4 Great Ideas for this New Year

December is a good month to look back. It's also a good time for reflection and planning ahead. Apart from all the serious reflection and planning, it is also a good time to celebrate life with the kids.

Happy New Year by Thanasis Anastasiou

Make memories to last a lifetime. Kids should be able to remember these moments of fun and playing together. Here are some activities which are easy to organize:

1. Dressing Up with a Twist
It's quite common for people to decide what they want to dress up as and then to go ahead and do that. Give that a twist. Everyone decides for someone else. Yes, you dress us as what another person in your family wants you to be dressed up as. Make sure everybody understands that sourcing outlandish clothes and other gear is not possible. It is strictly a 'source from home and wear it at home' activity.

2. Remembering Lines
Sometimes kids get their best lessons in life from ogres, dragons and pandas. Something about movies attracts us young and old to the moving pictures. Have a fun game where everyone takes turns to name a movie they really like and then they need to rattle off a line from the movie.

3. Create a Time Capsule
Open up a nice clean and dry bottle. Every one decides to put 1-2 things into the bottle, which will remind them of things they did through the year. For babies, other family members drop in a picture or something else that will remind them of this year. Notice how this opens up a barrage of memories. It's also a great way to remind you of things you did through the year. Once done, seal it and put away the bottle, to be opened up at some time in the future.

4. Make a collage 
Go through old photographs from the year together. Pick 10-12 pictures everyone approves of. Put them all together in a collage software and print it out. Hang it up to remind you all of a wonderful 2015.

Go ahead, pick an activity you like for New Year. If you have other ideas of your own, let us know them.

Happy New Year!

3 Activities your Family might enjoy this Christmas

Christmas is a time when members must play together and eat together. It is not a time to be alone. With busy lifestyles that families have, many have lost the rhythm of doing things together. With people spending an inordinately long time alone on their devices, Christmas is a good time to pull back and bond.

Here are 3 activities your family might enjoy doing together:

1. Work on a large jigsaw

Redhill Family Celebration - Nov 2014 -The Team Celebrates A Job Well Done by Gareth Williams

This is for families which might include kids interested in jigsaw puzzles. Buy a large one or you could even try out a 3d puzzle ball. Many of these puzzle offer a way to make it permanent once complete.

2. Cook up a delicious big meal
This is definitely for families which enjoy food. The whole family can participate and decide on a menu. Yes, it could be a little off beat, but then as long as it gives everyone a chance to participate, it is a great way to bond!

3. Visit relatives you otherwise would not
As our lives get busier, we become more and more of islands. We cut out all those parts which feel are extraneous. This is okay for us adults, but kids need the comfort of large families. They must strike friendships and establish long term relationships of their own.

So try one of these three this year and Merry Christmas!

Playing Together

Many families today are single child families, unlike earlier times, when families were mostly larger and siblings ranged from teenagers to young tots. There are definite pluses in having smaller families, for kids can have more resources, and time from their parents and caretakers. But, there is the loss of warmth and bustle of large families, which can act as safety nets in times of crises. Most importantly the biggest plus of a large family is this - kids grow up with siblings who double up as playmates. Therefore as the size of the family shrinks, the importance of play cannot be overemphasized.

Importance of Play

Play is a basic human right according to the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. In spite of understanding this important aspect of development in children, the time and opportunity for explorative play, available for modern day children is shrinking. This leads to higher levels of anxiety and stress among children.

What we think of as play is actually how our babies are learning. With their creativity flourishing, they along with their playmates and adult caregivers, learn to create worlds, where they learn to overcome their fears and develop their understanding. They learn to recognize faces, voices, things, feeling and communicate back. With physical play, their bodies grow tall and strong, creating a good space for their intellectual development. This in turn happens via play which stimulates the brain. Play at home, on playdates, at the park or while holidaying - never underestimate it's value. 

Playing with Parents
A child's first playmate is the primary caregiver, which is invariably a mother. A child traditionally accompanied the mother wherever she went, or the child stayed behind with some other responsible adult. Children like being spoken to and playing with their parents. Even though it might seem one sided, when they are too young to speak, it's a fact that they are listening, which is how they actually learn to speak. In fact a mother's voice can actually calm a distressed baby. They learn to recognize tones and looks and react accordingly. All this learning is only through play.

