The Fellowship of Stamping: Building Trust

The primary purpose of KNS (Kids Need Stamps) is to foster fellowship through stamp collecting by assisting parents and mentors with the tools necessary to kick-start this fascinating journey. While it's easy (and I don't mind doing it) to bash the modern distractions of video games, computer toys, and ipods---the deeper truth is more complex: we are parents must be engaged in our child's lives regardless of their past times. Without this positive attitude the superior educational value of stamp collecting is certain to fall short of its real impact.

Fellowship Stamping elicits wonder, knowledge, curiosity, and above all, an ample amount of joy due to the geniality of verbal communication, physical care taking of precious objects and the emotional satisfaction of building something new. Collections are built new; yet also fruitful relationships. I am a firm believer in attributing child behavior to the amount of time parents devote towards their kids well-being. There is a cause and effect. I've heard all the excuses and seen all the guilt-gifts parents often buy their kids, but in the very end, if you cannot devote the time in this dangerous day and age, your kid might wind up doing time.

I'm not trying to be a stamp collecting Dr. Phil but we must reconsider a great deal of what we have cast aside in this society in the past 30 years. The reduction of gym classes is connected to higher rates of child obesity. The easy availability of soda, candy and snacks has increased juvenile diabetes. The major crackdown in drugs and alcohol has definitely decreased those horrors but what have we allowed to replace them: television, video games, digital music and a distorted value of money is equally bad--it just takes longer to see the results, i.e. teenage years or worse still when they grow up and mimic parental neglect.

Kids need more attention these days than ever before; we can easily combat the poor role models by operating the opposite way and we can counter the lousy values out there with good values if we are prepared to stick to family activities that reinforce communication, truth, respect and love. Stamp collecting is one of those special activities that transcend the mere title of hobby because it harkens back to the old days when a parent, a sunlit room and a box of stamps were more important than all the fancy gadgets in the universe. We can have that again.