Hijackware

ethical: conforming to accepted professional standards of conduct -- Merriam-Webster OnLine: Collegiate Dictionary. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.htm 2001. (17 August 2001).

I swear, internet marketing companies are getting more obnoxious and unethical every day. I guess it was just naive to thing the banner ad risen to it's highest heights of stupidity with the punch the money banner. And I don't know about you, but I didn't really believe the marketers could get any lower on the scum scale than the exit windows that run away from the cursor so they are more difficult to close.

Well, I was wrong and I admit I was incredibly naive.

The marketers have come up with some incredibly unethical, horribly annoying gimmicks. The dirty tricks they are pulling now make exit windows look like child's play. In fact, the games these boys are playing makes the marketing methods of the scummiest adult web sites look downright professional in comparison.

The trend seems to have started a few years ago with a handy little utility called Gator. This ool professed to offer a great benefit to surfers - the ability to remember the contents of forms and password entry screens. Further, since Gator is actually pretty good at recognizing that a page contains a known form or password entry field, it is indeed very useful. I installed the program for a while and found it to be a wonderful complement to my surfing.

True, it did have this annoying habit of throwing a coupon up on my screen occasionally. I didn't think much about it at all - I just closed the coupon as quick as I could. This phenomenon didn't happen very often - in fact, at first I had difficulty figuring out what was actually causing it to occur. I naturally assumed this was a feature of the web site that I was visiting.

However, the coupons slowly became more and more common, and they began appearing at the worst possible times. They interfered with my shopping and surfing habits by breaking my train of concentration and thought.

I began to try and understand this strange phenomenon. I quickly realized this was a byproduct of Gator - and I soon understood that the utility was simply ait to get people to install an insidious, almost evil, advertising machine on their systems. In fact, the program is so obnoxious and so unethical that I truly believe no sane person would install it, no matter what the benefit, if they completely understood what was going on.

Gator (and other similar, but less popular products) is something called a Browser Helper Object. What this means is it is a small program which makes itself known to Internet Explorer, telling IE that to send information to Gator about the web pages that are being loaded into the browser. It's the job of a Browser Helper Object to extend the capabilities of the browser in a useful way. In the case of Gator, the usefulness is to recognize forms and password entry fields so default values can be inserted.

In addition, Gator wants to know what kinds of advertisements are appearing on the pages that are being loaded. It also wants to see if the page's subject is related to a product which one of it's paid advertisers is hawking. This is it's real purpose. The convenience is just a smoke screen.

Let's say you are surfing to your favorite shopping site and you want to order some flowers. You proceed to the flower shop and suddenly a coupon magically appears in front of you, offering you flowers elsewhere, presumably better or at a lower cost.

Okay, let's put this in real world terms so you can understand what's really going on. Let's pretend you are at the mall, going from shop to shop. There is this guy (let's call him Benedict) standing behind you with a notebook and pen in his hand. He has a bag of flyers hanging from one shoulder and a money counting machine on the other.

As you go from store to store Benedict watches your every move (by the way, he has a radio and reports everything you do back to his home office where it is permanently recorded). You go into a clothing store and pick up a pair of jeans. Suddenly a flyer appears under your nose, informing you there are cheaper, better jeans in a shop down the road. You look Benedict and he smiles nicely at you. You push the flyer out of the way and keep shopping.

Now you go into a candy store and walk up to the counter to order some chocolate. Again, a flyer appears in front of your face offering you chocolate at discount prices in a competing store. You push the flyer out of the way and pick out some chocolate that you want to purchase. Benedict pulls out his money counting machine, takes your wallet, counts the money, hands it to the cashier, and returns your wallet. This, by the way, is the enefit that makes it useful to have Benedict around.

I'll bet it wouldn't take long before you either called the cops or punched Benedict in the nose! And, of course, the store operators would make sure Benedict was arrested and thrown in jail, and they would sue the company for sure.

Well, guess what, it's gotten worse and more unethical, as hard as that is to believe.

According to reports, Gator is now working on a version which not only throws coupons in front of your face, it actually finds banners ads and covers them up with other advertisements so carefully and precisely that you would never know the original ad was there.

Now Benedict runs ahead of you as you shop and replaces all of the signs with advertisements for other stores. If you walked through our hypothetical mall and peaked under that ad for a movie, you might find there is actually an ad for an entirely different movie there. The billboard might actually be advertising something totally different. In fact, the signs in the stores themselves could be replaced with signs directing you to other stores.

Is this legal?

Well, Gator's terms and conditions do tell you they are going to do this. And you are supposed to read them (all gazillion pages) before you download the program. And of course, the terms and conditions are written in such a user friendly and simple way that you would certainly have no trouble completely understanding and agreeing to their tactics. (Sarcasm intentional).

