Mummascribbles meets…Ian from Trains for Kids – Mummascribbles

Today I have a bit of a different interview. Ian is not a blogger but runs the website Trains for Kids which has amazing things to buy and fab resources for train obsessed kids (which is how I discovered him!). Thanks Ian for taking part!

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your family
I’m Ian and I live in Tunbridge Wells with my wife and two boys, Zachary and Jacob, who are heading for 7 and 3 respectively in the next few months. My wife and I met at university in Canterbury – I was her boss at the union bar and won’t let her forget that. I left while she was still studying so took a job in Kent to be near her, not appreciating initially there’s a good 40 miles between the two. Combined we’re a pretty international family, with branches in Pakistan, the US, the UK, Egypt, Japan and Reading.

What do you like doing to be you, when you are not parenting, working (if you do), or blogging?
I enjoy DIY and gardening – two things that you can lose your thoughts in. Actually, scrub that, I enjoy those two when I’m destroying things but then I’m not quite as good at finishing the job. The garden presently looks like WW1 No Man’s Land. But really between work, the Trains For Kids website and family there’s not that much time left.

What is your biggest achievement to date?
My day job is a senior position at one of the UK’s largest B2B publishers. I started working as a reporter 13 years ago (getting a front page story on canned foods in my first fortnight – now that’s a niche) and have been promoted on average every couple of years since. However, I try to remind myself of the smaller achievements as much as I can – whether that be making my first pennies from affiliate sales on my website, buying a pair of shoes with the winnings from online poker (previous obsession) or getting a lovely compliment soon after launching Trains For Kids from MummaScribbles herself.

From your own experiences, what do you find the hardest part of parenting and what is the easiest/most rewarding part?
My wife carries the greatest load in terms of parenting – so the hardest part for me is less about the hands on stuff with the children but remembering to make sure I support her, and that we are a team. She works too, part-time but in an organisation that’s undergoing a lot of change. She was concerned recently over whether she’d be able to or want to continue – but we’re fortunate enough to be in a position that I could say, look if it’s not what you want to be doing, chuck it in, the most important thing is you’re the leader of the family.

Easiest? Well, we were blessed first time around with one of the easiest-going, rules-based children you could hope for so we were spoilt with parts being naturally easy.

Zachary, two minutes more in the bath and then you’re out.
Yes, Daddy.
Or Zachary, please stay in bed until your Glo Clock is yellow.
Yes, Mummy.

Then came Jacob.

Jacob, two more minutes in the bath…
No
Or Jacob, you’re up. Is your clock yellow?
Yes. It’s 4.30 it can’t be.

I press buttons. Yellow now

.

So it’s only easy if you understand how each of your children ticks and work with that. Then they’ll change and you’ll be back to square 1.

Parenting in itself is no mean feat; how do you juggle everything you need to in order to get everything done on a daily basis? 
If I were to write a proper parenting blog it would be Laissez Dad, which sums up my philosophy to parenting. It’s not about being Lazy but Laissez-faire. When my wife is out, the eldest insists on putting the younger to bed! From the earliest age, I wanted my children to make choices themselves, be responsible for what they do, be as confident asking questions of any adult as they are in playing with friends. I feel you can only do that if you’re prepared to step back. What results? Well, I feel that Jacob at 2 could be sent out for a bottle of milk because he knows how to cross roads and ask the lady at the shop; while Zachary recently had the most wonderful conversation with a family friend who’s in his 70s asking him about all the places he’d been in his naval career. The latter was particularly fun because every time Zachary hit on Afghanistan, China or similar, our family friend had to watch what he was saying as these are countries he’d not be invited to visit!

Why did you decide to start your website?
I had two train-obsessed little boys and it was a case of ‘If society frowns on beating them, then join them.’. I’d wanted to start my own website for a while and previous attempts had frittered out because the topics were interesting but too serious. I needed something that mattered but in the grand scheme of things didn’t really matter.

The other reasons are, as mentioned, I work in B2B publishing but have lost sight of the day-to-day writing, marketing, upkeep of the website and so on. I’ve already learned masses from parent bloggers, the blogging community at large and experimenting with different tools. It’s funny to say that when you have websites that earn millions of pounds in a large, conservative organisation you lose a freedom to just get on and do it that you have running your own blog or website. Similarly, reporters and editors in our organisation are able to chuck out an email alert knowing they will get a load of pageviews because people pay £2000 per year for their product; with your own website and limited time you can and need to be forensic on what works in social media, referral sites, SEO and so on.

Tell me a bit about your website?
Trains For Kids was built as the UK’s hub for everything that train-loving kids and their long-suffering parents (and grandparents, aunts, uncles) could want. It’s developed out in different ways but the most popular things in November sum up what I do pretty well.

Reviews: Best Wooden Train Sets Guide: 50 best options (Also save time and money with the train tables guide here)
Online activities: Trains facts for kids that are eager to learn about railways
Days Out Guides: Trains For Kids Days Out Map: 150 sites across the UK
Shopping Trains For Kids Store: Save time and money on train toys

What do you want your website to achieve and where do you hope to see it go as it grows?
First up, my website is an experiment and about personal development. I simply want to learn about different techniques. Given that I work full time, for example, I have found that scheduling is massively important so I don’t get sacked. I’ve loved working with other companies, including Bigjigs and Peter’s Railway who have been massively supportive. Making money is not really important but it is a goal in so far as it is a metric of success for getting people through from interest to a sale. That would be more important if I get sacked! Finally, I have tonnes of ideas that I probably shouldn’t have about what I could do: from launching a T-shirt or other physical business off the back of Trains For Kids to Trains For Kids Live where everyone gathers in a park and the kids play with all sorts of toy trains and do railway-related crafts together.

What advice would you give someone who is thinking about starting a specialist website?
Learn from others and use tools to stay focussed and efficient. Know your audience – I started out wondering if I was a parenting blog. I concluded I wasn’t but that I could learn from these because I have a similar audience.

If you could have dinner with three people (dead or alive), who would it be and why?
I despair with celebrity, and will avoid choosing someone famous for worthwhile reasons. Can I just go for dinner with someone from Mongolian Plateau, Amazon rainforest and a Bedouin, please?

Tell me three random facts about you

1. We’ve never lied to our children, even white lies – makes for interesting conversations about Nazis, periods and death (not all together, mind). Telling kids you’ll take them out of the restaurant and leave them in the car while you have pudding is the quickest way to lose credibility.

2. I technically converted to Islam from Christianity when I got married – my future father-in-law was Pakistani and it was important to him, though he’d never have insisted. I guess I consider myself to be a monotheist-leaning humanist who wishes people would celebrate the 95% we have in common, not fight over the 5% we don’t.

3. My and my brother’s children’s middle names are those of our grandparents – James, George and June. Whoever has the next child will have Ethel – boy or girl!

You can find Ian over at www.trainsforkids.co.uk/ and also on Twitter and Facebook.