Playing with other Kids

Having a Laugh by Lars Plougmann

Play can be joyful, and when play happens with friends, the joy is boundless. As kids grow, they need to play with other kids. This teaches them cooperation, sharing and empathy. Children must play with other children, to learn and understand peer behavior. This will help them build friendships, bond and learn to negotiate the world they live in. Over the years when children grow into adults and go on to take our place in the world, most of their learning happens through play without their even realizing that they are learning. 

Playing in Nature

Nature is a great teacher. Spending time in nature and spending time with fellow creatures, helps kids understand the importance of interdependence in Nature. Pet games on digital devices are great, but nothing can beat the rough lick of a dog, or the warm furry body of a kitten curled up in your lap. Parents must inculcate the habit of playing outside, enjoying a trek, observing nature and the appreciation of beauty and balance in nature. 

To conclude, play is important for the well rounded development of a child. As parents and caregivers, it is our responsibility to ensure that our kids have safe spaces and opportunities to play. 

5 Sites to Know More About Games and Apps

Sometimes I need a quick online reference for a game. Maybe a rating, a review or just some plain vanilla information about it. There are a lot of people out there who enjoy reviewing apps and sharing it with folks like us who need the reviews. Thanks everybody for the great work!

Juegos tradicionales by Bea Represa

Here's a list of 5 of my favorites:

1. Commonsense Media
This is a good place to find a review for a book, an app or even a movie. They rate using stars, and along with it also rate the educational value, ease of use, consumerism and violence. Their tagline actually explains best  - we rate, educate, and advocate for kids, families, and schools

2. Best Kids Apps
Primarily an app review site useful for parents who are not into gaming, they cover iPhone, iPad and Android apps. Reviews are bunched by age appropriateness, apart from being educational, bestsellers or Free. The App developer is also mentioned.

3. The iPhone Mom
You can find app review even if they are not on an iPhone. Along with a review there is usually some contribution from her kids. What I like best is a link to the app developer's site a link to the iTunes store. Typically reviews are grouped by age and screenshots are included.

4. Cool Mom Tech
Two moms dish out common sense about technology. They don't just cover apps, but a whole bunch of other things related to technology(That's fun to read to and a lot of it is very useful)

5. Gamer Dad
The tagline 'Gaming with my kids since 2003' perhaps says all that I need. He writes extensively about video games, violence in gaming and the effect of it on children.

Well, I gather information from these sites. Where do you gather your gaming information from?

9 fun things to do this Grandparents Day

Come September, and it's Grandparents Day - a day cherished by both grandparents and grandkids. The first Sunday of September after Labor Day of each year has been 'National Grandparents' Day', since 1978, and it's purpose is "...to honor grandparents, to give grandparents an opportunity to show love for their children's children, and to help children become aware of strength, information, and guidance older people can offer".

Grandparents Day Concert 035 by City of Overland Park

This Grandparents Day, here are 9 things grandkids of all ages could try:

1. As a run up to the day, grandkids can make simple countdown cards with messages like...3 days left, 2 to go and 1 day more.

2. Plan a nice day for the grandparents. If both you and your kids have grandparents, make it a double date. Four generations can celebrate this Grandparents Day. Memories formed across generations can be rich or sparse depending on the age and intensity of the memory. If children are older, they will cherish a memory of their great grandparents too.

3. Make a photo collage for your grandparents. Source images from their relatives and friends. Raid old photo albums. Put it all together and they will love it. It could be a wall hanging, a standalone on a desk or maybe printed on canvas.

4. Make a home cooked meal and invite them over. Introduce them to pet games, which are a rage among kids and older people. Perhaps the grandkids and grandparents can adopt pets together and nurture them.

5. Take them on a trip. If they have relatives they might like to visit, take them visiting. Or perhaps

take them out on a picnic to some place they have not gone in some years. If they had taken you there as a young child, take them back there on a nostalgia trip.

6. Give them a surprise party, by inviting over their friends and extended family.

7. If your parents cannot drive, but they would like to take your kids out to a show or even a short holiday, help them organize it. Keep in mind that holidaying with kids is not easy and that you might have to organize a trip keeping the age of both your kids and parents in mind.

8. If you want to buy them a nice gift, a tablet is a great one. Older people take to them quite well. Introduce them to games and you will soon see them scoring high scores!

9. Spend the day together at home. Just this is good as it makes them feel wanted and loved. Look at old picture, listen to old stories, eat some good food, and hear some vintage family stories.