I'm sure Gator would also argue that web sites do not own the user's desktops. And after all, the users did agree to the terms and conditions by installing Gator, so they must want this service, right?

I must admit I am just as guilty as everyone else, when it comes to reading terms and conditions. I mean, I just downloaded the silly thing and installed it. I did what everyone else does - I clicked through the terms and conditions without a glance. For all I know, I could have signed away my soul.

This is a lesson we all have to learn - by clicking through the terms and conditions we AGREE to them. By installing a program, we AGREE to the terms and conditions. Since the ONLY WAY to install the program is to click through the screen containing the terms and conditions and clicking a button that says, yes I read this and I understand that my soul now belongs to you and I am happy with it, well, the companies are covered. Oh yes, and your soul is toast.

Are programs such as this ethical?

No. Not by any definition of the word. This is unethical in terms that the adult web sites have not even come close to. Programs like Gator are produced by the lowest form of pond scum - scum which is so dirty and filthy that even normal scum does not want to be associated with it. In fact, if this pond scum enters a pond, all of the other scum will go to a different pond in a different country just so as not to sully their own names any more than they already have.

What should we do about it?

First, we all need to start reading terms and conditions. The web is based upon these poorly written, conniving and often one-sided documents. We must ALL begin to read them, understand them, and if we don't agree to them, then we must not install the program or use the service.

Second, do as I have done. If you have any Spyware (programs which report your information back to the home office) or Hijackware (programs like Gator), uninstall it immediately without any delay. Download Ad-Aware, run it and follow the directions. This will allow you to safely remove all of this junk from your system fast.

Third, if you find out that advertisers are using Hijackware, then refuse to purchase their products. Be sure and send them an email to let them know why you are doing so. Be polite and direct.

Forth, if you like the Hijackware's functions but do not want to experience it's side effects, then look for an alternative. There are plenty of programs out there that can do what you want without being so unethical, obnoxious and downright, well, evil about it.

My final advice. Just say no. It's simple and it's easy. Don't use these kinds of programs and don't purchase from companies who use them. This is the only way that we will force this kind of scum out of business.

Additional Information

Ad Blocking
http://www.internet-tips.net/Security/adblocking.htm Banner ads are everywhere, and they take up valuable bandwidth. In addition, they are ugly and distracting. Here's how to remove them.

Browser Helper Objects
http://www.internet-tips.net/Browsers/bho.htm Is your system crashing? Perhaps you've unknowingly done what I did - added a Browser Helper Object.

Products - Ad-Aware
http://www.internet-tips.net/Products/adaware.htm Want to remove spyware from your system? Ad-Aware is a quick and simple product which will help you do that safely.

Products - AdSubtract Pro
http://www.internet-tips.net/Products/adsubtract.htm You want to eliminate banner ads and web bugs? AdSubtract Pro does an excellent job.

Products - Cookie Pal
http://www.internet-tips.net/Products/cookiepal.htm Need to manage cookies as you surf the internet? Then you will not find a better program than Cookie Pal.

Tanstaaf - Spyware
http://www.internet-tips.net/Tanstaafl/spyware.htm Be careful installing ad supported products - you may find that you every move on the internet is being watched!

Tanstaafl - Spyware - Alexa
http://www.internet-tips.net/Tanstaafl/spywarealexa.htm Alexa is one of the more flagrant spyware products. My advice is to avoid it like the plague.

Tanstaafl - Juno
http://www.internet-tips.net/Tanstaafl/tanstaafljuno.htm Juno wants to turn your computer into a module of it's own supercomputer. Do you really want to let them?

Web Bugs
http://www.internet-tips.net/Security/webbugs.htm Web bugs are little graphic images inserted into web pages, emails and other web-aware documents to allow companies to gather information about you without your knowledge.

Web Bugs Are Crawling Everywhere http://www.internet-tips.net/Security/webbugsgrowing.htm You've heard about web bugs. They are little things designed to track your movements. Watch out - they are exploding all over the internet.

Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets at http://www.internet-tips.net - Visit our website any time to read over 1,000 complete FREE articles about how to improve your internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge.

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Divine WinesWhat's In A Name?

I just got this great question of Andreas Wiedow, who asked me What's a divine wine?. And I can assure you this question got me thinking?

Well in order to be able to tell you what is a divine wine, let?s take a look at the definition of divine.

DIVINE ? A DEFINITION

A definition taken from the Webster dictionary.

