I went through a really difficult patch with my eldest daughter recently. Tantrums, tears, defiance, lying are some of the things that have reared their head. Whatever I said she just tuned me out, we were completely disconnected and she felt out of reach. Frankly, I found it quite scary, she's only just coming up for 4, imagine how it could be in another 10 years?

We are anxiously awaiting the results of our primary school application. We live in an area with a high proportion of young families where schools are oversubscribed. This year, our first choice school had 45 places of which 30 went to siblings leaving just 15 places. We been researching other options and come across some interesting education alternatives.

The Department of Health has revealed it is to scrap plans for healthy children under five to continue to be vaccinated against swine flu, just three months after urging GPs to vaccinate more than three million youngsters against the outbreak. In a major U-Turn, the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, revealed the programme of vaccinating healthy children would wrap up at the end of next month, although GPs have been told to continue to try vaccinate children until then. Extending the vaccination campaign to children has proved a disappointment, with just 17% of children in England having had the vaccine according to the latest uptake figures.

Body image is a hot topic amongst girls and women . Too fat, too thin, big boobs, no boobs, too short, too tall, the list goes on. A recent 2 year study by the Children's Society found that children were unhappy with their appearance and levels of confidence. Using a pioneering approach looking at the views of young people instead of focusing on issues adults considered important, researchers put around 100 questions to approx 7,000 children aged 10 to 15.