EXTRACTS FROM THE YUMMY MUMMY'S FAMILY HANDBOOK

THE PLAYROOM

MUM, I'M BORED! Oh help.

The words 'I'm bored' cause alarming reactions in most parents, ranging from blood-curdling rage and energetic arm-waving to despair and tears. This is not because we are uncaring, mean or hysterical beings, but because those two words are usually uttered by children who are surrounded by enough potential for fun, interest and activity to keep half the children of the world occupied for a year.

There are several common replies to the dreaded 'I'm bored':

1. That's ridiculous: how can you be bored? Go and find something to do!

2. When I was little I only had some pieces of coal and a rusty nail to play with and I was never bored. Go and find something to do!

3. Only boring people are bored. Go and find something to do!

This last one is particularly effective, because it's quite true in general, and I think kids sense this but don't want to acknowledge that it's they who are being boring, not their Awful Boring Life. The other retorts are usually given because Mummy or Daddy are busy doing some hideous uninteresting yet essential chore at the time, and they would give their right arm to be bored for ten minutes instead of making dinner, filling in an insurance claim or writing cheques for school trips and recorder lessons.

I happen to think that boredom is an essential childhood experience: it's during periods of not knowing what to do other than pick their scabs, chew on some snot or see if they can put their leg above their head without farting that children start to free their minds of all the daily routines and pressures, and the constant stream of information, questioning and activities. It is during times of so-called 'boredom' that, if left to work through it, children start to use something so neglected and underrated these days that many of them don't have much left any more: their imagination.

WWW DOT: Surfing the World Wide Worry

Just when parenting looks like it might be getting a little easier thanks to magnetic travel games and no-spill cups, something terrifying comes along that threatens to undermine the very core of family life and signal the end of innocence and decent conversation forever. Like the Internet. OK, this is perhaps overstating things a trifle, but using home computers and the Internet is so normal in almost every family now, that even saying 'home computers' makes me sound like an old woman who is still struggling with the switch to metric.

Obviously the Internet is an absolutely wonderful, almost incredible and fantastically useful thing, and it has made much of our lives easier, and there are now many websites for children which are so well-designed, user-friendly, crammed with information and fun for them to use, that teachers must be quaking in their sturdy shoes. How can they possibly make their lessons even one-tenth as exciting, fun or up-to-date? Give it ten years and children will be learning about these strange things called 'teachers' in their Internet history lessons.

But if ever a sword were double-edged, and very, very sharp, it's this one. The potential downsides of children using the Internet are so terrifying that you'll be on that computer surfing for 'Anti Anything Which Will Damage or Shock My Child' software before you've had time to read to the bottom of the next. Hey! Hang on - don't go away yet. I haven't even started....

...So what can be done to leave the good and remove the bad? Well, quite a lot:

There follows an essential list of things to do to make sure your kids are safe surfing the net.