iPhone Apps for Parents and Kids: Can't We Do Better Than This?

Late last week, I purchased an iPhone: my very first smartphone. And like every other newbie iPhone owner, I immediately started scouting out apps (those tiny applications that allow the iPhone to morph into a flashlight, a construction level, a dictionary, bubblewrap, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. Or so it would seem).

One of the first categories I decided to check out what was on offer for parents and kids.

Parent apps

A lot of the apps that I looked at for parents seem to be out of touch with what parents would love to see in an app, circa 2010. Instead of designing these apps by considering what the technology can contribute to the lives of parents, the designers appear to have taken the opposite approach: a lot of app designers have designed iPhone apps by considering what the technology can do and then looking for a fit with the lives of parents. (It's a subtle but important difference.) That's why there are an abundance of contraction timers, baby activity trackers, and other similar apps: it's easy to program a piece of software to keep track of the metrics of parenting. It takes a lot more upfront thinking and planning to design an app that would function as the iPhone equivalent of a mom or dad brain.

Kid apps

Many apps for preschoolers seem to fall into a similar trap. You'll find flash card apps galore for babies and toddlers – this despite the fact that flash cards have been out of favor with the majority of parents for the past two decades. (Remember all those jokes about 1980s yuppie parents and their flash card obsessions? They eventually learned that a baby can learn the word "ball" even more effectively by drooling over a real ball.)

I talked to Allison McDonald of the popular parenting and early childhood education site No Time for Flash Cards about the iPhone flash cards app phenomenon. As I had anticipated, she wasn't overly impressed either.

"In general my opinion about flash cards are that they are simply not appropriate teaching tools for young children. Memorization is not learning: ...parrots can recite Shakespeare [but that] doesn't mean they understand it. They have merits for things like sight words, and when memorization is needed, but not when learning foundations for further knowledge, or when comprehension is the goal. Young children should be learning through play, being able to manipulate, associate context, and be creative. A static card is incapable of that.

"Flash cards aren't likely an experience a child will remember and cherish. They don't develop a love of learning. That to me as a mom and educator is paramount for this age group. That love will stay with a child throughout their life if the foundations are laid early on."

McDonald is also frustrated with the marketing messages accompanying some of the iPhone flash card apps. For example: "Just choose the set and your child can do the rest." (I was fascinated by the marketing tagline for OccupyBaby: the app designed to "calm, entertain, and educate babies, toddlers, and kids." Translation: "it will do whatever you want it to do for whatever age of kid you have. Just click and buy.")

Screen time, anyone?

And then there are those screen time recommendations for kids to keep in mind (the American Pediatric Society recommends no screen time at all for kids under two; the Canadian Society of Pediatrics suggests a limit of no more than one to two hours per day for any member of the family). An iPhone or an iTouch is, after all, a tiny little screen, adorably packaged as it may be.

"To me these are huge red flags," McDonald explains. "Young children should not be handed an iPhone to learn from alone. A baby should be on the floor exploring the things on the flashcards with their parents. The babies will learn the same things by experiencing them through all their senses: not just watching them on a screen. Sit down and read, point out the pictures, and talk to your baby and they won't need flash cards."

McDonald also worries about the effect on kids if parents develop a bad case of one-app-manship: "My final concern is that these apps add fuel to the fire that parents feel pressure to keep up with their neighbours' child who is reading at age two and speaking three languages. We all need to chill out, let our kids develop their own interests, and use those [interests] as a launching pad for learning."

* * *

So tell me: have I missed your favorite iPhone app for parents or for kids? (There are a lot of apps in that iTunes store, after all!) Have you been dazzled -- or disappointed -- by an iPhone app that you purchased to make your life as a parent easier or better? I'd love to hear what you have to say. Please post your comments below and let other parents who might be interested in having their say know that we're having this conversation here. Thanks!

Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids: Review of Documentary (Airs on CBC Next Week)

The Art of Parenting

Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids zeroes in on what is commonly referred to as helicopter parenting: the tendency of some parents to hover over their kids. (Did you know that helicopter parents are known as curling parents in Sweden? That's one of the interesting pop culture tidbits that you can pick up while watching this documentary.)

The documentary describes the phenomenon in detail and features interviews with parents, a psychiatrist, and other cultural commentators, including Carl Honore, author of Under Pressure: Rescuing our Children from the Culture of Over-Parenting. Notably absent is Lorene Skenazy, whose book Free Range Kids is widely considered to be the unofficial manifesto of the anti-helicopter parenting movement.

The documentary is at its best when it focuses on the lives of kids who are heading off to university or landing their first job. According to a variety of sources who are interviewed on camera, hardcore helicopter parenting types apparently think nothing of calling up their kids university profs (or the president of the university) to argue about grades; or of making contact with their kids' employers, if junior's performance review hasn't been sufficiently glowing.

