Make a Splash....

Sitting poolside, it’s fascinating to see how different children approach the water. The fearless ones bomb into the pool and create a large ripple of waves, much to their parents’ disapproval. At the shallow end, other armband-clad youngsters pace the perimeter, gazing at the wet, wavy stuff, sniffing that alien chlorine, trying to look brave, and fearful of taking the plunge

Spice up your life!

It's official: we're living in bland Britain. Despite 96% of us claiming we're willing to try new flavours, 2 in 5 of us only experience a new taste once every 6 months or less - and we're supposed to be a nation which lives for food!

NACCPO everyclick page

Now you can raise money for The National Alliance of Childhood Cancer Parent Organisations (NACCPO) every time you search the web. Everyclick.com is a great new search engine. It works just like other major search engines but it also generates cash for charity. It doesn’t cost you or us a penny, so it is a great way to help The National Alliance of Childhood Cancer Parent Organisations (NACCPO) every day. Make Everyclick.com your homepage and raise money for The National Alliance of Childhood Cancer Parent Organisations (NACCPO) whenever you search the web

Start your journey the right way this summer

Long car journeys with kids can be a nightmare and a new survey reveals that it only takes between 21 and 40 minutes for kids to get bored in a car. Nearly three quarters of adults say this is the toughest part of travelling with the kids, with regular trips to the loo and fights breaking out not far behind according to the research commissioned by Admiral Car Insurance. Kids notoriously have short attention spans and their thirst for entertainment can be draining and distracting

Spotlight on Hannah Montana

Hannah Montana, she's everyone's favourite girl, now your kids can join in the fun with a little help from Nintendo DS and Wii, and guys have we got something amazing to share with you, Zoe Salmon on video giving you loads of cool cheats so your child can wow all her friends and become the coolest kid in school.

Rupert Bear helps raise money for charity

Rupert Bear will be teaming up with Barclays to help raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign this summer. The money raised will go towards helping the 60,000 families who live with muscle disease in the UK.

Summer holidays spell stress for British families

British parents are feeling the strain of keeping their children occupied and entertained over the summer holidays. In a recent survey, almost 30% of parents said that they found the final week of the holidays the most stressful, while a further 30% found the middle of the holidays the worst, after boredom had set in and their children had seen and done everything.

SUPER-SAVVY 21ST CENTURY CONSUMER

THREE LESSONS TO TURN ANYONE INTO A

SUPER-SAVVY 21ST CENTURY CONSUMER

SAVE MONEY, FIGHT BACK, GRAB BARGAINS with Martin Lewis. Download a free PDF Teen Cash Class for your teenager

Celebrating lives in a virtual world

www.lastingtribute.co.uk, the leading UK website of its kind, has teamed up with two national charities to create a virtual daffodil field and an online night sky so that loved ones can be remembered in an innovative way

Cooking with Left over food

Brits bin enough food to feed 19m people, Restaurant owner Arthur Potts Dawson offers his advice on keeping food waste to a minimum. Brits cook enough extra food at dinnertime to feed at least an extra 19 million mouths

Family Friendly Cocktails

The end of the summer term is in sight and British parents are looking forward to spending time with their kids over the summer holidays. We all enjoy having the kids around the house during the hotter months, the big question is how do you keep them entertained? How about some non-alcoholic cocktails?

CAROL SMILLIE GIVES THE NATION A SKILLS MAKEOVER

Have you ever wished you could learn IT skills but simply don’t have the time or perhaps you’d like to become a chef but lack of money is putting you off? Well now a crack team of experts headed by TV Presenter Carol Smillie are here to help.

Walk & Explore 2008

The Children's Society’s national sponsored walking events are taking place up and down the country this summer, and we'd love for you to join us!  Walk & Explore is a fantastic opportunity for friends and family, and indeed the whole community, to explore the famous landmarks and hidden gems of England at the same time as actively helping to create real change for disadvantaged children in the UK.

The Glamour of Glasses

Glasses may have once been the subject of much playground torment, but in the noughties they have transformed into a must-have fashion accessory.  Think Rachel Stevens and Suzanne Shaw; Alex Zane and Will Young, to name but a few.  Choosing the right frames for your face is almost an art form in itself, but thankfully expert help is at hand.

