Sleep Disorders And Night Terrors - Our Five Year Battle (And Counting)

Night terrors are kind of crazy.

For my middle son they happen most nights, about an hour after he goes to sleep.

He always screams.

He's always inconsolable.

He always wakes the baby.

There's nothing we can do for him; there's no comfort we can give him, no amount of trying to cuddle him, no amount of kind words or asking him to stop.

They come right out of nowhere.  Some nights he can be absolutely fine.

But most nights he wakes in this howling, screaming, terrified mess.

Hard to believe it, but they are tougher on us than they are on him.

He wakes in the morning with absolutely zero recollection of what has happened.  No awareness.  Just a nice, peaceful night, sometimes with a funny dream.

Thankfully.

We put the three boys to bed each night within a routine which has never really changed within the annals of time.

Bath, Supper, Teeth, Story, Story-tape, Bed.

It's pretty much the same every night.

It can be time-consuming.

Difficult to put into motion at the end of a long day.  It's important to me boys always go to bed happy.  Always with a hug and a kiss.

However, for poor Ethan, however much we tried, this wasn't always the case.

He may well have no memory of his night terror as they are now, but he used to have other fears at bed time too.

He's still scared of the dark.  He still fears the silence and the darkness around him when he wakes alone in the night.

His wee imagination goes into over-drive.

It all started when he was about a year old; the sudden middle-of-the-night screaming, the 'temper tantrums' which we just put down to sheer bloody-mindedness of our 'difficult' child.

He was never easy to put to bed.  He was a handful when he was awake!

But we all dreaded bedtime.

Our eldest son had always gone to bed nicely, easily, quietly.  But not Ethan.

He was terrified of going to sleep; absolutely adamant that he wasn't going to do it.

Every. Single. Night.

We'd spend hours indulging his night-time whims, reading him to sleep, changing bedrooms, changing lightbulbs, putting up blackout blinds and curtains on top of blinds.

We tried staying in the room and holding his hand, letting him sleep in our bed, letting him sleep in a sleeping bag, letting him go to bed with a million cuddly toys, as he was convinced that 'this time, mum, this time they'll look after me'.

Yup, this has been in the bed too! It's a bloody dressing up costume!

We tried to convince him he was being silly, it was 'just a phase', that he was big and didn't need us.

We listened at his door as he cried and screamed and pleaded with us to come back in the room until he fell asleep and we tried toughing it out.

We let him fill his belly before bed, we tried only letting him have something small, we tried different diets.
Reward charts.
Incentives.
Books which supposedly hypnotize.

It felt like we tried absolutely everything.

What we didn't know at the beginning, was that Ethan had terrible glue-ear, which was so profound that the doctor at the ENT clinic told us that basically, Ethan spent the first two years of his life hearing as though he was submerged under deep water all the time.

It took until he was two years old to diagnose, and then another year before he would get the grommets inserted, which changed his life overnight.  Suddenly he became verbal, a lot less frustrated and a lot easier to deal with.

The grommets were certainly an improvement beyond everything else, but we still had to deal with the fear and behaviour which comes from not being able to hear properly in those first three formative years.

It's had a huge impact.

He's a great kid.  He is very funny, with a rapier wit way beyond his years.  He is very clever.  But he has struggled.

Hearing properly very much contributes to other functions:

• Social interaction: He's never struggled to make a friend, but there's been a lot of misunderstandings and a lot of upsets!
• Communication: We've dealt with a LOT of tantrums, a lot of frustrated screaming and a lot of shouting.  Gradually we are teaching him to tone it down, but yes, this is a very hard thing to explain to others, especially as they think he is being horrible.
• Reading and Writing: He started school this year and he has tried so very hard, and is getting their, but his failure to hear words as they are supposed to sound for a long time has mucked up his internal alphabet system.  He has fought very hard for every single letter.
• Sensitivity: The grommets are great, but whereas before he didn't hear much, now he can hear everything, and to him it is very very loud! He therefore gets upset in places where there's more than your average noise levels, like parties, concerts and gym halls.

As he gets older he is becoming more and more able. His ability to communicate gets better and he is becoming less frustrated with life, which is great.

He now goes to bed with a lot less hassle.  Well, there's still some, but compared to what we used to deal with, it's nothing really.

We are however, still dealing with the night terrors. The last bastion of sleep disorder hell.

