Parents go through many changes with their children as they grow from babies to young adults. Most parents live with a fear that one day there will be a knock at the door and the news wont be good. An accident or perhaps an arrest? I think one of the hardest things to wake up to, or come home to, is the realization that your teen has simply run away.

There are many reasons for this. They maybe running away from something, or they maybe running to something. Often it is a mixture of both. Escaping authority to a land of freedom.

Once they realize that freedom isn't all it stacked up to be, mixed feelings of shame, fear and sense of not giving in prevent them from returning.

For parents, the long journey begins. Where do you start? The local police are an obvious choice. Friends and relatives are also worth checking. As the days become weeks and weeks months, worry turns to despair and the possible fear of not seeing them again. Many parents begin to worry whether their teen is even still alive.

In Australia we have an agency known as the Child Support Agency. Their role is to collect child support from the non-custodial parent and pay it to the custodial. They assess what should be paid and you pay it. If you don't, they take it out of your paycheck or from anywhere else.

There are a growing number of fathers in this situation who have decided to undergo DNA tests to see if in fact they are the biological father. 25% of those tested so far have been negative when it comes to fatherhood. In other words, they have been paying child support for a child that is biologically not theirs.

Courts are now ruling that the Child Support Agency must repay these fathers the money they have take as child support payments. I guess in the long run this money will be taken away from the mother unless she can tell the agency who the real father is.

There is now talk of having all children DNA tested at birth to ensure the parents are who they say they are. I can see good points to this process and bad points. However, I feel the whole DNA issues misses one vital point. It is not who the biological father is that matters, it is who has been the 'dad' for these kids.

I am often amazed when I read stories of toddlers surviving accidents that we as adults could find fatal, or at least in hospital in a serious condition.

The latest incident involved an 18 month toddler who had climbed a balcony rail and fallen two meters (about seven feet), landed on the roof of a shed where she rolled and fell another two meters to the ground. For some reason there was an old mattress on the roof of the shed which helped to break the first fall, but there was only solid ground awaiting the next fall.

Her injuries? Some facial swelling and a cut lip. No broken bones, fractured skull or spinal chord problems. A fall of two meters for a toddler is probably the equivalent of an adult falling four or five meters (12-15 feet). Adults falling that distance would be lucky to survive without serious injury so why is it that toddlers seem to survive these falls on a regular basis?

There are not that many opportunities to monetize a parenting blog. Most opportunities fall under the realm of affiliate advertising which of course relies on visitors buying products from your affiliate links.

Income can be derived from some pay-per-click ads such as Google Adsense, however they are unreliable. One income area that I am keen to investigate, whilst not necessarily incomes, is in the form of product reviews. These are reviews of actual products, not site reviews which most pay for post reviews are, actual product reviews. This is where you are sent a product to use. Once you have used it you write an honest review. They provide real value to readers since it written from a users perspective. If you're looking for product reviews, you know what you need to do, contact me and send me samples of your product that I can actually use.

It is strange because in the past I have ignored requests for product reviews without realizing there is a benefit to all. The readers get an honest opinion of a product; the seller gets advertising promoting their products (if the review is positive) and the blogger of course receives products to use. Everyone wins.

Most babies suffer some form of colic during their first six months. Often it can go unnoticed and not cause to much stress. At other times, it can lead to a baby that screams for hours on end leaving the parent tired, frustrated and even a little (or a lot) grumpy.

What Is Colic In Babies?

A recent article on Yahoo! News caught my attention and, while brief, takes a swipe at fathers and the amount of time they spend with their children. By time, I am talking about one-on-one, not including with the mother.

According to the article most Australian fathers spend around one minute per day during the working week. Have you actually analyzed the time you spend alone with your child.

For many fathers, they get home from work, have dinner with the family, and perhaps spend a short time reading or talking, or just tucking their child into bed - and that's it.

Mother's spend more time, but still not enough. According to the report mothers spend around an hour a day one-to-one with their child(ren). What the report doesn't mention are working mums who are probably closer to the dads when it comes to time alone.

For dads, simply being involved in the bath routine, or taking time before bed to talk about the day with your child can be so important. It goes beyond bonding. It is a time for sharing, a time to open communication channels away from the hustle and bustle of daily life.

Come the teenage years you will be so thankful that you had opened those channels. Children learn from experience. Get them talking to you each and every day and they will continue to do so. Shut that door now, and later in life when you want it open, you may find it is too late.

A minute a day - surely fathers can afford at least a good 30 minutes - and a good 30 minutes of quality time - sharing time. How much time do you spend with your children - have you really thought about it? You too mum!

