KIDS IN: the best guide for parents :)
As we approach ever closer to Father Christmas’ busiest day of the year, or 25th December for those of us who like to carry a calendar, we all have an incredible amount to prepare just for the festive period alone. At Fancy Kids we can only imagine how busy many of you as parents must be at this moment in time, and so thinking ahead to how you want to spend time with your children in 2016 must not be at the forefront of your minds just yet.
Fear not, this week’s Fancy Kids blog focuses on a website we believe is an absolutely fantastic godsend for any busy parent, and one sure to be a regular port of call as you look for fun packed activities for your child to take part in. We are of course talking about Kids In, a simply marvelous website which details a wide range of after school clubs and activities that younger schoolchildren can become involved with, and as a result make it far easier for you to not have to spend hours upon hours researching these things.
Founded by the wonderful Patricia Martin, as with many entrepreneurial adventures the idea for Kids In came to Patricia out of pure necessity. As a mother to twin boys herself, she found that searching for the straightforward things such as a reputable local baby group, nursery or even a friendly clown for her children’s birthday party could take days, weeks and even sometimes months.
Understanding that if she was experiencing this level of difficulty then she was clearly not the only parent doing so, she quickly realised that creating a one stop shop with all of this type of invaluable information in one place would not only be beneficial to many parents, but with hard work also had the potential to build a thriving online business.
That was the initial plan, and now success has arrived to the point that Kids In now provides information on the exact things Patricia was struggling to find before, but for many more parents. Its detailed listings of fun family events, after school activities, holiday clubs, party entertainers and nursery schools in many of the London boroughs has led Kids In to being named “Best Website of 2014,” an incredible achievement for a business that started out as a small idea, and one that us at Fancy Kids find very inspiring as we have only recently begun our own journey.
Most importantly, Kids In is loved by those who use it the most, the parents. The easy to navigate design is ideal for those of us who are always on the move and have young children around, and whilst brands as huge as Harrods sponsor the website, the focus remains on finding activities for children rather than cluttering the home page with advertising, another aspect Fancy Kids adores about Patricia’s vision and one we adhere to ourselves. The success of Kids In hasn’t gone unnoticed further afield either, with Patricia now contributing regular blogs to the Huffington Post Parenting website, and perhaps the greatest feat of all is that another Kids In franchise has already been established in Madrid and another one is about to be in New York, meaning it is now officially an international brand!
The Kids In story is an exciting but also heartwarming example of how parenting can present all kinds of wonderful opportunities as well as just seeing your beautiful children grow up. Patricia’s dream of establishing her business came by as a means of helping herself and others in a similar situation to her, and through this she has met other likeminded entrepreneurs such as Laura Rutherford, a friend and contributor to Kids In who also has her own business Portobello Pop’ins, the type of after school club Patricia was once desperate to find herself.
Fancy Kids have such a great deal of respect for people like Patricia and Laura so much and the pursuit of their own ambitions to help parents and children, just as we aim to in the fashion world. As the year nears its end there is much to do in 2016, but in the meantime our final blog of 2015 comes next week, and it’s dedicated entirely to Christmas!