“The single most significant factor influencing a child’s early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to at home prior to beginning school.”
National Commission on Reading (USA), 1985

Research shows that children who read proficiently in the early school years generally perform better at every stage of their education.

So its the school holidays and the weather sucks.  The sound of the TV is ever-present and, despite your best intentions, the kids have been on their iPods/PlayStation/Xbox/Wii far longer than you know is healthy.  We all know too much screen time is damaging for kids but policing it is an eternal challenge.  We hear you!

Here are some strategies for controlling screen time in your house:

Children are not born bad but they do start out thinking that everything revolves around them, demonstrating an innate selfishness.  The capacity to be kind and caring towards others is within them, it just needs to be nurtured and developed.

So how do we, as parents, teach our children to be ‘nice’?

Since the 17th century Earl of Sandwich asked for a piece of meat between two slices of bread and called it a meal, its namesake has been the staple of easy lunches throughout the world.  Its convenience, coupled with the sheer range of breads and fillings available nowadays, has established the humble sandwich as the central attraction of the school lunchbox.

Despite my best attempts at creativity and variety, however, my kids have reached sandwich saturation point.  Bored of bread and fussy over fillings, they return from school with their barely-nibbled wraps and rolls squished apologetically into a corner of their lunchbox. 

I enjoy writing. My kids don’t (or so they say). Maybe it’s an association with spelling drills and school essay assignments but my boys do not naturally get excited at the prospect of putting pen to paper.  Oh, they have friends who keep journals and who write stories at home for fun (imagine!) but not my boys.