Family

By Jasmine Stephens, Family Editor When I was at school, competition was king and not just through the enforced participation at a multitude of sporting events. The school held annual speech days for each year group where prizes were awarded for achievement and effort and a specific award in each subject was presented to one pupil who was deemed to have achieved most highly. We also had inter-house sports leagues, talent shows and as well as our exam results, we...

By Jasmine Stephens, Family Editor Breastfeeding.  It’s among the most emotive of subjects for new mothers, with pressure to breastfeed and blame for low rates being cast from every angle; not least the pressure that guilt-ridden new mums – desperate to do the best for their precious bundles – can’t help but put upon themselves. According to figures from the NHS, although 82% of new mums in Britain start off breastfeeding when their babies are born, these figures drop to...

By Ahmed Al-Ansari, Media Manager at Morgan Pryce, commercial property agents in London London is full of bustling business professionals, office towers, red buses and overcrowded tube stations. What many people do not see is the great number of open, green spaces, free to the public which London has to offer. From the 13th to the 21st June 2015 the nation celebrates National Picnic Week! For those busy working or who live in one of the many high rise apartments in...

By Lucy Gill, Director of Apps and Technology at Fundamentally Children Our children are growing up in a society where tablets and phones are readily available to them. Children are exposed to technology from a very young age, and we cannot escape the fact that it plays an important role in their lives. Helping children engage positively with apps and technology provides them with additional learning opportunities and promotes understanding of this increasingly digital world. As parents, we need to be responsible for choosing the...

By Jasmine Stephens, Family Editor According to Allergy UK, 50% of children in the UK now have some form of allergic condition. These include allergies to common food stuffs such as peanuts, milk, eggs and wheat, pollens, house dust mite and insect stings. Symptoms can affect the nose, ears, throat, eyes, airways, skin and digestive system and for some children, can even include severe reactions such as anaphylaxis. Raising a child with allergies can be challenging to say the least....

by Jasmine Stephens, Family Editor A quick look under our bed confirms it; we're hoarders. One dismantled cot plus mattress, two large photo-frames, a bunk-bed ladder, a bag full of old kids' clothes, three camping chairs, a broken laptop and a bulging bin bag that has been there so long I have no idea what's inside. Junk everywhere. The worst thing is I've always been quite smug about how good I am at chucking things out. I jumped for joy...

With exams wrapping up and the start of summer in sight, the temptation for many young people is to sit back before the start of a new adventure. For more savvy students, the holiday season provides the perfect start to a brighter future. The New Entrepreneurs Foundation views around 1,000 applications every year from young, post higher education individuals looking to take part in an enterprise programme that provides mentoring, coaching and training. With only 30 places available, NEF applicants...

By James Healy-Pratt The Germanwings Airbus disaster in the Swiss Alps is a tragedy no family should have to go through. The immediate cause of the disaster seems to be intentional pilot conduct but on a wider level, it highlights a failure of joined-up thinking about air safety. The cold hard truth is that the disaster was preventable. Commercial airliners were used as human-guided missiles in the September 11 2001 attacks in the US. Decades earlier, airline hijackings were also...