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Related Parenting Posts:

Dads and Daughters

How precious are your children - do you take them for granted

This humble blog of mine has just turned one years old so I thought it time for a clean out and a fresh new look. This is it for now.

The sidebars are far less cluttered and the whole look I hope is more relaxed, less busy. If you have any suggestions let me know.

If you're a Drupal whizz let me know - I want to upgrade to 6.?? but can't find GOOD info on how to do it.

Finally, I am redeveloping my blogroll so if your a parenting site interested in a blogroll exchange let me know.

Parents who can't be parents are becoming parents through the creation of an extremely life like new born baby. The 'doll', for want of a better name, is called Reborn Babies and are made of a soft rubber with skin and hair texture and colour that is almost identical to a real baby.

They are so real and lifelike that people are buying them and treating them like real life babies. They sew clothing, buy cribs, prams and even car seats for their Reborn Babies.

In our local area several weeks ago police broke into a car to 'rescue' a baby left in the hot sun in the car seat - much to their embarrassment it was one of the Reborn Babies - that is how life like it was.

I don't know if this is a worrying problem for the future or a blessing in disguise for those women who cannot conceive. Where society may have a problem is if women who are perfectly capable of conceiving choose not too and use one of these Reborn Babies as a form of replacement.

Where I can see a positive use for Reborn Babiesis in our schooling systems to teach girls and boys how to handle, carry, change and generally look after a baby.

Check out this video on Reborn Babies and tell me if it's a little worrying or perhaps a positive? I can see both sides of the issue.

As a parent there is one guarantee in life. Your child is going to catch a cold at some stage in their life. For new parents, a babies first cough, cold or runny nose can be a worrying experience. It needn't be. Follow these simple tips and life for you and baby will so much easier.

Most children, particularly when they hit school age, suffer around 10 coughs or colds each year. The effects remain for two to fourteen days depending on what type of cold they have.

Sometimes you read stories that make you sad, angry and little thankful all at the same time. The latest story to catch my attention involved a family, consisting of a single dad with nine kids, who finally had to give them up.

His story is sad in itself. He is single dad due to the death of his wife of 17 years. She died shortly after the birth of their youngest.

It seems that Nebraska is one of those forward thinking states that has made their hospital an official place for parents to surrender their children without fear of prosecution for abandonment. I really don't like the word abandon in this case, surely they are voluntarily surrendering their children?

Why does it make me angry? In a society like our surely we have reached a level of maturity (society that is) where we can put our hand up and say help? Rather than looking down on anyone in this situation - and let's face it, raising nine kids aged 1 to 17 is not going to be easy, we should doing everything possible to maintain that family unit.

I can only imagine what he must be going through. I am sure there is a mixture of relief, grief and guilt constantly running through his mind. Hopefully, friends and relatives can help maintain some type of family unit for those children, particularly the younger ones who will struggle to even understand the situation.

If your a breast feeding mum then you may want to watch your back, or at least, your milk supply. PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants ice cream manufacturers to replace milk meant for calves with - you guessed it, breast milk.

The request comes on the back of an "innovative" move by a Swiss restaurant owner who will "begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," according to a PETA statement."

PETA is urging ice cream giants Ben & Jerry's to do cows a "big favour" and switch to human breast milk in their products.

In a statement, Ben and Jerry's said: "We applaud PETA's novel approach to bringing attention to an issue, but we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child."

Source: Breast Is Best For PETA

Are you a Halloween person? Do you get into it, dressing up and having a real party. Cartoon Network have a full range of costumes to help you wow the party atmosphere.

Their Ben 10 costumes are back along with DVDs, figurines, games, watches and apparel. Their current promotion is Free Shipping with orders of $50 or more.

Ben 10 is not the only range of course, Cartoon Network has a huge range including Camp Lazlo, the Powderpuff Girls and Dexter's Laboratory. Pay them and visit and check out the low prices.

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This is the third part in my best of series highlighting the best post from the last 12 months as we head towards our first birthday at the end of this month.

In the parenting section, I got a little controversial with some of my posts, covering topics that irritated me at the time. This included topics such as What Is Wrong With The Dads Of This World. Unfortunately, some fathers just aren't fathers when they need to be.

Another set of posts had a dig at society and the media with What Is Wrong With Our Society, which followed a previous post . Just a little controversial, however many parents agreed with me.

With our society so intent on hygiene, I had to cover a topic which is I feel very strongly about. I finished up with two posts, Are We Too Clean and one that was fairly similar, it certainly covered the same topic, Cleanliness vs Sterilize.

A news story that struck me was Couple Beheaded, beheaded for cruelty to their daughter - you have to read it.