Divine: 1 a : of, relating to, or proceeding directly from God or a god (divine love) b : being a deity (the divine savior) c : directed to a deity (divine worship) 2 a : supremely good : superb (the pie was divine) b : heavenly, godlike

So we are talking about superb, heavenly wines. I would guess this excludes your daily plonk. So it has to be something special, something godlike!

DIVINE = EXPENSIVE?

So, do you have to open your wallet a lot for divinity? Ooooh yes! At least for me.

For this person a divine wine is in general expensive (around 15 to 20 EUR and often a lot more, but there are exceptions. I had recently an extremely nice Nero d?Avola which we sell for about 11 EUR and which is just divine, I mean complex and elegant).

But be aware, this has not always been so (oh no) and can be explained (oh yes).

1. Education

Liking wines is also a bit understanding wines. Let?s compare it to your school period. When starting secondary school at 6 years, I guess you could write and read just a little bit. Well that?s why we have all those years at school, isn?t. If one would have dropped in your hands a book of Milan Kundera or Umberto Eco, you surely would not be able to appreciate it at that age (let stand to read it ;-)). Harry Potter, maybe.

Nowadays I -at least- can enjoy Milan Kundera a lot (this is a divine writer to me) and I enjoy a lot Harry Potter (which are great page turners, hey no divinity here, but a lot of pleasure).

Just the same with wines. You start off with Harry Potter wines, juicy, easy (to understand) wines and you work you?re way through to Milan Kundera wines, complex of an unseen elegance, difficult type of wines. And yes it is an education!

So it took me a couple (lot) of years to find my way to the complexity of e.g. a Barolo wine. Ooh so divine. And as most of us, I started of with a simple juicy wine, such as a Pays D?Oc merlot or ?(just fill in). Maybe at that moment these were divine wines, but now they are no longer divine. Hey these type of wines can be pleasing and sometimes very pleasing. And it makes me smile when I find a wine in the ?below 6 EUR category? that is great. Price quality ratio is important?but for GODLIKE wines, I like to get my stuff in the higher price ranges.

2. Learning To Appreciate

Another comparison can be made with classic music. As a little child I hated it. When my parents turned on some classic stuff it was the time to run of yelling to my room. Now I love it. I enjoy an evening out at the opera and had some really divine moments over there! If you have seen ?La Traviata? I guess you would understand what I?m talking about.

Again, just the same with wine. You need to learn appreciate it, and maybe you need also some age, some (live) experience. And maybe the sooner you start with wine the sooner you can appreciate the difficult (read DIVINE) wines.

3. Appreciation And Education

Learning to appreciate is of course closely linked with education. In order to be able to appreciate, you need to learn, to understand how a wine is made, how it obtains its complexity. And to train?yes to train your nose, your taste.

I?m heavy pro some kind of ?sniffing and tasting? course at school. It is one of our senses we do not learn to use. If you don?t believe, do the test: just try to catch some smells blind, very difficult thing to do.

So one tip on how to appreciate DIVINE wines: sniff, taste and sniff, taste and sniff, taste and? You can try to sniff a lot of things, just go to your local market and sniff the flowers, the food or step in your garden and sniff the trees, the leaves, the grass, ? You will notice that after a while your nose gets trained and you will pick up far more easier smells (yeah, also the bad ones ;-)).

THE MOMENT

And divinity is also very largely dependent on the moment. Something that proceeds from God or a god doesn?t come 24/7.

So there are this special moments when every puzzle piece fits in and when you drink some great wine at such moments, you will remember. The grazy thing is that such wines could also be very simple wines. Thus, the exception to my rule that divine wines need to be expensive.

I still remember a trip with school to Rome where we drank an Est!, Est!!, Est!!! di Montefiascone, actually a quite simple wine, but with a lot of college boys combined with an incredible time in Italy, this turned out just as such a memorable moment.

Points that are in advantage of the above theory are of course that I didn?t had any wine education yet!

There are some moments I just can remember because of the great feeling of that moment combined with an incredible wine.

CONCLUSION

For me, the aspects that influence the divinity of wine are thus the following:

Education

Learning to appreciate

The combination of the two above

The moment

And because of these aspects, I often end up with a wine that is in the higher price range. What can I do about it? I?m just a product of my education?

Some last tip for you wine lovers. If you start with wine and you desire to beef up your wine cellar, do not, I repeat, do not buy too many of the first wines you love, you will see that your taste will change, that you will (learn to) appreciate other (read more complex) wines. And that a great moment isn?t easy to repeat?even with that same great wine!

And on that bombshell?.I?ll go to my cellar and get me a divine wine.

