Posted in Laura P. Thomas on Oct 30th, 2008
Back in July, I posed a question here about extracurricular activities and how much is too much? My girl was getting ready to start kindergarten and I was stressing over whether to sign her up for ballet or gymnastics or both.
In the end, I pushed aside my own deep desire to raise a prima ballerina [...]
Posted in Laura P. Thomas, Uncategorized on Oct 26th, 2008
This is part of a series of posts looking at virtual worlds targeted toward kids.
Augmentation or immersion? It’s a popular debate among the virtual world crowd. Do people enjoy virtual worlds for the escapism they can allow when you fully immerse yourself into another character? Or, do virtual worlds simply augment your current life by [...]
Posted in Kristen Keller on Oct 17th, 2008
While I fully admit I knew nothing about children before having them, there is one thing I have always known – that I was not going to raise brats. It always irked me when I would see a parent threaten a child with a consequence, only to not follow through when the child continued to [...]
Posted in Sherry Carr Deer on Oct 15th, 2008
I was talking with a new friend last week, and during the conversation, she asked me how I tell Nicholas about his Daddy Mark. This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot, pretty much since the moment that Mark died.
Right after Mark died, I was a little manic about memory. I was so afraid I [...]
Posted in Laura P. Thomas, Uncategorized on Oct 13th, 2008
This is part of a series of posts looking at virtual worlds targeted toward kids.
The latest stop on our kid-focused virtual worlds safari took us to a world of cute dinosaurs. Dinokids was a major sponsor of the recent Virtual Worlds Conference & Expo, so I not only got their promotional cards in my conference [...]
Posted in Ann Handley on Oct 10th, 2008
“Some of my friends are on Facebook,” my daughter told me the other day. We were riding in the car, both facing forward, but I noticed her gauge my reaction with a quick sideways glance. “Anyway,” said Caroline, who is 11 going on 41, “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”
Later, I checked out the Facebook [...]
Posted in Review/Contest, Sherry Carr Deer on Oct 6th, 2008
I was really excited to see this book come up for a review opportunity on TMG. I had just been talking with my fiance about my urge and our family’s need to start being better stewards of our natural resources. Right now, we do pretty much nothing to leave the world in a better environmental [...]
Posted in Sherry Carr Deer on Oct 3rd, 2008
My wonderful, beautiful, wicked smart son has a great imagination. And he uses it. Often. As a parent, how do *you* differentiate between exaggeration/story telling/imagination and plain ol’ lying?
N is starting to tell stories, and when I try to get to the truth, I try as hard as I can not to lead the witness. [...]
Posted in Ann Handley on Oct 1st, 2008
Recently, watching my daughter thumb through a new catalog from a local toy store, I noticed small icons at the bottom of each product description. It turns out that they are “ExpressCodes,” or ratings that indicate “how the product can assist in reaching your child’s developmental milestones.”
Yeah, seriously: A basketball, for example, is called out [...]
