Parental Involvement: A Joyful And Safe Christmas Season

KNS is embarking on its 7th year of operation as a private charity fully engaged in helping parents help their kids collect stamps. The mission continues to be a raging success with KNS helping parents and a number of organizations helping kids start this amazing and still vibrant hobby in an age of  technological distractions.

We have assisted in a number of ventures, beyond the regular parental requests for stamp kits, to slightly expand our reach when discovering the cause fit our tight parameters.

** Ukrainian stamp club

** South African handicapped society

** Israeli stamp community

** Various home school classes

Please keep in mind KNS doesn't encourage or permit contact with children. We practice strictly what we preach and educate and then block any underage communication. This private charity is and always will be about parental or guardian assistance and encouragement to help their children or charges into the hobby of stamp collecting by providing free stamps and information. We do not apologize for their practice and strongly encourage parents to monitor their children's activities on the Internet. Any parents or others for the matter whom did not like, agree, or feel the need to protest this policy are also free to find another organization to indulge their political correctness.

KNS wishes everyone out a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Keep stamping alive.

KNS: Our Sixth Year In Operation

Kids Need Stamps celebrates our sixth year in operation with the continued support and outreach of parents worldwide seeking to strengthen the bonds of parental love through the wonderful art of stamp collecting.

Thank you all for the kind words of appreciation and gratitude. It really means a great deal.

March Madness: Our Fifth Year of Operation

 

Another exciting year is upon us at Kids Need Stamps. Thank you for the kind words and helpful comments. Our mission remains the same: helping parents help kids collect stamps. While we do branch out ocassionally to assist boys scouts, disabled students, war veterans, etc., KNS is first and foremost about helping parents connect with their children using stamps.

We live in strange and ironic times where so-called advanced devices like smart phones and video games tout brain stimulation and increased communication. But I question these remarks as merely commericial propaganda meant to reinforce sales. I have yet to hear and important or intelligent conversation using a cell phone. You can wait to get home to talk silly. And video games isolate our children more so than ever before. I wouldn't advocate banning these devices only self-regulating their usage in our lives. My own kids play video games but we restrict the time and games they play. They still must deal with homework, boardgames, and their parents.

Stamps are special devices that allow us to access our children's lives without leaning on them about sermons, rules and merely forcing "togetherness." The parental connection becomes natural and vital when learning why stamps exist and how their extistence educates and entertains the entire world.

Strengthening The Bonds of Family: A Collector's Tale

There are a myriad of obstacles out there to separate us from our loved ones. I speak from personal experience when I say I'm lucky if I get 3 hrs a weekday with my kids. And most of that time is meal preparation, bath and bedtime routine. It's not by choice and once I get a job with less commute time I can spend alot more time with my beautiful wife and children.

Thus the weekends become precious and sometimes overanalyzed and overscheduled. I try to fit the world in two days. I try to make up with what I believe has been lost and create my own obstacles. It's one of a thousand reasons why stamp collecting helps bring back basic focus to my life and lets me reconnect with the kids in a simply pleasant manner. No stress. No guilt. Just strenghtening the bond of family via a time-honored hobby.

Whenever we can find something positive and productive to allow our attention to be focused on something other than work or ourselves -----we naturally grow stronger as parents and want to build on those key moments to grow as our children grow. I have been collecting for nearly 40 years and now have a different appreciation for it as a father. It feels exciting again like it once did when I was a child. While I have never lost my love for collecting it has always been a private vocation seldom shared with the outside world. My children have greatly assisted by efforts to venture out and speak out this wonderful hobby without fear of geek-prejudice. For that I will always be grateful.

And now parents, I am helping you to do the same, albeit, in a small way.

May Flowers and Friends

KNS joyfully is pushing forward in May with a wonderful April behind us. We are able to supply a Boy Scout Troope with the stamps and supplies they needed to help earn their Stamp Merit Badge. Good luck to all!

Receiving an increased amount of emails in the month of May and I thank you for your dedication to helping your children stay interested in the educational and entertaining hobby of Stamp Collecting.

Please don't forget to check out the site and leave comments as you see fit. Many of the answers parents seek can be found right here on the Blog.

First-time stamp collecting parents please keep in mind:

1. kids need a place to put stamps

2. you can print out free stamp album pages until they settle on what they want to collect

3. you can go to an auction site and buy some inexpensive Vario pages and store the stamps for all to view until you decide if wanting to purchase a formal stamp album

4. you need a 3 ring binder for the vario pages, sometimes kids label the binder and make that their stamp album

If there are other questions not found on site, email me and I will be happy to answer them.

Building Great Memories: Parent and Child

You probably heard the old adage, "be a parent to your child; not their friend. Otherwise it becomes very confusing when time for discipline." I know firsthand this statement is very true but like anything in one's life you cannot take it to the extreme. Too much parenting causes the child to shut off communication and turns your presence into a giant rule maker and not someone who listens or cares about their concerns--real or imagined. That's where stamp collecting comes into play.

As discussed previous in "fellowship" article, the parent/child relationship is strengthened in the area of trust when dealing with stamps. The child is allowed to learn from stamps by making their own decisions about what, how and where to collect. Each stamp session or lesson is another building block of fruitful memory the child carries the rest of their lives. Some of my finest memories of my father, may God rest his soul, revolve around stamp collecting. Our trips to New York stamp shows, the United Nations, pulling out the albums on unscheduled rainy days and just pouring hours into figuring out this and that about stamps and about each other. We were building great memories. My father was still my father but I felt deep down inside he figured out a way to be my friend for a few hours and that lightened the load for both of us considering our respective roles and responsibilities.

