I am receiving some criticism in regards to getting an air rifle and teaching my stepson to shoot, but I do not understand the issue.

In terms of the issue of actually killing wild animals - we will eat any quarry killed, and we will only kill known pests such as rabbits and rooks.  I believe that it is important that if my stepson wishes to eat meat then he should be comfortable with killing and skinning it himself.  Pest control is perfectly normal, most people would happily kill rats or mice in their homes and they don't even eat them!

Ok so what about gun culture? - well as I see it, most boys want to shoot a gun that's why they buy army toys, plastic guns that shoot suckers and many other gun based toys and that is why things like laser quaser and paintball exist.  So really what I am doing is taking the opportunity to teach my stepson how to use a gun responsibly, and that it is not a toy.  Many games exist that are war based and involve killing people, these are far worse!

At the end of the day anything can be used as a weapon if someone wanted to hurt another human or animal, it is purely the individual that makes an item a weapon.

I read an article on BBC news website discussing the idea that overfeeding children is a form of abuse.  I would have to say that I agree 100%.  There are many reasons for this:

Children do not know for themselves what is good to eat and how to eat sensibly unless they are taught by their parents.  A child being fed badly sets them up for a difficult life.  We have a set number of fat cells in our bodies, these cells do not dissapear when a person looses weight, they merely empty.  The more fat cells a person has, the easier it is for them to put weight on as the body has somewhere to store the extra fat.

What many people do not know is that if we overeat, our bodies create MORE fat cells to store the extra fat if the current cells are all full.  These news cells will not go away and that means said person is prone to putting weight on for the rest of their life!

Obviously being overweight has many effects both mentally and physically.  Children get teased, are more prone to high blood pressure, heart problems, athsma and loads of other things..... now tell me its not abuse then!

I think it is very unfair on the child to become an adult with so many problems just because their parents didn't control their diet correctly.