Bart Van Honst? is a passionate wine lover and enthusiastic wine trader at WineRoute who specializes in Italian wines and loves to bring you the stories behind the wine. Always looking for some new hidden gems from every wine country. Next to this he is also teaching wine classes and WSET advanced certificate holder.

Check out his company at http://www.wineroute.be

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Breakfast

The term breakfast denotes that it is the meal that breaks fast i.e. the fast during sleep. As it is the first meal of the day, we have breakfast in the morning. In the weekdays, most of the American people have a quick breakfast. But on the weekend or holidays they have a lavish traditional breakfast. On the working days the breakfast consists of coffee or any snack on the way to office. They can buy the fast food or bring it from their home. The contemporary breakfast therefore should be a quick preparation and convenient. The popular dishes of the quick breakfast list are breads, pastries, flavored cupped yogurts, fruits, instant oatmeal and granola and many more. You can also use leftovers of the previous meal to make breakfast. A more elaborate breakfast may contain fried or scrambled eggs, one kind of meat and starchy dishes. A basic combination of breakfast is starchy foods like toast, pastry, cereals, pancakes and porridge, fresh fruits and yogurts. You can also have only the starchy foods in your breakfast also.

Eggs are very popular in the quick breakfast preparation. They take such an important place in the breakfast that they are considered out of place in other courses of meals. You can have the sweeter and less spicy versions of egg offerings such as egg-filled sandwiches of croissants, hamburgers without the regular vegetable garnishes and breakfast burritos or tacos filled with eggs and cheese, often with more additions like meat or beans. A combination called country breakfast with omlette, sausage or bacon, hash browns, sausage with gravy, coffee, toast with jam or jelly and fruit juice is quite popular. There are restaurant chains in United States who specializes in the breakfast dishes like pancakes and the country breakfast. You can find the cuisine there at any time of the day. The trend of this quick breakfast is now popular in other industrialized countries of the world.
About the Author

Dave Fooder runs a premiere exchange recipes network online. Visit his site http://www.cookscentral.com for Fast Free & Easy Cooking Collections and enjoy exchanging recipes.

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Family Advocacy

How to help your child deal with your mental illness.

Who Was Jean Piaget?

Jean Piaget was to cognitive development as Albert Einstein was to physics. In fact Einstein was afan of Piaget's work. Jean Piaget was born in Switzerland on Aug. 9, 1896. He published his first scientific paper at the age of 10. By the age of 22 he already had a doctorate in zoology. He became interested in psychoanalysis after WWII and attended lectures given by Carl Jung. He then studied in Paris working in Alfred Binet's child psychology lab. It was there that he first began to notice that children of the same ages answered true/false questions similarly. He returned to Switzerland and spent many years studying and conversing with children. He realized through his conversations that when asked a question a child did not necessarily give an incorrect answer just because the answer wasn't an adult response. They instead gave logical answers based on the knowledge that they had within them. He concluded that if adults try to teach children to quickly that it prevents them from reinventing it themselves, thus making it their own. His career spanned nearly 75 years and he is credited with developing several new fields of science including developmental psychology, cognitive theory and what later became genetic epistemology. Without him, some of today's modern methods would have never come about. Many of his theories are still the basis for modern child development including the Theory of Knowledge Construction. This theory is based upon the principle that when a child comes into contact with a new piece of information, his mind must understand it in a way that fits his current view of the world. If it doesn't fit the mold then the child will re-construct their knowledge so they can assimilate the new information. It is much like constructing a building - you cannot start with the top, you must build the foundation first and then develop up from the base.

Four Stages of Cognitive Development in Children

Let's take a minute to get a feel for Piaget's 4 stages of cognitive development in children. Remember, he spent most of his life studying and interacting with children and I think his theory makes a lot of sense.

Stage I: Sensorimotor (Infancy)

Infants learn about the world around them through sensation and movement. The focus at this stage is on motor and reflex actions. They take a great interest in the faces and voices of caretakers. Parents can aid in their development by making faces, talking and singing to their little ones.

Stage II: Preoperation (Toddler & Early Childhood)

This stage's main focus on the child's intellectual development is language and using symbols (e.g. words and pictures). The child will act intuitively at this stage. They have active imaginations and vivid fantasies. It is not uncommon for the child to personify objects, thus giving toys and dolls human like qualities. Parents should take the time to help them learn language and promote their imaginations ,as well as pay attention to how they play with objects.

Stage III: Concrete Operation(Elementary & Early Adolescence

During this stage children start to process abstract concepts such as numbers and relationships. Before a child could only manipulate things physically. Now they begin to be able to manipulate them mentally as well. To do this they need concrete examples or they will not understand the concept. A child's development should focus on giving concrete examples of ideas.