I think I got to be the grown-up by making decisions and my father got to be the kid again and sat back and enjoyed not having to direct every facet of every thing in the universe. I' m remembering what I learned then and applying it to my sons in the present day. I will never stop being a father since that role today is more critical than ever before but I will find ways to be his friend whenever possible and whenever it doesn't compromise my primary role. Stamp collecting is going to be another highly useful vehicle to communicate for all parties involved.

Another excellent stamp approach is to take the stamp collecting from the indoors of your home and bring it on the road. We went to museums (Navajo heritage), planetariums (space stamps), zoos (exotic animal stamps), stamp shows (United Nations), conventions (NYC), etc, etc. that spot-lighted the educational angle of stamps. These trips also built great memories that made stamp collecting an exciting adventure. It brought my father and I closer and suddenly made me realize how fortunate I was when other neighborhood kids complained how little they saw of their parents. Some of those kids went on to school problems, behavior problems and eventually legal problems. Neglect, in my opinion, is a form of abuse. Stay active, stay involved and your children will probably stay out of trouble. Stamps might just do the trick.

Monthly Report: KNS Reaches Out and Grows

We are concluding our second successful month of providing parents, mentors and organizations the stamps and information necessary to launch their kids into the Hobby of Kings: stamp collecting. A big thanks again to

Lt. Col. Don from The Stamp Collecting Roundup http://stampcollectingroundup.blogspot.com/

and Alex at The Stamp Collectors Corner http://www.stampcenter.com/blog/blogger.html

Yesterday KNS sent out its 50th starter-kit as well as outfitting an entire elementary classroom for stamp instruction and an entire troupe of 12 Boy Scouts. We also donated stamps to Stamps for the Wounded and Canadian Guide Dogs. KNS is considering an exciting proposal to assist a children's hospital ward.

KNS will continue to creatively reach out and meet the needs of individuals, parents, mentors and organizations that seek to interest children in stamp collecting. We have received a number of suggestions which serve to remind us of how many people surf and watch the Net these days. While I sincerely thank and have thanked each one for their wonderful idea I ask that you consider KNS cannot be everything to everyone nor do we ever intend to make that a goal.

I like the simple niche we always knew was present: parents, mentors and organizations in need of a basic boost to inspire them to get kids interested in stamp collecting, divert their attention from the technologically-confusing world, and bring them back to a place where art, history, science, geography and saving things of value is no longer a "geek phenomena" mocked on sitcoms and radio shows.

I would like to also thank everyone for the kind comments and compliments. My family and I are very pleased that our vision of assisting parents to help their children with stamp collecting is taking place right before our very eyes. And last, these starter-kits are really free. We do not solicit donations of any kind from anyone. If you want to donate used stamps, cut from envelopes, please send them to the organizations I listed on the site. They need and welcome such help.

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.

Parental Connecting Through Stamp Collecting

There are too many distractions today. Video games have replaced board games. Special effects have replaced visiting carnvials. Computers have replaced books. In numerous instances the modern world has eroded the special connection parents should have with their children.

I'm not a fuddy-duddy luddite railing against the machine. Just a parent and an observor who has distinctly noticed that when I played with my son in the park or playground--we strengthened our connection far deeper than when we watched television shows or joined in computer games.

This same basic notion surrounds the hobby of stamp collecting. Collecting stimulates the curiosity and permits parents and children to engage in intellectual challenges that builds bonds of trust and respect. It keeps parents "in the moment," guaranteeing nothing or no one can say they weren't there present and scratching their heads over a foreign destination (Albania) or international event (Olympics.)

In the coming entries we will explore the craft, fun and value of stamp collecting that is sure to transcend mere collecting and become another tremendous tool to teach our children history, geography, and last but not least ---our enduring love for their well-being.

Kids Need Stamps -- Parents Need A Hand

We live in a busy, complicated world overflowing with bleak images, bad role models, violent games and mixed messages. It is a daily struggle for most parents to carve out quality time to spend with their children. In the rush to be relevant we can often fixate on a sport, event or project to interest your child only because your interested. Those are the potential pitfalls of blinding imposing our childhood pursuits on our children. There's less of a chance of this happening when dealing with stamps.

The beauty of stamp collecting is a lack of pressure. You don't have to be an expect. You don't have a large budget. You don't have scream about from the rooftops or shield it from the world. You can start small. You start big. Start with America. Go to Europe and check out Africa. There's no deadline, no contest....no pressure. Another charming facet of stamp collecting is the clever flexibilty it allows by being both an individual hobby and a joint project with parents.

If you believe, as I do, kids need stamps, then you must conclude, parents need a hand to prepare them for a smooth transition to the hobby. And that is where, "Kids Need Stamps" comes into play. I will mail out, free of charge, a small starter kit, to help you understand how to start learning and maybe even loving postage stamps of the world. The most amazing thing is you really don't have to know much to start, and you, as a parent, can actually learn with your child, and create a stronger bond of trust and communication.

The "learn-as-you-go" aspect is an unique characteristic of the hobby and usually surprises parents who are often stressed into believing because they are adults they are supposed to be experts on everything they introduce to their offspring. You need not worry since you have a friend in this exciting endeavor. A friend who is a lifelong collector (35 years) and a father of two children. "Kids Need Stamps" will walk you through every step of the hobby and help you build a collection, a knowledge base and a more fruitful relationship with your children.