Get kids active with the Nature Detectives

The Woodland Trust is offering IKEA FAMILY members 25% discount for children to enrol in their Nature Detectives Club. Each Nature Detective receives a welcome pack, two seasonal activity pack mailings and weekly emails with challenges to keep your children busy throughout the year. The scheme aims to get children active and learning about the UK’s native woodland and wildlife. Visit www.woodlandtrustshop.com for more information 

Sponsor a Dogs Trust Dog!

Dogs Trust is the UK’s largest dog welfare charity, caring for over 16,000 stray or abandoned dogs every year through its network of 17 Rehoming Centres across the UK. As we never destroy a healthy dog we will try to find each and every dog in our care a new home.

Brit chicks are all-a-clutter

British women will be spring-cleaning a lot more than their cupboards this year as 79% admit their lives are far too cluttered.  Nearly half (47%) have missed calls on their mobiles because they can't find the phone in their handbag before the other person has rung off.

Get Hooked

Encompassing the peacefulness of the countryside and its total harmony with nature it’s easy to see why so  many people get hooked on fishing. For many, including children, it provides the perfect escape route away from the daily grind towards a mini waterside haven of tranquillity. And, for a child, the excitement of the first bite from a fish can leave such a lasting impression the foundations of a lifelong passion begin to settle in.

Get On Your Bike

Remember those first moments. After hours tirelessly
wobbling on two wheels with your feet firmly planted on
the ground, you took that first tentative move, balancing on two thin tyres, desperately hoping not to fall sideways in a scrambled heap. Then, all of a sudden, surprisingly, you realised that you were pedalling, moving without the aid of a parent or stabilisers holding you up, releasing a great sense of freedom.

Brits urge Government to make us greener

One in five would fine those who 'don't do green'. The future of the planet is a major concern for people in the UK - but many feel they are not well enough informed to do their bit for the environment.

Take a Bow

The performing arts, be they singing, dancing, acting or playing a musical instrument, generally attract two different types of character. One type includes the natural performers who were simply born to entertain. We all know who they are! The other type of child wants to follow a voyage of discovery that leads them to develop imagination, gain expressive qualities and grow in confidence.

Parents struggling to cook from scratch

Parents may claim to be providing their children with healthy, home-cooked meals, but research into kids’ eating habits tells a different story.  New research by The Honey Association shows that 86% of parents claim to cook entirely, or mostly from scratch every evening, but when children were polled about the foods they are actually eating, processed foods with poor nutritional value came at the top of the list. 

Phil Vickery Cooks a Pudding

Everybody loves a good pud! From homemade apple pie to granny’s spotted dick or mum’s treacle tart, everyone’s a winner. But how often do you make home-made puds and do you really know where to start?

Let’s hear it for the trees

Sometimes it’s the things that are everywhere that we take for granted. Take trees for example. You can find them in the city and the country, in parks and even at the bottom of your garden. We all have our favourite -  the Oak tops the nation’s list-- a tree long revered and so common on our shores that at one time it could be found on both a six pence piece and a shilling coin

Anthony Worrall Thompson creates four exquisite deserts

Antony Worrall Thompson is one of the UK’s best loved chefs. Appearing regularly on popular TV shows such as ITV’s Daily Cooks Challenge, BBC2’s Food and Drink and Ready, Steady, Cook.

Take a trip down memory lane

Remember all those great 80s TV shows you used to love so much?  Well you’re not the only one!  ‘Swap Shop’, the Saturday morning staple of the late 70s and early 80s, has been named the number 1 kids’ TV show of all time.

Choose Free Range Eggs

Joanna Lumley has described her outrage at how the use of hens in battery cages still dominates the UK egg production market. The actress was speaking out on the eve of the charity Compassion in World Farming's Good Egg Awards, which she is hosting.

Simply Fostering

Across the UK there is an urgent need for around 10,000 more foster carers. This shortage means that children are being moved around from home to home, they have to be split up from their brothers and sisters, and have to live a long way from their family and friends.

