The evening starts with a warm up (a bit like a 5 minute aerobics class) and then the instructor performs a short dance routine to show how it’s done. She was amazing. We’ve never actually seen a ‘real-life’ pole dance before and when Katya climbed to the top of the pole, gripped with her legs and let go with her hands – wow! It was incredible to watch – it really is an art form.

You don’t realise how much strength and skill is needed to pole dance properly. No wonder it’s advised as a good way to tone up. And in such a fun way.

Then it was our turn to have a go! There were two poles in the class of 10 people and we took turns to practice the moves Katya taught us. Yes, in front of all the others. The first move (the one most women are nervous of) is where you jump on to the pole and slide down elegantly with legs astride! In all honesty, at this stage, we did feel a bit apprehensive quite embarrassed.

After trying a few moves, it soon became clear that some come more naturally than others. You also stop taking yourself too seriously and just get into the swing of it. The most difficult move was when we were told to think of ourselves as a ‘sexy diva goddess’ – this must have been the funniest routine we tried – imagine trying to be sexy with a pole. Yes, that means doing a few hip moves together with a sexy, come-here look on your face! A couple of glasses of wine would have made all the difference.

At the taster sessions, you get the chance to practice quite a few moves and really get a good feel for the real thing and whether you would like to do a full course.

There is a real feel-good factor about these sessions. Pole-dancing is not something we thought we’d ever do but we are so glad we did. What a great experience. We had tears in our eyes laughing at each other, we got a good work out (our arms ached for days afterwards) and we realised how much skill in involved.

Pole dancing is also about improving your body awareness and confidence. It gives you a strong sense of your sexuality again. You remember? That feeling before having children! It’s about walking with a little strut and bringing out your fun, playful side again.

Even though we were the oldest women in the class, we were probably the least self conscious. It made us realise that our experience of motherhood, with all its challenges and its impact on our bodies, has also given us a different kind of confidence and ease with ourselves. We have achieved something amazing just by being mums and this, in a sense, has given us a self-assurance that we didn’t have before having children. Yes, youth is beautiful, but it is also fantastic to be able to live our lives without all those insecurities.

So the bottom line (well, yes the one sticking out of the hot pants too) is that this is a fun, confidence-boosting, sexy and toning experience. By the end we were swinging around that pole in full force and you couldn’t get us off it!

We are thinking about the burlesque class next. As ever, we will keep you posted.

MUMSCLICK SPECIAL OFFER WITH POLESTARS
We are delighted that Polestars have offered MUMSCLICK members a 20% discount on all taster and full courses. Polestars are in Bournemouth, Brighton, Bristol, Bromley, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Peterborough, Reading, Sheffield, Southampton so there is no excuse! Click here to get your special MUMSCLICK code to take up this offer. Go with friends, with your teenage daughters (if they’ll go with you) or on your own. You won’t regret it.

Polestars also do pole-dancing parties (these cost £285 for up to 20 people – so it’s not too costly if everyone contributes) – great idea for a really fab girls night out. (the 20% discount doesn’t apply to the parties). Polestars have had a quite a few groups of mother’s clubs from schools organise these parties with us and they have had a great time!

Click here to find out more and to book.

Towards the end of March, child psychologist, Tanya Byron delivered a 224 page report of her investigation into new dangers to children being brought up in the digital age. Her recommendations included a similar classification for video games as the one used for movies and a full ‘public education campaign’. She does warn however, that we need to empower our children to learn to assess and deal with the potential danger that they could be exposed to, particularly on the internet.

The government website, ‘Think you Know’, has a similar view. They say that, just as we have to teach our children life skills like how to cross the road safely, how to deal with strangers and how to engage with people in a range of situations, we also have to provide them with the skills to allow them to ‘face the challenges of the modern world’, including the virtual world of the internet.

As they say ‘When our children go out to play we want to know where they are going. We satisfy ourselves that they know how to get there without any mishaps or being exposed to any real dangers en route, that they will be safe when they get there and that they will be with responsible people throughout. Typically, when our children come home we ask them if everything was OK. We take a very close interest. Using the internet safely requires similar skills, which is why it is important that parents and carers find out more about the /internet for themselves.’

Some of the internet risks Byron refers to in her report are: grooming, cyberbullying, the open-door policy to online “friends”, paedophiles, porn and violence. She examines the scientific evidence about how children are affected by nasty computer games or hardcore porn. There were mixed results. For example, there is a correlation between aggression and playing violent computer games but it is not clear that there is a causal relationship i.e. that violent games make children more violent. In her personal view, though, she is more adamant: “I’m really clear that adult content is harmful and inappropriate for young children particularly,” she says. “They do not have the neural networks in place to be able to critically evaluate the content, to differentiate fantasy from reality.”