You still have a few days for Grandparents Day. Plan it well and have a great day. Do let us know what you did!

Keeping your Kids Occupied this Summer – 4 Interesting Home-based Activities

Summer break is a great time to bond with the kids and let your own inner child peek out occasionally. But too much leisure can produce mind-numbing boredom and turn your little angels into tantrum-throwing ogres. Here are four fun activities guaranteed to keep the kids out of trouble and definitely out of your hair this summer. Feel free to add them to your parenting arsenal.

wonder of nature by JON_CF

Go for a nature walk – To add spice to your nature walk, add a theme or goal and stick to it. For instance, you could go to the beach and collect stones and shells to make an art object out of it later. In the forest, invite them to collect at least five varieties of flowers, bugs, plants or leaves. Give them a plan and a purpose so they don’t get bored too quickly.

Play online kids’ games – A simple google search will bring up scores of quality educational websites that offer fun learning games designed to keep kids productively engaged through play. Online learning games cover a variety of subjects - including math, science and language arts – and are tailored to suit kids of different age groups - preschool, kindergarten and elementary grades - and are developed by subject matter experts who know that kids learn best when they’re having fun.

Baking and cooking – Have a designated baking or cooking day once a week and be sure to involve the kids in the process from beginning to end. Give them a variety of recipes and stock up on the ingredients ahead of time. If your little one can read, let him read from the recipe and practice using unfamiliar words. Help him work through the instructions, one step at a time and avoid the temptation of doing it all by yourself. This is a great activity for summer afternoons when it’s too hot to play outside.

Start a summer scrapbook – This is a great way to preserve memories that your family can fondly cherish when the kids are older. Encourage your little ones to take pictures of special days or events and write about them. Encourage them to maintain a daily diary and describe everyday things and happenings. This is a fun way to keep them occupied and create a memory book for the future.

If you have other interesting summer activities for kids up your sleeve, I’d love to hear them!

School's around the corner - did you do anything not on your 'to do' list?

Time flies and the best example for that is the pace at which the summer goes by. We look forward to it and plan a whole bunch of things to do. Stick it on the refrigerator. Think about it. Talk about it. Actually do things on the list. But, most holidays, something gets left out for the last few weeks or days.

So the countdown has begun. Have the kids played enough? Outside, inside, with friends, on their own and with their grandparents? Oh, there's never enough time to play. Did you do something that was not on the list?

Escape the Room by karlnorling

Well, we did something interesting which was not on our list. In fact, my mother organized it for all of us. We went and played an escape room game. We were a multi-generational group - grandparents, parents and grandkids. What a ball we had!

Each one of us participated. Solved sudoku, searched for keys, scrambled through lots of misleading things in the room, and searched for clues. Yeah, all of us. On our knees, over cupboards and under the tablecloth!

We raced against the clock, shouted out stuff, scrambled around, found false leads and tried solving things under pressure. We could not get out within the prescribed time, but we did enjoy the madness!

What unexpected thing did you do this summer?

Understanding the five senses

Our senses are what we use to see what is out there in the world around us, where it is, to know if it is changing etc. This is one of the most important part of being alive, this feeling of being alive to everything around us, to react and interact with thing around us.

“Five Senses” by Nicki Dugan Pogue, licensed under CC BY SA 2.0

Like everything else in nature, our kids use their senses without our intervention. By our introducing them to sensory activities, we enhance their engagement with their senses. We must enthuse our kids about the world around us. They must understand that they share this planet with creatures of all hues, shapes and kinds. Just by dominating the planet, it does not mean that we are independent of others. Kids must be encouraged to get their hands dirty, to look around, to smell things, to hear things and taste a variety of things.

Here is a roundup of activities that get our kids to use their senses to wonder at the world around us–

1. Help kids listen to bird calls. Some wake up real early and others are rulers of the evening. Can they distinguish sounds without seeing the bird? A simpler exercise is to get the kids blindfolded and then talk from a short distance away. Can they recognize who is talking?
2. Lay out a variety of food – cooked rice, beans, diced tomatoes, cereal etc. With their eyes blindfolded, can they touch and tell what’s on the plate?
3. Can a kid smell food and recognize what’s getting prepared? Try frying garlic/onion, baking a cake, skinning an orange and cutting fresh vegetables – distinguishing smells can be a fun activity. Try smelling and identifying odd smells too.
4. Mute some program and see if the kids can recognize what the person is saying. This might be better for a slightly older child as lip reading might not be very easy.
5. Try closing one eye to see how depth perception changes
6. Let vibrating phones on surfaces teach a child how we can actually feel a sound!
7. Try this experiment to see how different parts of the body differ in feeling things.