Apparently he'll grow out of them.

Apparently.

I really hope it's soon!

Encouraging Your Early Readers

So, your primary schooler is just past the reading basics and has begun to read unaided, albeit with a little bit of help.

Getting a kid to read is much like fishing - you spend a lot of time in those early years casting the hook with loads of big fat, juicy, fun picture-book worms, filling your tackle box with the best possible tools and wading out as deep as you can into the river of imagination, hoping to capture every little swimmer that ebbs forth from your child's mind.

You coerce, you read all of the bedtime stories, you fill their heads with imagination and magic and the life that only reading can give.

But now they have started to learn how to read for themselves - sounding out letters, forming words and making wobbly letters on everything they can get their hands on.  It's a funny time.  A time you have been building up to, but much like teaching a child to bike ride, it's difficult to know when to take those stabilisers off and to let them wobble off into the distance.

Here are ten tips for encouraging and promoting your own little learner.

1.There's no rush

Really, there's not.  Yes, you should be encouraging as much lone reading as you can, but don't be too eager to push them too far yet.  At worst, you stand to alienate an under-confident child at such an early (and it is still very early!) stage and at the best, you stand to lose some very special bonding time over the written word.  Don't be lazy and don't presume that because your child can seemingly read quite well without you that they want to.  Of course they will want to show off and do it some of the time, but remember, they are still learning so much.  Language is very difficult, especially written down, and they can learn so much more just be listening to you shouldering some of the heavy pronunciation, intonation and punctuation.

2. Go Over Old Favourites

We're Going On A Bear Hunt: IT'S A BEAR!!!!

It is a well known fact that children learn via repetition, so use this to your advantage. Part one of anything when learning is to find something that you enjoy, and if your child loves a particular story or book, run with it.  Use voices, read half a page while they read the other half.  They are more likely to garner success with something they really love and the pleasure that this gives them will encourage them to develop their voice and push them into further exploration.

3. Be Silly

Have fun, use voices, challenge them, turn it into a competition.  Above all else, keep it interesting.  Children learn best through play, so maybe use it as more of a game time for them if they seem less interested.  Whatever you do, don't turn reading time into a chore.

4. Any Reading Is Good Reading: You Are Not A Doctor - Do Not Prescribe!

You would not believe the amount of parents I speak to who are so negative about what  their children are reading.  They worry because their son isn't interested in novels, just comic books, or that their daughter doesn't enjoy  the old childhood classics they themselves enjoyed, and instead spen a lot of time reading fluffy Magic Animal stories.

Just STOP!

It DOES NOT MATTER what they are reading, as long as they ARE reading!

It's all very valid for your child, so validate it for them.  Don't turn it into something that they are ashamed to do.

This is where you will lose them.

If your daughter just wants to read comic books all the time , get them a comic book subscription, furnish her interest, take her to comic cons, feed her knowledge and get involved.  If your son loves Magic, Fluffy, Animal stories, get more Fluffy, Magic, Animal stories.  And no, there is no typo here.  Your children do not read with their genitals - do not prescribe to them what they should or should not be reading; the point is THEY ARE READING.  And they will very probably grow out of this reading phase and into a new one, you know, because reading is magic that way - you can read pretty much about anything you want! I myself have gone from Enid Blyton, to Goosebumps, to real-life stories about military life. That's books!

5. Use Your Library

Okay, okay, so I am a bit biased here.  But seriously - you have a free source of unlimited amounts of reading and literature at your disposal - USE IT!

You can 'invest' in easy-readers and learning to read books for your fledgeling reader, but the truth is, after a few weeks they are mastered, read and boring.  These are short stories, here to serve a short, well-meaning purpose and children generally really love them.  But they are short. And the lessons in them are quickly learned.  A lot of main libraries house collections of easy reader books especially for children who are just edging into solo reading and they are fab.  And they are authored by some very popular children's writers.

Francesca Simon, Janet and Allan Ahlberg, Michael Morpurgo and even Dr. Seuss books can all be found in the 'easier to read' section, and publishers are very much cashing in on their popularity amongst youngsters and their parents.

So use your library.  This really is the best place to foster a love of reading - plus it adds the best degree ever into the process, which is...'