The government has agreed to adopt some of the measures she proposes in the report. Key recommendations include setting up a UK council on child internet safety to develop voluntary codes of practice for the industry and better information for the public; educating adults about “parental control” systems on computers; a new classification of computer games like those used for films; and courses in schools to teach children “e-safety”.

As we did not grow up with the Internet, providing our children with the skills to be safe online is not a ‘natural’ thing for us to do. We tend to teach our children the life skills that we were taught by our parents. But, the reality is that the world is a different place now and the way our children communicate is different. Just as we teach our children about the dangers of the ‘real world’ so, too, do we need to adapt and provide our children with a framework for safety in the virtual world. Similarly, just as you probably supervise your children’s television viewing and wouldn’t let them watch unsuitable programmes, so too should you keep an eye on what sites they visit on the Internet.

We can’t always watch our children when they are online, especially our teenagers, so we need to provide them with the tools to cope with any dangers and challenges they may find online.

WHERE DO YOU START?

Well, this list of Simple Ways to Keep Children Safe Online taken from the government’s ThinkUKnow site is a good place:

1. Get to know your child’s online habits. Children are inquisitive. They will look to explore the internet as much as they do the real world. Knowing the sites they go to, the people they meet there and what they do will help to keep children safe.

2. Stay alert to any sudden changes in mood or appearance, or to any major change in habits or to increased secretiveness. These are often tell-tale signs that something is not right.

3. Keep lines of communication open – tell your child they can always talk to you or another trusted adult, such as a teacher, if they do end up in some sort of trouble on the internet. Make children aware that there are things on the internet which may distress them.

4. Spend some time surfing the internet yourself. The more that you know about the internet, the better able you are, in turn, to help your child navigate around it without coming to any harm.

5. Install internet filtering software showing a Child Safety Online Kitemark on your computer. Filtering products with a Kitemark have been independently tested to provide a simple and effective means of support to parents, helping to ensure that a child’s online experience is a safe one. The Kitemark scheme is sponsored by the Home Office and Ofcom.

6. Be aware of professional sources of help. These include:
6.1 Thinkuknow: the main UK Government website with advice for parents on how to keep children safe online
6.2 the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is the Government body dedicated to eradicating abuse of children. Concerns about inappropriate contacts between a child and an adult, including online, can be reported directly to CEOP.
6.3 the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) works to remove illegal material from the internet. If you have found any material you believe to be illegal e.g. child sex abuse images, other obscene material or material which incites racial hatred, you can report it to the IWF.
6.4 A number of specialist websites contain general advice that may be of help to parents. These include www.nspcc.org.uk, www.nch.org.uk, www.barnardos.org.uk, and www.bullying.co.uk.
6.5 Other sites can offer parents support on broader issues. These include Parentiline Plus and ParentsOrg.

The BBC (their online family safety website is very good – see below for link) provides these tips:

1. Keep the computer in a family or shared room.
2. Talk to your children about Internet safety. Let them know that it’s OK to tell you if they have a problem.
3. Ask your children to teach you how to chat, use message boards and instant messenger programmes.
4. Help your children set up their email accounts and ‘spam’ filters.
5. Limit the amount of unsupervised time your children spend online.
6. Encourage your children to be open about their Internet friends and the time they spend online.

If you would like to read more, the BBC Chat Guide is an excellent resource about how to keep you and your family safe online. It is broken down into useful categories: Children , Teens – which has a girls section and a ‘lads section and include ‘real life stories on internet safety, a section on bullying and identity fraud) and parents (keeping your children safe, ‘Stranger danger’ and also Letting go – allowing them to look after themselves)

Back Chat is also good for 11+ year olds – it’s a game that highlights the fact that online friends can’t always be trusted

http://www.mumsclick.com/cafe/

Hope to see you soon for some fun chats.

Nikki and Caroline

http://www.mumsclick.com/index/details/eating_to_combat_pmt

Enjoy!

The Mothers in Business competition is the first in a series of initiatives that we are launching to support mums who work. MUMSCLICK is very much about us as mothers supporting each other. We are passionate about like-minded women having the opportunity to connect, network and resource information to enhance their lives, their family lives and, if they work, their working lives.

MUMSCLICK Mothers in Business is a great way for us to help mum-owned businesses get exposure through advertising. It will also create an interactive forum for you to share your business experience with other mums so we can all learn from each other.

So what’s it all about? Well, we know how critical marketing is for the success of any business and that this is one aspect that MUMSCLICK can help you with.

So, if you own a business (no matter how small) you can enter our monthly draw and this is what you could win:

1. Free advertising for your business on the MUMSCLICK front page for 3 months in the form of an ad (you will need to provide artwork in the appropriate format) which rotates with the other winners.
2. Exposure in our newsletter.
3. Editorial on you and your business with links to your business website and the ability for MUMSCLICK members to contact you regarding your business via the MUMSCLICK website.

Click here to enter: