The ParentalPal Weblog

Famillage people

parentalpal — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:51:40 +0000

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Just added a new page: The Definition of “Famillage”

As we dive into the tremendous and exciting topic of

with a vengeance, a definition of the Parental Pal Famillage is important to make sure there’s an intrinsic understanding of the foundation millions of future global citizens can build on. It takes a village - a phrase which is quite familiar, means to us “Having fine and reliable partners for your kids where and when you need them and to be there for them in return, so that there is mutual support for kids who venture out to find their world”.

Money cannot buy friendship and it cannot purchase a famillage. Genuine commitment can.

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All the best for 2012

parentalpal — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:10:43 +0000

We all want to wish you all the best for the coming year 2012 !!!

Instead of some poetry here is a quote from “The Daily Om”
defining “global minded” in appealing words.

You may find yourself seeking to understand the world beyond your locale today, which could have you feeling broad-minded. You may feel progressive as you look outside your normal sphere of interest to explore the wider world. You might realize you don’t know the exact location of a country you’ve heard mentioned. Or you might meet someone from a place you’ve never heard of before. Whatever draws you out of your well-worn paths to connect to the rest of the world today can be considered a message from the universe and is worth heeding.

Even with the technology available to us today, we are not much different from villagers who receive news from a person traveling across their path. For most of us, unless we know someone from a certain part of the world, or have been there, stories about a faraway place don’t seem to have much to do with us. But just the opposite is true. Now more than ever, choices we make in our neighborhoods affect people around the world. Our ecology and economies are intertwined, and our planet’s fate is one we all share. By expanding our thinking to include people in other lands, we become part of a global culture, shifting the balance so that soon we may all make choices while shopping and traveling, driving, and eating that take into consideration our family members around the planet. Your progressive understanding today can be the first step of many to bring together our human family for the good of our home planet.
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And to get a true global feeling in tune with nature please enjoy this delightful clip by the BBC/Sir David Attenborough:
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All the best from all of us!

PS: … please feel invited to have a look at the offer below and pass it on!

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This Xmas: Give New Education

parentalpal — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:01:52 +0000

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Hello to all of you, to everyone who is who looking forward to Xmas, to the holidays we all need, to spend time with people whose company we cherish and to all the other fine and wonderful moments of this time of the year.

How does the Parental Pal community go into the next year?
Well, we have many great ideas (inspired by you and by what you’ve been good enough to tell us) and we have ambitious aims.
We will go “six-digit” within the next few months and to make it easier to join in the great game of “Applied Global Education” we have an attractive season’s offer for you:

We have just extended the timeframe for this very special offer of vouchers . They are yours for a truly special price because we know from experience: folks who genuinely care about education tend to have more than one bright and curious teenager close to their hearts.

We’ve not tried this before and we are delighted at the feedback we’ve
been getting so far. Thank you all and keep spreading the word!

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Global Education coming on with a vengeance

parentalpal — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 12:40:42 +0000

The next few months will see some top events on “Global Education”.

For details please refer to www.schoolpal.net !

There is one conference in the very near future Parental Pals will attend
and actively paricipate in : “The Global Education Conference”.

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The next hot date on our radar:
(just click on the screenshot for the link to this event !)

Please feel invited to join !
Due to the sheer need for clarification we have recently established
a new website explaining in a few sentences the difference between
“academic” global education and “applied” global education, which is
our special field of expertise.
Please visit and recommend the page to all who might benefit:
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Countdown: the quest for a name

parentalpal — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 10:14:22 +0000

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Sunday, 15th Jan, 2012 is the deadline …
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The prize options are cool and the challenge is hot: if you think you can think up just the right word for young people (just like yourself ?) then come to Promissio pro Futuro and submit your idea. And do it soon.

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Embracing otherness

parentalpal — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:55:07 +0000

… is embracing diversity.

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Please enjoy this TED-talk by Thandie Newton:

Embracing otherness, posted with vodpod

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Maternal employment and child socio-emotional behaviour in the UK

parentalpal — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:56:51 +0000

Longitudinal evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study

Accepted 9 December 2010
Published Online First 10 January 2011

Abstract

Background Mothers of young children are increasingly combining paid work with childrearing. Empirical evidence on the effects of maternal employment on children is contradictory and little work has considered the impact of maternal employment within the context of the employment patterns of both parents.

Methods Data on parental employment across three sweeps (when children were in infancy, age 3 and age 5 y) of the Millennium Cohort Study, a large nationally representative prospective birth cohort study, were used to investigate the relation between parental employment and child socio-emotional behaviour at age 5 years independent of maternal education, maternal depression or household income. The cumulative effect of maternal employment across the early years was investigated. The impact of maternal employment in the first year of life was separately examined as a potentially ‘sensitive period’.