6. Choice

Let your child choose.  And not just the material.  Let them choose when is best to read.  So, rather than asking them to read a passage at bedtime, when they are tired after a long day of learning, thus putting them off, maybe ask them to sit on your knee just before tea time, or even for a quick five minutes before heading out for an activity.

Don't get down on their choices either.  One of the best reads for Tom was actually a board book for babies that his brother borrowed from the library called 'Toot'., about babies farting.  It's a really funny wee book, filled with illustrations and funny wee phrases about the baby farting in the bath, in his snow suit etc.  And it was really funny to them both. They got a lot of joy out of it, and we had it out for weeks, based on the fact that when Tom read it to Ethan, they both laughed. A lot.  But if I had said to him, when he chose to read it 'Don't read that, it's for babies', we would have lost that whole experience of him enjoying reading to his brother and them both laughing and bonding over it.  Okay, it wasn't the most challenging, but hey, that also happens to be the same week he read his first chapter book on his own, so who's judging?
Same goes if they want to pick a book about Mongolia, or Ants or Sharks that seem well above their age level.  They chose it, and if they liked it enough to even pick it up, I'll bet your bottom dollar that they'll take something from it.

7. Reading Opportunities Are Everywhere

One of the first times that I realised that Thomas could read, was when we were in the car and he was able to read street sign names to me, completely without me even encouraging him.  It was amazing.  He'd sit in the back of the car and sound out words, letter by letter until he got a semblance of a word.  Which, as it happens, is how he now learns phonics at school.

I jumped on this opportunity as soon as I could.  If he was interested enough to do this on our normal day-to-day car journeys, then maybe he'd enjoy doing it for other street signs too?  I got him to look out for and recognise our home-town on street signs and he started pointing it out whenever he saw it.

I used this trick when we went on day trips to the zoo, or found leaflets about his favourite places.  Reading opportunities are everywhere.  Ethan currently loves picking up leaflets about the local aquarium and amusement arcades, but it's only a matter of time before he not only recognises the pictures and the font associated with these brands, but what the letters in the word actually say too.  That's repetition at it's best and it's a great tool at your disposal.

Tom's particular reading habit came from his video games.  He got a Lego Star Wars game on the PS2 and was keen for cheats to 'buy' characters.  He became adept at learning the complicated sounding names of characters and really good at sounding out otherwise impossible phonics which even adults would struggle with!  It was a gift, because he had such an interest in the Star Wars characters, that he would literally pore over anything that had them in it. We were very lucky like that, but you can adapt this to virtually anything - Disney characters, Skylanders, Dinosaurs.  Children get so obsessed about things - use it to your advantage.

8. Give Them Space

Tom loves reading alone sometimes, and during this time it is important to give him time and peace to do it.  His younger brother has always been a bit of a bugger to get to bed, so while he gets pretty much pandered to in his bottom bunk, I try to make sure Tom gets this time to read alone in the top bunk.  This time is for him, and he loves it.  He chooses the material - be it comic, magazine, Lego Character Encyclopaedia, and he gets to read 'in his head' sometimes sounding out the bigger words.  It is impotant for him to have this time without us breathing down his neck about mispronunciation and allowing him to make and (sometimes) correct his own mistakes.  If he can't play with the language without hindrance, he won't get to work out the nuances for himself, which is very important when it comes to reading in front of others or trying new stuff in class.

9.  Use The Internet

Image owned by Usborne.com

There is a wealth of learning tools on the web which seriously support the work that goes on in schools and on the page.  It is amazing.

They tend to be a lot more rote when it comes to learning, but a lot of it supports the curriculum and definitely helps with understanding the ins and outs of structure in our language.

Alphablocks, Teach Your Monster How To Read and Sesame Street's Elmo Reading App are all tools I have used to help various children over the last year or so, and most importantly, besides being a fab learning tool, they are FUN. And modern.  And the kids really engage with them.  They are incredibly developed and unbelievable addictive.  Use them at will!

10. Chill Out!

All kids learn at their own rate.  Don't push too hard or you will have the opposite effect that you wish to have on the young learner.  Like dogs, children sense nervousness. If you are lacking confidence in your child's ability, the will feel that.  Try to relax and enjoy the ride.  Remember how young they really are.  They might have donned a uniform and be waling and talking, but in the grand scheme of things, they are still just babies. Don't over-egg things or you will lose them at this.