So, go on and try these activities!

Cool Virtual Pet Games

If your child has been spending a lot of time in the virtual world and hankering for a pet at home, then in most probability it’s a virtual pet she’s adopted online! Virtual pet games have taken the world by storm and boast of a wide age range of players – 6 to 60! Here are a few of the most popular virtual pet games that you should be playing.

Magsafe by Travis Isaacs

Neopets

A sensation in the online world was born in 1999 – it was called Neopets. With millions of members clambering for the latest and the most exclusive pets, Neopets soon became a way of life. Besides offering virtual pets, the world of Neopets offered users a number of mini flash games too that made sure ‘once a Neopian, always a Neopian’. As Neopets continues to enjoy the same amount of popularity if not twofold, game developers have taken a cue and released a plethora of similar virtual pet games that are almost as much fun! Look out for lores in Neopets which make quite a cheerful read on a dull day and otherwise too!

Dragon Cave

Dragon Cave is an online game that allows users to adopt virtual pets – collect eggs, raise them to adulthood, and then breed them to cre­ate interesting lineages. Founded back in 2006, the game runs on the concept of stealing dragon eggs from a nest and keeping them as one’s own and later hatching them for a baby dragon. Players will have to click a certain number of times on the eggs to hatch them else they’ll expire leaving behind quite morbid message about how they died from lack of care! More the number of clicks, the sooner will the eggs hatch and dragons grow up. The interactive and very supportive community of Dragon Cave makes it easy for newbies to understand the game promptly and play it with expertise.

Flight Rising

Flight Rising is another online dragon game that is based on lore, just like Neopets. Every player has to choose a Flight at the beginning of the registration process. Picking a particular Flight determines the sort of Lair the player will eventually have and the eye color of the dragon. Once players get a dragon, the site automatically assigns another dragon to the player of the opposite gender to be its mate. Other than breeding dragons, there are a number of things to do with them – feed them, dress them up, gather items which can be sold, play mini games, fight in the coliseum, look for tiny pets for your dragons, or just interact with the community.

From the plethora of virtual pet games that are available online, it looks like they are here to stay for quite some time more. Either get your kids to adopt a virtual pet or you sneak into the virtual world to breed a pet – after all, it’s worth feeling like a kid again! 

Rainy Day Activities for Preschool Kids

I know how difficult it is to keep kids indoors when the skies open up and pour their hearts out! The kids are more than ever eager to step out and get soaked in the monsoon showers only to go down with a flu attack soon after. After much research and brainstorming, I've arrived at a few awesome preschool games and activity ideas that will make the little bundles of energy willfully stay indoors. Here are some of them.

Rainbow by Steve Snodgrass

Messy Fun

How the kids love getting messy and playing with colors, paints, squishy foods, chalk dust – just about anything under the sun that serves their objective of messy play! So what if they can’t step out in the rains – bring the fun indoor right in the bathtub! Hand them anything and everything that can get messy like shaving cream, bathtub paints, and bath crayons, pudding cups, acrylic tubes, etc. and let the fun begin. Allow the preschool toddlers to paint with their fingers, toes, heads, fists, anything for more fun.

Sticker Album

Get a few old magazines, pamphlets, and newspapers and sit your child down with them. Let kids find pictures of animals, food, babies, or cars from the piles of paper. Give them safety scissors and help them cut out the pictures. Stick the pictures on the large construction paper and your rainy day sticker album is ready for display!

Indoor Tents

A great way to promote role play among preschool children is to set them up a tent and invite a few of their friends. Since the weather outside is not too conducive for children to go out and play, it’s time you set them up an indoor tent.  Spread a bed sheet over a dining table and your indoor tent is ready to be camped in! Serve your little guests a few monsoon snacks like fritters, nachos, pancakes and the kids will be set to have a gala time camping!

Marshmallow Sticky Figures

Hand over a few thin pretzel sticks and a bag full of marshmallows to your preschooler. Have her build 3D houses, tepees, stick figures, etc. with the tools in hand. You’ll be surprised at some of the creations! Later lay out the creations on a plate at dinner as desserts.    