Stage IV: Formal Operation (Adolescence & Early Adulthood)

This is the stage where children begin to reason logically and analytically without needing concrete examples as before. Children are now capable of hypothetical and deductive reasoning. Encouraging young people to consider multiple possibilities will help their development at this stage.All of these stages represent areas of opportunity or risk of failure when it comes to helping your child get through the world. This task is tough enough for two parents who are normal by societies standards. Throw in a parent who suffers from a mental illness and you face a much greater challenge. This is the reason I started with the 4 stages of development - so that parents could see areas that they could reach out to their children in an appropriate way and affect them in a positive manner.

Some General Statistics

Almost 1/3 of American women and 1/5 of American men provide evidence of psychiatric disorder in the past 12 months. Of these women, 65% are mothers; 52% are fathers.

Women and men with mental illness are at least as likely, if not more likely, than those without psychiatric disorder to become parents.

The majority of adults falling into psychiatric diagnostic categories (affective disorders,anxiety disorders, PTSD, psychotic disorders, etc.) are parents.

1 in 4 American families are affected by parental mental illness.

Why Parents Don't Seek Help

One of the biggest reasons that adults don't seek assistance for their mental problems is due to the stigma that is still attached to having a mental illness. Unfortunately many people still do not view mental illnesses as a medical problem but as a personal flaw or weakness in the person. You still hear the mentally ill referred to as crazy, loony, uts, psycho, or even worse terms. One of the other reasons for not seeking treatment is that mental illness is the primary reason for custodial challenge. Some studies have reported as many as 70-80% of parents with a mental illness have lost custody of their children due to their illness (Burton, 1990). There remains a strong misconception that mentally ill parents are violent and are therefore at an increased risk for abusing their children. While this may be true for alcohol and drug abusers, it is not true for parents with psychiatric disorders getting treatment. Still, for these reasons many people are afraid of getting the help that they need. They are afraid their symptoms may give the impression that they would be an unfit parent. If they are seen as unfit they could lose their children. Therefore families may not receive the services they need to raise healthy children. Thus a vicious cycle begins.

Warning Signs

The following is a list of symptoms that could indicate that children are not dealing well with a parent's mental illness. Mind you, these are also signs for other causes such as trouble in school, peer pressure, sexual problems, abuse, relationship problems, substance abuse, a change in circumstances at home and a host of other issues. Still, I felt they were worth mentioning. If you notice any of these things in your children over a continual period for 3-4 weeks, please seek help for them. Never turn a blind eye and think that the problem will solve itself.

• moodiness


• bad temper or irritability


• crying a lot


• sleeping problems


• lying


• not talking to people or going out with friends


• eating more or less than usual or skipping meals


• giving up hobbies


• arguing


• feeling lazy, bored or tired


• stealing or getting into trouble


• ot looking after themselves (hygiene)


• low self-esteem


• acting recklessly


• drinking alcohol or using drugs


• skipping school


• preferring to be alone

How Children are Affected - Risk or Resilience?

As seen above in Jean Piaget's Theory of Knowledge Construction, children are only capable of understanding things if they have the knowledge from the preceding level of development. At each level they can be affected either adversely or positively by their interactions with their parents - regardless if the parent has a mental illness or not. The challenge here is the capability of mentally ill parents to provide what is needed at each stage. (This is where you want to go back and re-read the section on the 4 stages of cognitive development.) It is up to us as parents to provide them what is needed and as a mentally ill parent that becomes quite a challenge. Now, research clearly indicates that parental mental illness increases the risk of the child developing emotional or behavior problems. (I'm leaving out genetics here since it is a different issue.) Children with the most serious emotional disturbances, served by systems of care across the U.S., report high rates of parental mental illness, psychiatric hospitalizations and substance abuse (Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and their Families Program, Annual Report to Congress, 1998). This report shows nothing of the relationship between the age of a child and their exposure to parental mental illness. Some feel that if children are exposed repeatedly at a young age their risk is higher. However, some studies have failed to find conclusive results regarding age or developmental stages in regards to their level of risk (Oyserman et al.; Weissman, 1989). Stressors outside of the family detrimentally affect children of parents with a mental illness. Stressful issues that increase the likelihood of emotional or behavioral problems are minority status, low levels of education, stigma, single parenthood, social isolation and poverty (Biedel & Turner, 1997; Hammen et al., 1987; Harnish et al., 1995; Sameroff & Seifer, 1983). These types of issues are difficult at best for a child to cope with but when you add in a mentally ill parent the problem is simply compounded massively. The gender of the child also appears to play a roll in how they react to a parent's illness, although there is conflicting evidence in how exactly. Some studies show that girls are more adversely affected and some feel that it is boys who have a worse time coping. Studies have shown, however, that girls are more prone to develop depression and boys are more likely to exhibit conduct problems (Cummings & Davies, 1994). It is well documented that children with greater intelligence, better social skills and stronger cognitive processes have been shown to be more resilient to their parental mental illness (Beardslee & Podorefsky, 1988; Radke-Yarrow & Sherman, 1990.) Cognitive skills such as a positive and coherent self-concept, a positive attribution style, effective coping and problem solving abilities have been associated with positive outcomes among children in general and specifically among children with depressed mothers (Beardslee & Podorefsky, 1988; Downey & Walker, 1989; Radke-Yarrow et al., 1995)