Embrace the good as it happens and don't focus on what your child can't  do.  If you build it, it will come. Eventually. Enjoy the time you have left with your early reader.  All too soon they will grow into opinionated and developed readers with attitude - and that's a whole new wonderful journey on it's own!

What The Blethering Boys are Playing Today: Scattergories - Adapted For a 5 Year Old!

It's a horrible day outside - raining, soggy and we even had some Thunder and Lightning!

Tom's still a bit under the weather (see what I did there?  I'm a comedy genius!) and both boys are getting a bit bored, so i decided to mix things up a bit today and pull out a board game that Dave had brought home from his work for the adults to try.

Scattergories is an adult game - if you notice the age recommendation is 12+.

But I'm a bit of a rebel. I believe that there is merit in ignoring age bands and adapting board games like this to suit.

After all, you'd be missing out on learning outcomes like:

• Reading
• Writing
• Having to think quickly and accurately
• Word building
• Improvisation
• Spelling
• Rule-building
• Letter recognition

Now, in the adult version of this game, you roll the letter dice ( I have no idea what you call such a thing as a many-sided letter dice, so here we'll call it 'Gubbins') and the letter that you land on is the letter you then have to use to find a word beginning with that letter of something that belongs in a set category:  i.e; Categories are: Animal, Book, Film, Country etc.  The letter you rolled is C.  therefore you have to find an Animal, Book, Film, Country etc. all beginning with the letter C, but against a timer.  The person who has guessed the most when the buzzer goes, wins.

I started by writing new categories that were relevant for Thomas.  i wanted him to enjoy it and for it to hold his interest, so i added things like Lego Characters, Cartoon Character and Food (that boy is always hungry - he thinks about food a lot!)

After explaining the rules, Tom was keen to get cracking - rolling the cool Gubbins and getting to race against the timer was something he found both fun and exciting.  He's nothing is not competitive (can't think where he gets that from!)

We might have reset the timer a couple of times to get his answers down, but he was chuffed when he had a completed list and we could begin the process again with a different letter.

This was a great exercise for him - he got to practice his reading, writing and recognition and his grey matter got a break from boredom.  Obviously it was quite slow-going, as he is only 5, and quite new to the whole writing game, but he did really well.

Shh!  I'm sleeping, Mummy!

Ethan chilled on the sofa and listened to us chatting about different letters and sounds, quietly absorbing what was going on, and throwing in the odd answer.

Me:  'Right, we need a Fruit beginning with N!'

Tom: 'Urm....Errr...'

Ethan: (excited) 'Naanaaa!'

Me: 'Banana starts with B, pal, sorry'

Ethan: 'Napple! HA ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ah...Napple...'

As you can say, we played around with words and had a laugh, which is the main thing.  It's got to be fun.

Imagination

Quote by Albert Einstein.  Chalkboard by me!

Today's library blackboard.

I try and do one a week in the children's library where I work.  I like to think that the kids see it and think a wee bit more.

Children's libraries are so important.  I love the thought of the library as a portal for young minds to time travel between worlds and realms.

Love your library!

5 books that defined my teenage years

With the sad news today that the fabulous Sue Townsend has passed away, aged just 68, I thought I'd take some time to acknowledge the role her character Adrian Mole played in my teenage years.  As an adolescent, Adrian encapsulated all of the feelings I had, all of the frustrations, and made me laugh too.  Despite being written in 1984, the year I was born, his struggles still resonated with me 14 years later. And then I thought about all the other stuff that made me, well, me.  And I laughed.

How very funny it is to look back on the crazy teenage years.

1. The Secret Diary of Adrian mole, aged 13 3/4

The boy at the edge of despair 99% of the time.  The only guy who understood my feelings about my parents, about growing up, about old people and about love.

Now, I occasionally tutor high school students in English to prepare them for exams, and one particular boy I tutored needed help in finding something that he could read.  Reading wasn't his thing - in fact he really didn't enjoy it.  But the thing is, you only get better at English when you see it in action, so I was desperate for him to read something.

I went to my local bookstore and bought a copy of Adrian Mole for him.  I took it to him and gifted it to him, in the hope that he would read it.

It was really cheap copy, and not the older cover that i was used to.  It was clean and crisp and white, and I noticed a fancy gold label on the front.  It read '30 years celebration edition'

THIRTY years?

