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.

What A Friend We Have In Stamping

What a friend we have in stamping.

Yet in many respects it's a secret friend or an invisible friend. Stamp collecting still has a negative image that forces many to practice their hobby far away from friends. It's an irony since stamping has progressed with technology you can now own a complete catalog of every stamp ever produced anywhere in the where for a fraction of the print cost--because it is available on compact disc.

Stamp listings on Ebay outnumber nearly every other product sold if judged by category. Stamp collecting programs make collecting even more fun and educational. Not to mention the introduction of electronic mail, which supposed was going to make stamps obsolete, now serves as a communication device about stamps and stamp collecting.

Image scanners allow a collector to scan a stamp into his computer and then magnify it far better than any magnifying glass.  Smart phones have applications where collectors can keep track of their collections, their purchases and sales of stamps with people around the globe.

We have a friend in stamping. Let's share that friend with others and not fear they will not understand its purpose and potential.  Why are stamps any more strange than spending three hours trying to blow up aliens from planet Creepo. Don't let prejudice get in the way of spreading the word about the world's oldest and coolest hobby.

Stamp Alphabet Series: Y is For Yugoslavia

Y maybe for Yugoslavia but it's also for Youth, which is the future of stamp collecting worldwide.

As we begin a new year let us recommit ourselves to spending more time with our children teaching them the education and adventure possible through stamping.

2012 is an exciting year full of new friendships, partnerships and clubs ready to steer the young people of the world into a lifelong hobby full of learning and joy.

Thank you so much for supporting our efforts to help parents help kids collect stamps.

Giving Big Thanks To Family and Health

Despite the gloom of the economy, there is always something to be cheerful about when you focus on your good health and loving family.

Thank you all for your continued interest in stamping and your wonderful emails.

November is the month when we celebrate our close bonds in founding this country and cementing our ties to our family and greater community.

Keep those comments coming.

God Bless.

KNS

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.