Free Republic

Are your children bored this summer? Good!If your children like to stay in bed until lunchtime, then slouch around saying there’s nothing to do – don’t worry, it’s no bad thing. Joan McFadden explains

In the name of the fatherhttp://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=1033732006 http://tinyurl.com/ozefu DANI GARAVELLI Sun 16 Jul 2006 ONCE upon a time, I believed it didn't matter a whit whether a baby was born into a family with one parent or two. Or with two mothers or two fathers rather than a mother and a father. Why should it? What was important was not the number or gender of the parents, but whether or not they were loving and attentive. That was, of course, before I had any of my own. Now I realise that bringing up children is a challenge even for two well-meaning...

Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails are what readers of a surprise bestseller are made of. The Dangerous Book for Boys by the British brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden is a practical manual that returns boys to the wonder and almost lost world of tree houses and pirate flags. It celebrates the art of teaching an old mutt new tricks and accepts skinned knees as an acceptable risk for running through fields with the same dog yapping along. As of July 3, The Dangerous Book is the number one seller on Amazon UK and it is holding steady at...

Alex Rider: the proof that boys should be boyshttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,923-2269130,00.html http://tinyurl.com/m5dsl The Times July 15, 2006 As Stormbreaker, the first film about children’s favourite junior spy, opens in cinemas, Amanda Craig talks to his creator, Anthony Horowitz, about adventures, kissing and growing up “I STILL REMEMBER THE tremendous exuberance of being a boy,” Anthony Horowitz, the creator of Alex Rider, says. “It has an almost abstract quality that you can’t create by artificial means.” I reflect on this as I walk round my local park every morning and see my son slay an entire Roman legion with a sword, track rabbits...

Boys will be boyshttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2230571,00.html http://tinyurl.com/n3g5a DJ Taylor June 18, 2006 Why are fathers snapping up an old-fashioned book of boyhood lore? DJ Taylor looks at the gap in almost every father’s life -- Like practically every human relationship these days, fatherhood has become horribly institutionalised. A condition that was once thoroughly ad hoc and made up as one went along is now caught up in bureaucracy’s stifling grasp. Father’s Day (an American import that didn’t exist in my youth), fathers’ support agencies, parenting classes: on all sides comes evidence of a natural state hedged about with all kind of wholly...

Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails are what readers of a surprise bestseller are made of. The Dangerous Book for Boys by the British brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden is a practical manual that returns boys to the wonder and almost lost world of tree houses and pirate flags. It celebrates the art of teaching an old mutt new tricks and accepts skinned knees as an acceptable risk for running through fields with the same dog yapping along. As of July 3, The Dangerous Book is the number one seller on Amazon UK and it is holding steady at...