How often is it that we can take a modern book like that and pass it on to younger folk and find that it still has resonance for them?

A true modern classic.  Thank you Sue!




2. Spells for Teenage Witches

Yup, I was a teenage witch.  I spent more time than it is comfortable to admit following the spells in this book.

I can't completely remember, as my adult brain is trying to get far away from admitting this ever happened, but I'm pretty sure I spent a lot of time in my local park tying coloured string around trees.  And drawing pagan symbols with dripping candle wax.  And pretending to my friends that I would bless their doomed love lives with my home-made blessing scrolls.

*sigh*

3. The Golden Compass (and the rest of The Northern Lights Trilogy)

I remember the surly man at the desk in Waterstones who every week had to tell me that The Subtle Knife wasn't in yet.

These were the days before social media and Amazon, and the only pre-order was a rather sketchy system that they used in Waterstones, where you may or may not receive the book you asked for, within 6 weeks of it's release.

I made sure to bug that man every week, and sure enough it came just three weeks after the release date.

The world of Lyra Belacqua is such a mysterious and enchanting one - it was such an amazing first read, especially as a teen.  The film was very disappointing though.  I always felt it would have done better as a long BBC series - like they did with Narnia.

Phillip Pullman's work will always have a place in my heart.

4. Point Horror

The fluff of it's time, and still popular now, Point Horrors really made me shiver.  Once I hit a certain age, they lost their appeal, but in my early teens, these really got me going!

I wasn't easily scared, really, but I did have one hell of an overactive imagination.

These books were the ones that spawned, for me, running very fast once you turned off your bedroom light and jumping under the covers.  

'Cuz the covers would save you from the skeleton wielding a knife, you know?

5. Bridget Jones's Diary

When I hit 16, I was ready to be a woman.  And I took my love life very seriously.  Therefore I was Bridget Jones.

Despite being at least 15 years too young.  

I was in love with Mark Darcy.  Heck, this book even got me watching the Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth in it, over and over again (mainly just the wet shirt scene).  I lusted after bad-boy Daniel Cleaver and I felt Bridget's pain of being the eternal Singleton.

When the film came out, I loved it. The audience at the cinema all did too - it was the only time I've been in a cinema where everyone clapped at the end.

And I bought the soundtrack and stayed up late singing All By Myself  on my CD Walkman, headphones on for full morose effect.

I even started writing my diary like Bridget.

I was a strange lassie.

Still am.

What are your favourite teenage reads?  I'd love to know!  Anything as embarrassing as mine?

Celebrities writing children's fiction; what's wrong with it?

Could you write a best-selling children's book?

Tom Lamont, a writer and commissioning editor for the Observer, wrote a very interesting piece today for the Guardian, in dialogue with children's author, Robert Muchamore.  In it,he underlines what I, as a parent think and feel about the ever-growing number of celebrity authors. 

Find the article here

"A celebrity – Kylie, Sting – announces his or her intention to write for children, and I instinctively feel for the career-pledged writers who have been huffing away with their thesaurus and watercolour brushes for years. Beneath them, the hopefuls with worthwhile manuscripts hustle for interest... And, uh oh, here's another celebrity, lolloping into the game. They've noodled out an idea on a Groucho Club napkin. Their agent has swivelled at the bar to arrange a six-figure deal. The published result, you can bet, will absorb more than its share of publicity budgets, review space, shelf space."


Working in a children's library, it's something I'm asked all the time; 'which books will my child like?' and also, 'which books are best for my child?'.

And I really do think I am quite good at pointing someone in the right direction.  I myself have a special interest in children's literature and have studied the development of it, so celebrity writing is something which I have certainly noticed growing at a rapid rate on our bookshelves, and I see first-hand the impact it has when there is a chance to pick it up, for free, over a host of other titles.

The world of literature is awash with people who think they have a fantastic idea for a children's book - after all, it seems so easy, doesn't it?

I wrote to the zoo, to send me a pet...

Think of all of your children's favourites - Dear Zoo, Goodnight Moon, Guess How Much I Love you, Kipper - all with simple words and picture illustrations.  Surely it doesn't take a genius to put together a successful children's book?

The truth is, it's really hard to get it right.  Children are the most discerning audience, and above anything else are honest in their approach to things; if they do not like something, they will not pick it up.