As I move closer to this blogs first birthday I am putting together a series of 'best of' posts. The previous 'best of' post was the "baby' series. Today's post is the best of 'toddlers'.

It is difficult finding the best of posts particularly when I have done so many. This is part one and contains a real mixed bunch.

You don't have to have a speech or hearing impairment to use sign language. Many parents find they can communicate with their toddlers from much earlier age and my reprint of an article by Jackie Durnin on Using Sign Language With Toddlers was very popular.

Sign language may help in teaching your toddler to use the potty, if not, my post on Is Painless Potty Training Possible For A Toddler may help ease the trauma.

Toddlers and potty training often leads to temper tantrums, particularly the two year old tantrums. My post on How To Deal With Toddler Temper Tantrums will be of great benefit to those experiencing tantrums - toddler tantrums that is.

As September rushes upon us I realized today that this site, Just4Families is about to have its first birthday. The year has certainly flown by.

Over the last 12 months I have published a lot of posts that have proved to be popular so I am going to review them by category for those who may have missed them. I am going to start with the articles related to babies, for obvious reasons, our is about to turn three weeks old. With a total of five girl five years and under, I am surprised I can five minutes to even write a post these days. Here are my best baby articles from the last 12 months.

One of my favourite articles when it comes to research was the Cord Blood Banking article. Why more hospitals don't utilize this service I don't know. It can help to save so many young lives.

Have you wondered about the The First Moments Of Your Baby's Life? I did so I did a little research. Read the outcome of that research.

Of course, the time comes to take baby home from hospital. An exciting time for many, for others it can be hard to handle. Learn how to deal with Baby's First Days At Home.

There are times when some of the simplest things really bring a smile to your face. I was in the kitchen the other night preparing dinner. With me were my one and two year old daughters. There antics where such a delight to watch - I wish I had some photos.

They were playing happily when a moth landed on the floor in front of them. It was obviously on its last legs, but the girls didn't know.

Being only little they kept a safe distance whilst at the same time being totally fascinated by it. Their squeals of delight every time it moved, or tried to fly was so cute. Every time it got to close they would back away, however they followed it for a good half hour, squealing and giggling and egging each other on to get a little closer.

Finally, the moth moved no more. It had gone to moth heaven. No more entertainment, no more fun. The youngest of two turned around as demanded I get the broom and remove it. You can imagine a one year old's language. She was quite demanding though.

It was cute, it was sweet, it was fun to listen to and watch. I wonder, at what age to they change and start pulling wings or legs off. Are boys a little different to girls. I hope they don't lose that innocence, at least, not for many years. I also hope they never resort to pulling wings or legs. Even in the last of stage of its life, a simple moth has provided so much.

PepperJam is the fastest growing affiliate marketing program according Inc.500 and I can well believe it. Out of all the advertising programs that I have run on my sites, PepperJam stands out as many the most financially rewarding.

Out of 500 businesses, PepperJam ranked at number 70. What is more impressive is the growth that has measured in excess of 2,000%. That is phenomenal growth. However, if you consider that even a little site like mine can earn from these ad units, then most sites can at least match mine.

If you visit PepperJam one of the things that is going to impress you is the broad range of advertisers who have joined them. Take a look at my sidebar: there is CNN, MGM and Warner Brothers. These are not small mickey mouse (no pun intended) companies. They are mult-million dollar businesses.

Another aspect of PepperJam's business is the amount of support you receive from their staff. They generally respond with 24 hours (on a business day) and go out of their way to help as much as possible. If advertisers receive the same personalized service, then it is no wonder they are experiencing such amazing growth.

he PepperJam $10 signup bonus finishes at the end of this month so if you are into affiliate marketing you may want to check them out. The advertisers they have on board come from a variety of niches including parenting, babies and children.

Not only can you receive $10 for signing up (only through the bonus logo here), you can earn extra each month writing a simple blog about their services.

TIf you are interested in advertising then do me, and yourself a favor, click on the banner and check them out. It costs you nothing and pays me nothing. However you may just find the perfect set of ads for your site.

If you need to drive traffic to your site, then check out BetterVisitors. They can send 2000 targeted visitors to your site for $14.95. That is really cheap. This traffic is similar to Google Adword traffic only much cheaper. You can have traffic with an interest in parenting, families or related.

Here is the first pic of the new arrival - not even 20 hours old and back home and making presence felt :)

Being the kind of father that loves to brag, I would like to announce the arrival of a new family member.

Born just an hour ago, at 11.40pm, Monday 11th August is daughter number five - Aralia Dawn weighing in at just over 3kg.

It may be our fifth daughter, but we are all still just as excited as if it was our first. Darn - it's too late for champagne - oh well just a little :)