Is your iPhone a gateway drug to neglecting your kids? Or are high-tech toys just the lastest whipping goats in the crusade against parents having their own lives?

A few weeks ago the media was all atwitter about parents blowing off their kids to play with their cell phones. Apparently, kids feel jealous and unhappy when their parents focus on cell phones or laptops instead of the kids. There was a lot of hand-wringing and some fierce criticism leveled at working moms in particular.

Annie from PhD in Parenting has a different take: parents have always had to ignore their kids some portion of every day. It’s how they can work for a living, stay sane and get any housework done.

We’re using technology to help us do everything in our lives, from grocery shopping to banking to socializing. Of course parents use technology to do things other than focusing on our kids. Continue reading »

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Let’s face it, the iPad is a toy. It may be the most universally desired toy since the bicycle, something three-year-olds in the throes of princess mania and their gadget-hungry grandparents can get equally excited about. But with it’s big easy touch screen and bright colors, it’s especially appealing to kids.

App makers know this, and they’re releasing rocking apps for kids with the iPad in mind.

Continue reading »

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Time is running short to get that perfect shot of your kids for the annual Christmas card, if you’re the sort of person who does such a thing — I am not. However, I do enjoy taking pictures of my kids in my own amateurish snapshotty way and I find getting a baby to both 1) hold still and b) look at the camera is an enormously ridiculous challenge.

Not sure how I feel about this solution from Shutterbuddy, though: Continue reading »

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OK, the folks at Gizmodo think the new waterproof remote control from Sony is a silly – and useless – addition to their line-up. Apparently they haven’t met my four-year-old.

Or anyone under four feet tall. Continue reading »

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If only we’d had this kind of excuse back in the day! A kid whose Kindle was caught up in the raft of recent glitches that have caused books to disappear had a very simple explanation for not turning in his George Orwell report: the Kindle ate my homework.

Owner Amazon has been dealing with a host of angry owners of the digital readers after two Orwell books were removed from libraries without their permission. And now the teen whose book AND notes were lost is suing. Continue reading »

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