourites

Kick starting boys learning – issues in their education with Michael Irwin – Wed 12 August, 7.30pm-9.00pm
Author of Educating Boys – Michael Irwin has worked in education for over 35 years and is currently a senior lecturer in Education at Massey University in Auckland.

* Grief – how to support a grieving child with Raewyn Miller
* Building self esteem in your children with Ian Grant
* Kick starting boys learning – issues in their education with Michael Irwin
* Feelings and tantrums – dealing with our angry and upset children with Diane Levy
* Eight steps to raising financially savvy kids with Sylvia Bowden
* How to have fun and not stuff up your kids with Ian Grant
* Father and son cooking demonstration with Michelle Pattison
* Bullying – your child doesn’t have to be a victim with John Cowan

Plus many more… All workshops are $10 unless otherwise stated.
Download our What’s On Term 3 timetable now!

For more information, workshop descriptions and to book a place go to www.theparentingplace.com or phone 524 1387

Parents Inc. Family Coaching Service

Family Coaching is designed for parents who need simple solutions to tricky challenges. It can help you get back on track with new ideas and strategies that work!

Visit the advice section on www.theparentingplace.com to book an appointment or call us on 09 524 0025.

Julie Support