Be an Advocate for Yourself

Think back to the last time you were on an airplane and the flight attendant was going over the safety instructions...when the oxygen mask drops down from above you are to secure yours first and then help your children or others who need assistance. The same applies to your mental illness except that there is no air mask that automatically drops down. You have to create the life saving devices yourself. You can chose between two roads. Both roads are bumpy, filled with hidden sand traps and detours into never ending thick jungles but one trail gives you some control, knowledge and power and the other leaves you whining and blaming everyone and everything for your misfortune. The one you pick will affect everyone around you - especially your children. The following are some ideas to get you on the right path:

• Take your medications as prescribed


• Tell you doctor immediately if you have an adverse reaction to a new medication


• Get a weekly pill box to help you remember to take your medications


• Make sure you are aware of any severe side effects that could harm you If your medication requires blood tests - don't miss them


• Don't miss appointments with your psychiatrist


• Educate yourself about your illness


• Read books


• Join support groups


• Ask questions of experts


• Know your early warning signs so you can catch an episode before it gets out of control


• Build a support network


• Get into a routine so you don't feel stressed or forget things


• Pick out your work clothes the night before


• Set aside certain days for specific tasks


• Make a family calendar if your family participates a lot of activities


• Make time for yourself


• Eat healthy


• Try to avoid overly stressful situations or situations that can trigger an episode


• Learn relaxation techniques


• Deep breathing


• Pray - if you are religious


• Take a warm bath (try some aromatherapy)


• Do a hobby that is soothing to you


• Enlist the help of family and friends


• Don't overextend yourself

Be an Advocate for Your Child

Often we hear people talk about how resilient children are these days. This is true in many ways, but they still need parental guidance and protection. Especially as they grow older, we as parents, tend to think they don't need us anymore when they still do. Each child is different as we have seen and they each react differently to a parent's mental illness. Some children feel ashamed or embarrassed by the stigma associated with their parent's mental illness. Often they cannot invite friends home due to an ill parent or are teased by their peers. This can cause them to withdrawal from their peers and community. It is important as a parent that you educate your child about your illness (a little at a time according to their age). Assure them that your illness is a medical illness like diabetes and there is no shame in it. Also reinforce over and over that your illness or episodes are not their fault in any way. They may experience anger, anxiety or guilt over your illness. Take them to a counselor, if only for a short time to help them sort through their feelings. Other children may take on an inappropriate amount of responsibility in caring for themselves, siblings, the household or even the sick parent. By doing this, they are prevented from normal social interaction with their peer group and from participating in school activities. Their schoolwork may directly suffer due to lack of time for homework or from being overly tired or worried about the parent while at school. Due to poor social relationships they may turn to drugs or alcohol to help them cope, which compounds the problem. Try to find a family member, friend or someone who could watch your child or children while you are sick. Even if you can get someone to come over and help with household chores takes some of the pressure off of the kids. The presence or availability of a spouse or partner without a mental illness has been shown to improve the outcomes of both the child and the ill parent (Musick, Scott, spencer, Goldman & Cohler, 1987: Puckering, 1989; Tannenbaum & Forehand, 1994; Webster, 1992). There is a bidirectional influence of effects from parent to child and child to parent. Each one's moods and behaviors affects the other's (Goodman & Gotlib, 1999; Hammen, Burge & Adrian, 1991). Having a rational third person around can help keep things on a more level playing field. Here are a few other ideas and examples that you can do to help your child or children deal with your mental illness and reduce the risk of mental or behavior problems for them:

1. Provide as much stability as possible. It is the disruption of the routine family life that causes more disturbances than the illness of the parent. This is a hard one for everyone - I know I fail frequently; just be aware of how important it is for a child.

2. Help your child find a relationship with another supportive adult - an aunt or uncle, neighbor, teacher, church leaders or even their own counselor.