Storytelling

Don’t limit storytelling during monsoons to just bedtime. Sneak in under warm comforters whenever the sky wishes to turn into a gloomy shade of grey and read out from your child’s favorite books with cups of microwave-made steaming hot chocolate waiting for you both on the bed side table. Isn’t that a wonderful way of spending monsoon indoors?

However, don’t restrict yourself to just these ideas. Explore!

10 activities to celebrate Independence Day with your kids

Independence Day by Micky**

Plan ahead for the Independence Day weekend. Too busy to think up activities? Not enough time to plan some fun time with the kids? Worried the kids might end up playing regular online games on a special day? Hakuna Matata, which, if you have forgotten, roughly means 
'Don't worry, Be happy'!

So here are 10 great activities for celebrating Independence Day, with your kids:

1. Begin your day with star spangled slime (how cool is that!).

2. Make a T-shirt and wear them around with pride.

3. Decorate your home with an Independence Day Wreath.

4. Eco-friendly stars on your lawn.

5. Simple and fun games for the kids.

6. Spread the holiday happiness - spread some confetti!

7. Watching a parade? Get the kids to make their own independence day visors.

8. Make a Geodesic dome by changing the yellow straw to red!

9. Make some patriotic dessert (what's that?)!

10. Know more about the celebration, play a trivia game.

You have any other great ideas, let me know. 

A Memorable Summer

As kids grow many of their earliest memories fade, as childhood amnesia kicks in. Once they reach the years from when memories can be retained, it’s important to give them special memories, so that they can remember things via incidents, as in ‘…that summer when we went to Niagara Falls..’ or ‘…that winter when we built a snowman and have him wear grandpa’s red jacket…’ and so on. 

Here are 4 activities which are guaranteed to help build great memories:

tents by Marina Kuperman Villataro

Go camping
Kids love this one, inside or outside. Yes, I said 'inside'. Sometimes, as parents, we don't have the time or resources to take the kids camping. Well, we can always simulate it. Pitch a tent inside the house or in your backyard. have some interesting 'camp' food, sing songs, sleep early and make great memories!

Go on a trip 
Short, long, with extended family or just the immediate family, children love trips, the games played and the sights seen. Make sure there are lots of activities for younger kids. My kids remember a fireman’s pole they first saw on a holiday. It was ‘that’ holiday, when they saw it. Don't be hesitant. Soak in local stuff, go to farmer's markets, local parks, eat local, go fruit picking and do something totally silly. 

Visit relatives
Seriously - visit relatives. It can be pleasant, if everyone makes the effort to be well behaved. Kids need to know they belong. To grandparents, immediate family, cousins and close family friends. There are people they will fall back on in case of an emergency. More than anything else, large warm families meetings help build good behavior in kids. Kids insulated from families, need to learn about where they come from. 

This summer go do something off beat, which will build some great memories. 

Father’s Day – finding the right gift!

Father’s Day is around the corner and kids are buying, making, cooking, ordering their fathers a gift. Psychologists categorize fathers as providers, enforcers etc., but this categorizing of fathers is more fun!

"Father on father's day" by Dean Michaud - [1]. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Father_on_father%27s_day.jpg#/media/File:Father_on_father%27s_day.jpg

With modern life evolving all the time, men have changed as have women. Duties of fathers and mothers are no longer demarcated. With stay at home dads, the mothers have become primary providers, which was the most traditional role. As dads and their roles have morphed, our gifts too should change. Here are a few gift suggestions:

1. Bake him a cake or a cookie tie.
2. Get him a useful app or forget usefulness – get him a fun app.
3. Make him a toy from his childhood.
4. Make him a puzzle or a piece of art.
5. Buy him a funny book. 
6. Plan a surprise picnic for him.
7. Get all his favorite people to come over for a party.
8. Put all his old pictures together and make him a collage.
9. Design a scavenger hunt for him.
10. Buy him a fun father’s day card 

Let me know how your gift was liked! 

When is a Pet Game not Good for Kids

As parents are increasingly aware of the dangers of letting kids loose on the internet, more of them are taking an effort to understand what their kids are doing online. However, for many parents, this understanding is still limited. Parents have some idea of what to look out for, but often miss out on other areas. This article focuses on some of the overlooked concerns regarding online games for kids.
 