Remembered: The best-loved advert of all time

Out of the thousands of adverts we’ve seen over the years only a few stand out in our memory. Who could forget the Milkybar Kid?  Or the girl enjoying a flake in an overflowing bath tub? If you’re looking for the best-loved advert of all time however you’d be hard pushed to top the Gold Blend campaign that scorched our television screens across the 80s and 90s.

What would change your life?

The saying goes that money makes the world go round but according to 24 million Brits it takes just a tenner to change your destiny forever.  Over half of the UK population claim that at some point spending as little as £10 has had a positive impact on their life.

Drayton Manor Theme Park welcomes children affected by Chernobyl nuclear disaster

Youngsters from Belarus suffering from illnesses resulting from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster have enjoyed a fun-filled day out at Drayton Manor Theme Park as part of a month-long visit to the Midlands.

Feed your Food Fascination

Britain’s interest in good food has certainly come a long way in recent years and the popularity of celebrity chefs is just the tip of the iceberg. In fact British foodies are more curious about food than ever before with two-thirds of us eager to learn more about taste and how our taste buds, flavours and food combinations work.

Dodgy downloads is child's play

Looking at adult websites, gambling and shopping fraudulently are just some of the things kids have been caught doing online. The potential for children to misuse the internet, and risk their own safety in the process, is huge as new research shows that a third of parents are leaving their children online unsupervised for at least 4 hours a week.

1 in 10 Brits are Nutritionally Deficient

The health of Brits is on the line because we are not getting all the nutrients we need from our diet. According to the latest figures 1 in 10 Brits are officially nutritionally deficient and four out of five us think we eat well but actually don't.

RSPB  - Rainham Marshes Appeal

Young people across the UK can buy a new home for water voles and other wildlife as the RSPB launches its youth fundraising campaign – the Rainham Marshes appeal.

Disposing of your rubbish thoughtfully can save lives

Household waste can be deadly when it ends-up on a rubbish tip where wild animals search for food and hundreds of creatures die miserable deaths or suffer because of thoughtless disposal of rubbish. You can help by disposing of your rubbish safely and securely. Rubbish that you put in a litter bin or secure dustbin will probably end up on an open rubbish tip where it can be deadly to animals.

Road Safety

Whatever the season, every week we read about tragic stories of children who are killed or seriously injured on Britain's roads. As the stories unfold, even as we force ourselves to watch those gruesomely graphic adverts on the TV, the stark reality settles in: our children remain awfully vulnerable when they are on a pavement or on a road

Where do you think you will be when you are 32?

Anastasiya or Nastiya to her friends – is 7 years old.  She lives in Belarus in the area most affected by the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.  That was 22 years before Nastiya was born, but the effects of the radiation of the land will stay with the people of Belarus for the next 25,000 years. 

Children & Climate Change

British weather has always been erratic, but what a wet summer! We’ve been given the firmest of nudges from Mother Nature about the impact our collective carbon footprint has on the environment. Worryingly, no-one will be more affected by its effects than will our children.  Yet, should they wish, youngsters can storm ahead and learn more about climate change by getting actively involved in events and activities that support the preservation of nature.

Workshops & Demonstrations with www.stirrinstuff.org

“Children in the kitchen" conjures up images of chaos and a sticky mess from floor to ceiling - but it doesn't have to be that way. During a Stirrin’Stuff demonstration the children will learn about a healthy diet and basic cookery skills and how to cook in an orderly fashion that doesn’t mean supper at midnight.

Cycling into a lifetime of fun

Most of us will remember the experience of sitting precariously on a two wheel bike whilst a parent or older sibling or even a friend held onto the back of the saddle, pushing us along on the bike until enough speed was created to shove us off on our own whilst we desperately tried to control the wobbling handle bars which definitely had a life on their own and then that glorious moment when we were actually pedaling and steering on our own.

The changing face of the family - One parent can do just as good a job as two

The traditional image of the family as mum, dad and 2.4 kids no longer reflects reality. Ground-breaking new research shows that in modern Britain it's time to accept that successful families come in all shapes