3. Have a plan in place for when you must be hospitalized. Is there a relative who can take the child during that time? Maybe a school friend's family would be willing to let your child stay with them until you are released. You don't know until you ask, and you don't want to wait until you are in a crisis situation.

4. his cannot be emphasized enough - assure your children that your mental illness has nothing to do with them and isn'ttheir fault. Telling them one time isn't enough.

5. Provide them with a safe environment - free from abuse of any kind: emotional, physical or sexual. If you feel that you cannot handle your children have an alternative place for them to stay until the feelings pass.

6. If problems begin to arise at school explain the situation your child's teachers or the school principal. This will allow them to be better equipped to handle any behavioral problems with compassion. This also opens up a two-way line of communication between you and their school.

7. Seek therapy for your child. Often the school system has psychologists they use that can speak with your child that are no cost to you. If they don't, get them therapy through mental health services or through a private psychologist. This will help them handle your illness as well as teasing from other children; it will give them better coping skills and help build their self-esteem.

8. Enhance the communication between you and your children. Keeping those lines open will help them come to you with their questions instead of drawing their own, probably incorrect, conclusions.One thing I think that everyone will agree upon is that our children are our most precious commodity and should be given every opportunity at a happy and fulfilled life. Even parents facing mental challenges can provide their children with the tools and skills needed to succeed. Will it be hard? Sure it will, but it will be more than worth it. Don't give up on yourself or your families. The more we educate our loved ones, the more the stigma will lose it's hold over the populous in general.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Terry J. Coyier is a 37-year-old college student studying for an Associates of Applied Sciences degree. She is also a freelance writer who writes about bipolar disorder, other mental illnesses and self-help topics. Terry was diagnosed with bipolar ten years ago. She lives with her son in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex. Terry is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers and her personal portfolio can be viewed at http://terryjroo.writing.com

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Holiday Season Sales Predictions For 2006

With the recent drop in gas prices, should online retailers expect a cheery holiday sales forecast? According to the National Federation of Retailers (NRF) one-fifth of all retail sales in the United States occur during the holiday season. With the critical holiday shopping season upon us, many companies are gearing up for a busy and eventful holiday season.

Although they expect holiday sales to be subdued this holiday season, the NRF still expects a gain of 5 percent to $457.4 billion, which is short of last years 6.1 percent increase. But, online holiday sales will continue their fast-paced trend, with sales expected to reach 27 billion (Forrester Research, Inc.), which would represent a 23 percent increase over last year.

Another holiday season forecast by eMarketer, predicts that during November and December, online retailers will have sales figures of 24.3 billion; which is a 22.1 percent increase over last year.

However, Jupiter Research, Inc., paints an even rosier sales forecast calling for 2006 online sales to be 32 billion, which would be an increase of 18 percent over last year. Additionally, Jupiter reports a record 114 million users will shop online in 2006.

In an October survey cosponsored by Shop.org, an e-commerce arm of the NRF, and Shopzilla, which is a comparison-shopping site, it was reported that 72 percent of the online retailers expected good (15%-plus) year-over-year online sales growth this holiday season. Twenty-one percent of the retailers forecast hyper growth (75%-plus) year-over-year online sales growth.

But with all these facts, figures and forecasts, what will holiday shoppers be looking for this year? According to NRF research, gift cards continue to be big sellers and this year many stores are capitalizing on this trend by offering cards geared toward the individual's lifestyle, adding that some cards are even personalized by including photographs or a particular theme.

More hot gifts included in the NRF research included women's clothing, specifically, plaid and hand-knit crocheted looks in women's categories, sweater dresses, short jackets and boots. Additionally, look for diet products, gift certificates to spas or gyms, cell phones and cell phone accessories, ipods, computer gaming products and computer gifts to be very popular on the wish list for young adults and teens.

Of course, we have all heard of the new Tickle Me Elmo 10th Anniversary Edition dolls that are any child's list from age seven and under. But is the demand for this toy going to dwindle the supply down to nothing? Probably. But, Fisher-Price insists there is going to be a steady flow of product going out to the retailers. Retailers have taken steps to assure they don't run out of a product by limiting the number of an individual product that a customer can buy when that product is in short supply, with the idea being that there should be enough for everyone. But could Tickle Me Elmo winds up on ebay selling at outrageous prices because of shortages? It already has.

A Trade publication, Toy Wishes, projects the following toys to be among the top sellers this holiday season: Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses (Mattel Inc.), Bratz Forever Diamondz (MGA Entertainment), Butterscotch My Furreal Friends Pony (Hasbro Inc.), Digi Makeover (Radica Games Ltd.), Fly Wheels XPV (Jakks-Pacific Inc.), Kids Tough Digital Camera (Mattel's Fisher-Price), Lego Mindstorms NXT (Lego Systems Inc.), Magtastik (Hasbro Inc.), Speed Stacks Stackpack (Play Along Toys, a division of Jakks Pacific Inc.), T.M.X. Elmo (Mattel's Fisher-Price), WII (Nintendo).