Take the popular genre of pet games for kids. These games are generally understood to be for young kids, and the theme is often kid-friendly. The games revolve around adopting pets, caring for them and looking after their needs. Kids can often play fun games with these pets and go on virtual adventures with them. At the surface of it, these games seem pretty harmless. However, that doesn’t mean your child is not at risk when playing pet games. Here are some of the other things you need to look out for.

1.       Disproportionate costs

Teaching kids about the value of money is a very real and increasingly difficult task. And if your child is playing an online pet game where they are asked to buy an expensive membership to enjoy most of the features or if they are frequently presented with innumerable in-game purchasing options, it makes your task even tougher. That’s not to say that your kids should only play the games that are absolutely free. For good quality pet games, you may have to shell out some money. But it’s better for you to make that decision beforehand and then allow your child to play the game rather than allow the game to market their products to your child and then find yourself either giving in to their requests or trying to appease disappointed kids. You don’t want young minds to be exposed to the idea that anything enjoyable must be paid for. Read up about the game to understand the costs involved, including the hidden costs. You may not find all the information you’re looking for on their website. Online reviews and forums are a good place to glean additional information.

2.       Exposure to strangers

Yes, even pet games for kids sometimes allow players to interact with strangers. However, many of them have controls in place that prevent players from sharing sensitive information or using inappropriate language. That said, you must be aware of what options are available to your child, what controls are in place and whether your child is ready for those kinds of interactions. If you choose to let your child interact with strangers, make sure to discuss the dangers involved, what type of behaviour is not acceptable and when to talk to an adult. (Remember that there is no way of guaranteeing that every person playing a kids’ game is actually a kid.)

photo_1752_20060703 by reynermedia is licensed under CC BY 2.0

3.       Exposure to bullying

Even if the pet game that your child is playing does not allow players to interact with strangers, your child can still be exposed to bullying. Yes, bullying can happen online and yes, it can be as harmful as bullying in the real world. Very often, the bully is known to the victim and can include classmates and even people in the victim’s friend circle. If the pet game allows chatting and sharing of information between acquaintances, make sure to talk to your child about cyberbullying and how to prevent it. Also discuss what should be done if it does occur.

4.       Unsupervised forums

Many pet games have official forums where players can interact with each other and discuss topics that are of interest to them. These forums are usually supervised to prevent users from sharing sensitive information or using inappropriate language. However, the really popular pet games may have fan sites and other unofficial forums where users are free to post what they like. Make sure you know if your child is visiting any of these places, and be aware of the kind of conversations that happen in those places.

This list is not meant to discourage you from allowing your kids to play multiplayer online games. To the contrary, kids can learn many useful skills from playing the right games and socializing online. However, it is important to speak to them about the dangers that come with the internet, and to teach them how to behave online as well as how to respond to unacceptable behaviour. Most importantly, take time to play the games your kids are playing and understand from first-hand experience what the games are about. Make friends on the game, join the forum discussions, do it all and then you can share really meaningful conversations with your child about the online games they play.

Holidaying with Kids

When it's May, holidays pop into our minds. It creeps into chats, discussions and arguments. Everyone loves a good holiday, but we might all differ in our definition of a ‘good holiday’. The ideal holiday is always one that caters to all of us in small ways. At the end of a holiday, we must all have great memories to keep.

Kids in the Boot by Ben Francis

With kids, it’s all the more difficult. Younger kids have less patience, while older kids enjoy a variety of things. Here are a few things you could try:

Treks: Typically younger kids have no patience for treks which last more than an hour, while older kids are quite comfortable walking for a couple of hours. Many teenagers who enjoy the outdoors can do full-fledged treks on their own.  

City Trips: One has to pick a good kid friendly city, which is friendly to everyone in the family. Generally such trips can include museums, parks, shops, fun eateries, a Zoo if the city has one, the riverfront(again if available) etc.

Road Trips: These can be great fun. It gives families the option to stop and go at their leisure. Younger kids love these breaks. It could be at a park or a restaurant or just an open field. If you are driving along the beach, it’s fun to stop and play a bit before continuing. Here’s more on kid friendly road trips.

Theme Park Trips: These can be great fun, but generally include staying within the theme park premises. After one or two visits, older members of the family might find it boring, but there's always the room to laze in.

Trips are a good way to bond with relatives. It's good to visit them or meet at some place. With nuclear families, trips might be the only time cousins get to meet. So what are you doing this summer?