Results There was no evidence of detrimental effects of maternal employment in the early years on subsequent child socio-emotional behaviour. There were significant gender differences in the effects of parental employment on behavioural outcomes. The most beneficial working arrangement for both girls and boys was that in which both mothers and fathers were present in the household and in paid work independent of maternal educational attainment and household income.

Conclusion No detrimental effects of maternal employment in the early years were seen. There were important gender differences in relationships between parental working arrangements and child socio-emotional outcomes.

Please click here for the original article /
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health

Anne McMunn, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health,
University College London, 1–19 Torrington Place, London WC1E 6BT, UK;
a.mcmunn@ucl.ac.uk

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A clip to show to folks over thirty

parentalpal — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 13:07:05 +0000

… such as (most) PARENTS !

A truly mindboggling clip, inspired by Karl Fisch & Co, …
see and enjoy their video “Did you know” here !

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Jaw-dropping potential for the ready, willing and able

parentalpal — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:10:20 +0000

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In our early days of putting the Parental Pal concept together we experimented with various business models. We approached a fair number of investors to see what they would make of it. Unanimously their feedback was that the key words “family” and “education” were enough to declare our idea as clearly not “sexy enough”. It just wasn’t hot.

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So we found a good way to get started without much money and today we’re glad to be independent of other folks’ financial interests.

Membership stats at ParentalPal.Org have shown a steady growth rate since and we learned new things every day which ultimately resulted in launching the Shared Mindspace project (2010), which grabs the idea of student exchange by its roots and takes it straight into the 21st century.
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Many parents have since joined us to establish individual exchange partnerships for their kids and let them go global in body and mind.
Membership with Parental Pals generally requires personal commitment and Shared Mindspace requires even more dedication: the whole process gets parents deeply involved with its philosophy and with the many personal tales that tell the story of this mission for global education. It gets them involved with kindred spirits, with their wishes and ambitions, with their talents and their dreams.

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Now here’s the gist: during these last ten months we have been offered capital from individual and institutional investors at a rate of two to three offers a month, money which we might have taken and used to add momentum to our growth. However, we have politely declined and have instead taken the opportunity to inquire in-depth what the driving factors behind these offers were.

The message is clear: there is no desire to partake in Parental Pals’ future earnings (the social profit message is coming across clearly and helps to avoid misunderstandings) !

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It’s the desire to connect with the young people emerging from
Shared Mindspace. To connect with them and with their future.
Because their future is exceptionally promising.

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So we held a conference with these would-be investors to find out exactly what it is that holds so much fascination for them and this is the outcome; it holds true for all of them (all twenty-four were willing to talk about their thoughts and associations: nine ladies and fifteen gentlemen from twelve countries, all of them are parents of more than one child).
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1.) Personal involvement leads to a direct and emotional perspective and helps to appreciate the tremendous difference Shared Mindspace is about to make for thousands of students. Parents sending their own teenage sons and daughters out into the world, well beyond the boundaries of their familiar home and school environment, see the issue of global education in a light which no strategy on paper could ever match for clarity.

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2.) Shared Mindspace lets kids create their own arena of opportunities like no other comparable program. Here everything’s possible with the right partners and being restricted to a selection of pre-arranged modules, time frames and host-families is a thing of the past.

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3.) Shared Mindspace kids come from families who take the initiative. They tackle education with an enterprising spirit and from many angles. The program gives powerful leverage to their attitude.

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4.) Families in this program are all set to embrace global life, they don’t buy education as a service and offer it to their kids as a step in their career ladder. They think in terms of cultural appreciation, historic understanding, connected thinking and social responsibility; learning, travelling and international dialogue make their whole life more enjoyable.

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5.) And finally this is why these 24 parents saw an excellent opportunity to invest: because Shared Mindspace hosts the world’s most intense family community of cooperative and open minded global citizens, giving young people direct and mentored access to global education. Particularly these 90% (that’s an educated and modest guess !) who would have their curiosity and ability stifled by the usual C & C factors without it. What the C & C factors are ? .Well, it’s Cash & Connections: ” How much do you have and whom do you know ?”
At Shared Mindspace these factors are “a problem solved“, which makes it a miraculous incubator for young talents from all walks of life who can reach out for more opportunities and for each other anytime.

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Meshing it – a fine definition

parentalpal — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:37:31 +0000

Networking is one thing, meshing is going one step further.

This wonderful TED talk by Lisa Gansky helps to understand the idea of “meshing” as much as it provides a better understanding of the cooperations happening daily at Parental Pal.
We’re sharing our place in life, certainly a very precious commodity!