Another must have gift for the holiday season is Sony's, high-tech video-game console PlayStation 3 that will probably be almost impossible to get, with just 400,000 units expected to be shipped at launch. Although Sony does not want consumers to have to resort to paying exorbitant prices to acquire this highly sought after product, the reality is that it will probably come down to that in the end for some consumers. It is the law of supply and demand.

We have reviewed some forecasts and data for the 2006 holiday shopping season. Retailers, whether online or brick-and-mortar, realize that the holiday shopping season is a critical portion of their bottom line. It is up to them to provide the goods and services that their customers are requesting and clamoring for. It is the law of supply and demand.

About the Author

Robert Benson has written articles on many subjects and operates two web sites. Learn about the hobby of vinyl record collecting or shop for your unique home decor at his online shopping site:
http://www.collectingvinylrecords.com
http://www.ezshoppinghere.com

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Play Bratz Games For Free!

As you may know, Bratz are the most popular dolls in North America and the UK - even more popular than Barbie! Bratz have even had nine of their own movies, the first one entitled Bratz: Starrin & Stylin', and since then, they have had five music album releases, CD towers, boomboxes, their own animated show on DVD, and 2005's #1 girl-targeted videogame published by THQ - along with twelve other console and PC games. Flash game site owners know this, and have catered to the publics needs by allowing you to play Bratz games for free on their websites.A little about the dolls:Bratz dolls are about ten inches tall, and are very similar artistically to a popular Japanese animation technique called "chibi", seen in anime and manga. In this artistic form, you will see disproportionately large heads and eyes, to exaggerate facial expression. Generally, you will also see a small nose, and a small torso. The only thing that differentiates the Bratz style from the chibi style, is the full lips - which is a large step in the opposite direction from animes & mangas almost invisible lip design.Carter Bryant, a toy designer, created the Bratz dolls and showed his designs to Isaac Larian, the CEO of MGA (Micro-Games America Entertainment) in 2000. And it wasn't so much Mr. Larian who gave the O.K.

on these dolls, as it was his daugher, Jasmin, who he found was enthralled by the designs - and just by chance had been visiting the office that day! By Ramza Beoulve

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Play Bratz and See the Magic it Brings!

Cool teenagers who are simply sweet, trendy and glam, can win the heart of anyone. The classy Bratz was able to have a good market and able to get numerous fans. This is not simply a creation of marketing but the Bratz are simply fantastic and fabulous! With their busy celebrity life, these teenagers were able to balance everything in their lives. Are you now getting intrigue with these stars?Play Bratz Cloe is the beauty editor of the Bratz Magazine. This pretty girl is an advisor in her "Ask Chloe" column and her romantic pre-teen at the heart inspires her to make sound and friendly advices you needs her help. There is also Yasmin, the feature writer and the observer of social issues. This girl has her adventures as she fights for her social rights and other worthwhile causes. Jade is the most fashion conscious though all of them are truly fashionable. She practices her passion as the fashion editor. We also have Sasha, the coolest and hip music editor. These mix of personality can give you the taste that you want for a game. Play Bratz and you will never regret what you have decided on. You can do many things with them with bratz dress up games. Give them the perfect touches, the trendy and elegant style for dresses, the sparkle of mix accessories and much more. Play Bratz and you will never get bored w+ith them.The Bratz have so many adventures and these range from plain romantics to thrilling adventures. Have you dreamt of making shopping part of your daily life? Then, you just need to play Bratz Make the most shopping experience and accompany the Bratz as they do their daily shopping at the mall.

While at home, you can also choose to do the Bratz decor. Rearrange the living room, make a room d?cor, change the curtains or do a total makeover of the house. Parties and fashion pixies are parts of the Bratz life. Prepare them for the night out, and fix them up for the fashion pixie! They might find the perfect prince that they are looking for!Play Bratz and be classy and sophisticated! Bratz mall crawl, pixie fortunes, ice champions, makeover, racing, perfect match and diamond glam are some of the few which you can play bratz with bratz dress up games. Join them in the Bratz wonderland, magical world of pixies and meet their friends! Play Bratz and see the possibilities that await you. Be creative and imagine yourself being the Bratz fashion designer. Nothing can be more exciting than having a bunch of games in one! You can never get bored! Play Bratz and see the magic it brings!

By Stephanie Bailey

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