Your Child and Social Networking – How to Get off on the Right Foot

Everyone’s talking about and on social media – posting selfies on Instagram, tweeting opinions in 140 characters, liking and sharing statuses and videos on Facebook and building professional networks on LinkedIn – we seem to do everything with one eye cocked on social networks. Why should kids be any different? They come with their share of sociability after all, and a need to talk about everything they see and experience, so it’s natural that your child should be curious about whatever social network happens to be currently popular among his or her friends and school mates. As our family lives are affected by social media, we need to know more about it.

“The kid never stops txtn” by Alex Gaylon licensed under CC BY SA 2.0

Networking for Kids – The Need for Vigilance

More than 70% of tweens and teens below 17 are active social networkers and more than 5 million Facebook users are not yet 10. These statistics strike terror into the heart of the bravest parents and rightly so. Toddlers with Twitter handles may be cute but most children are poorly equipped to deal with the predators, stalkers, pedophiles and cyber bullies that populate the underbelly of the virtual world. Burying your head in the sand and refusing to recognize the dangers of social networking simply don’t work. Here are 3 important tips you can use to make it a safe, age-appropriate and pleasant experience for your child.

1.      Allow them to explore kid-friendly websites

Just because they’re under 13 doesn’t mean you should bar your kids from exploring the virtual world. There are plenty of kid-centric websites that offer fun educational games and Role Playing Games where players can chat and interact with like-minded peers. These websites are designed to keep kids safe by blocking the exchange of personal information, inappropriate language and real life contexts – all potential sources of danger your child will definitely encounter on social networking sites meant for adults. Just make sure you do your research before allowing him to sign up. Steering your child in the right direction is as important as steering him away from the wrong one.

2.      Set up limited accessibility

Allowing your child to join social networking sites is fine. What is NOT fine is letting him have unlimited, unsupervised access to social media. Too much screen time can be detrimental to schoolwork, hobbies, real life friendships and family ties. How much is too much? 30-45 minutes a day is more than enough for teens, tweens and younger children. Set and manage the websites your child can visit; monitor his requests and set appropriate restrictions on games and apps. If he uses mobile devices, install parental control aps. Some social media sites have child-friendly privacy settings but you can’t afford to let your guard down.

3.      Make them aware of online dangers

Social networking is a great way for kids to connect with family, friends and class mates. But cyber bullying, identity theft and stranger danger are very real threats that come with the territory. And sometimes, online “friends” can be wolves in sheep’s clothing. Teach your child to take these precautions when he’s online:

·                         Not post his full name, address, school or date of birth
·                       Accept friend requests ONLY from people he knows in the real world
·                       Upload ONLY appropriate pictures, videos and posts
·                       Report bullies immediately

4.      Play Multi Player Games with them

A good way to ease them into the online world is to play along with them on Multi Player Games or Cooperative Games. There are special “Parent” Accounts which can be used. A good thing to do is check the age suitability of the content on a game. Games which involve cooperation in playing, mirror real life and builds a sense of sharing. Inbuilt controls in games, allows parents to make sure that they are around while it’s played. Sites like Common Sense Media have game reviews which are very useful.  

The most important precaution you can take to keep your child safe on social media is to talk to him about it; the earlier the better! 

5 Outdoorsy Activities for Spring

GeorgeLouis at English Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

It’s spring and it won’t last, even if it’s not warm enough as yet in some parts. Let’s make the best of it and spend time outdoors. Get the family out and more importantly get the kids to play outside. Here are 5 outdoorsy activities for this spring:

1. Take a walk in the woods. No woods? No problem. If you live in a city, check out the urban wildlife. There are always those plants and critters which brave the concrete and crowds in our cities. Spot them. Observe them. Take pictures.

2. Try a new outdoorsy sport. Hesitant? That’s not unusual. Perhaps you should try it with a friend? 

3. Have kids? Well, get them to sit outside in a nice shaded area and try a craft. It’s the outdoors – clearing up messes is easier! 

4. Have a picnic! Yes, a nice old fashioned picnic. Make some simple food and carry it to a place where you can have it at an unhurried pace. Hey, don’t forget to carry some water or other fluids. 

5. Meet family and friends. It’s a good time to catch up with family and whatever’s been happening in their lives. Put a table out and enjoy something cold to drink, snacks and chit-chat. It’s important for both you and your family to socialize, don’t overlook it.

 Well, that’s a short easy list to follow. Go on, enjoy your spring!