Also, developmentally speaking, they are already geared towards a certain kind of literature at a certain age - it's not enough to simply have an easy story for pre-schoolers; research has shown that a story with rhyme and repetition works best, which is probably why author Julia Donaldson is so popular.

Oh help, oh no!

Baby board book have become so much more than pictures with words - there's now a huge array of black and white picture books, touch and feel boards and surprise flap books to garner the interest of the smallest babes.

So how is it then, that most celebrities who write, do in fact get it right? How are they so popular?

David Walliams and his fabulous fiction

We could argue that someone like David Walliams is naturally attuned to how children think- as Lamont points out, he is'an anomaly. He actually writes his own books, and as anyone who has ever sat a 10-year-old boy in front of an episode of Little Britain will attest, he knows how to make kids laugh.'


But when you think of someone like Madonna, or Katie Price, do you immediately think of someone who has a natural affinity with children, who could make kids giggle?

Tom loves a good book!

Sure, they are both mothers, so they must do to some degree, but are they, like so many celeb-authors seem to be, brilliant children's writers?

And if kids, who don't really know who these people are, are judging their books on content rather than who wrote them, like them, does it really matter?

Lamont claims we are jealous:

"We like to pretend we're reasonable souls, but most of us are way more petty and jealous than we'd like to admit. I mean, we may hate bankers, but if someone offered you two million a year to wear a snappy suit and yell, "Buy, buy, buy!" down a telephone you wouldn't say no, would you?"

There is something a bit odd about it all though, a bit cringe-worthy.  And I've been trying to work out what it is.

I think it makes me feel funny because books are a sacred and very intricate world into which a child steps. It's free.  It's pure. It's a world free from commercialism (in the main) and everything is completely based in imagination.

A book provides some of our most intimate childhood moments - at bedtime, when we are ill, when we are sad and connects with us in a way that is as individual as we are.  It's a mother's warm cuddle at night, entertainment on a rainy day, travel when we have to stay where we are.

For our children, I can think of nothing more important.

Reading has always been on the menu!

The names of children's authors, are words we utter to our book seller or librarians in the search for an old fable or beautiful moment from our own childhood, whispered with a twist of a smile on our lips.  These names are those who brought us all the understanding we sought out as children in an ever-confusing world.

It's not very often that we know much about them, or even what they look like.  And with massively magical authors, such as Roald Dahl or Judith Kerr, the author's own lives become a beautiful fable themselves, abound with rumours of magic and whimsy.

But these celebrities who write - the Madonnas, the Holly Willoughbys, the Russel Brands - we know more about them than is comfortable or necessary.  We know who they had sex with, what affairs they've had, the bad habits they advertise and, in the case of Katie Price, what their intimate parts look like during childbirth.

It doesn't feel right that we should be inviting their 'brands' into our children's domains.

Children's authors, traditionally, haven't courted this kind of celebrity for themselves, and we are all very comfortable with that.  But, quite rightly, they are peeved at the attention a celebrity's book is given - getting a book published is a difficult and emotional time for many authors.  It must feel like standing patiently in line, just to see the big ballsy, loudmouth bully skip the queue.

Children's author Robert Muchamore laments:

'It's time we recognised our top kids' authors for the cultural icons that they really are, and rewarded them with their rightful place in the celebrity limelight. I could display my intelligence and wit on Have I Got News For You; Michael Morpurgo could sing with the stars, and Philip Pullman can be the elderly one who isn't very good on Strictly. Malorie Blackman can host telethons and we can send Jo Rowling off to the jungle to sleep in the dirt and eat locusts.

And then we can stop this silly fuss, because we'll all be celebrities!'

In conclusion, what are books written by celebrities doing for us?  What is so wrong with them really?  After all, our kids read them, they like them, they re-read them and recommend them to their friends.  They talk about them.  And isn't that what we are trying to get our kids to do?  Fundamentally, by hook or by crook, we all want our kids to read more.

In short, there's nothing wrong with anything that gets children reading.  We may sneer at the latest celebrity attempt to push their brand onto our children.  We might balk at the way in which such a beautiful world of literature and free imagination is being rammed by the ever-growing tide of consumerism at it's finest. 

However, the truth of the matter is that the rise of celebrity authors is  casually destroying barriers between children who read and children who don't read, making it a much mre 'normal' and 'accepted' activity.  

That can only be a good thing.