The documentary is less convincing when it focuses on the lives of the over-privileged (parents who can afford to drop $4000 on birthday bash for a one year old) or the just-plain-clueless (parents who don't seem to be able to think critically about any product or service that promises to give their kid an advantage over the next family's kid). Very few parents bought into the helicopter parenting phenomenon to this degree, even when the trend was at its peak. Becoming a parent isn't correlated with a sudden increase in wealth or an immediate loss of your critical thinking abilities, after all.

There's also the issue of timeliness. This documentary would have been more timely a few years back, when parents were more inclined to want to micromanage their kids' lives. Since that time, there has been a growing backlash against helicopter parenting. The recession has accelerated this trend by giving parents something else to worry about (finding the money to pay the bills) and reducing the income available to fund that faux-perfect family lifestyle.

Since environmental concerns heightened and the recession hit, parents have been simplifying their lives (including managing the avalanche of parenting advice information that can leave them feeling helicopter-parented by the parenting experts), simplifying their kids lives (allowing lots of time for unstructured outdoor play: an old-fashioned idea that never quite went out of style), and enjoying time as a family (relaxed time for fun, not time that is driven by an agenda). And I can tell you one thing. No one is eager to hop back on board that helicopter anytime soon.

The documentary is worth watching, if only as a reminder of where we've been and how far we've come in rejecting the consumerist parenting style that views parents as manufacturers and kids as products to be paraded before the neighbors and the relatives. They are individuals in their own right: not branch plants belonging to Mom or Dad Inc.

Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids airs at the following times:

Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 9 pm on CBC-TV

Friday, February 5, 2010 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC News Network.

The Downside of High: Documentary Review (Airs Thurs on CBC)

The Art of Parenting

I came close to not watching The Downside of High at all -- close to writing the documentary off as an updated version of the 1950s anti-drug propaganda flick.

I'm glad I decided to tune in because the documentary provides some important information that parents and kids should know.

The Downside of High tells the story of three young people from British Columbia who, along with their doctors, believe that their mental illness (schizophrenia or bipolar disorder) was triggered by marijuana use.

As the documentary points out, scientists are buying into that theory, too. They believe that while most people who light up a joint will enjoy a pleasant buzz, an unfortunate few will be sent into a state of psychosis. And teenagers are at particular risk. (If you use marijuana before the age of 16, you are four times as likely to become schizophrenic.)

Today's super-potent pot may be too blame. THC levels in marijuana have increased dramatically in recent decades. In the 1960s, THC levels averaged 1 to 3 percent. Today, those levels average 18 to 25 percent.

Within the next five to ten years, it may be possible to develop a genetic test identify those kids who should never smoke pot, due to the increased risk of marijuana triggering an episode of psychosis. In the meantime, we can make our teens aware of the factors that increase the risk of such an episode:

History of psychosis

Family history of psychosis

Using other drugs

Difficulty relating to others

Childhood trauma

Living in an urban area

To learn more about this issue, tune into The Downside of High. Better yet, watch it with your kids so that you can talk about what you learn and how they might apply this new information to their lives.

Premiering: Thursday January 28, 2010 at 8 pm on CBC-TV

Repeating: Thursday February 4, 2010 at 10 pm ET/PT on CBC News Network

The Box in the Basement

The past doesn't stay neatly stored away in a box in your basement, as much as you might like it to. All kinds of events can cause your mind to wander downstairs and start poking through the contents of that box, long after you'd sworn you'd hammered down the lid for good.

Last night I watched Awful Normal, a powerful documentary by Celeste Davis (available through iTunes). Perhaps you've seen it. It documents the filmmaker's decision to confront a family friend who sexually abused her and her sister a quarter-century earlier. The result is a powerful testament to the way childhood sexual abuse impacts everyone involved; and how powerfully children are affected when they are forced to pretend that everything is okay -- or "normal," to borrow from the film's title – when it's anything but.

As parents, we teach our kids that feelings are important: that they have a right to their feelings, no matter what those feelings may be, and that their feelings will help to guide them through life. When children are told to ignore what they are really feeling and to behave in a way that feels abnormal or wrong in order to meet the needs of an adult, they start second-guessing the feelings that have been guiding them so intuitively until now. Should they listen to their own feelings or should they listen to the adult voice in their head that is trying to over-rule those feelings? Which voice should they trust? Which voice should they obey? What happens to that child when they realize that the voice of the adult is misguided or wrong; and that they have to look out for themselves? How does that feel?

So overwhelming that you may not even register the degree of overwhelm at the time.

Navigating Normal (or a Reasonable Facsimile Thereof)

It's when you're making heartfelt, conscious choices about raising your own children, thinking about what they're feeling and the choices you want to make as you move from one parenting stage to the next, that you remember what it was like to be that kid.

The lid on the box in the basement can start to wriggle off. The box can begin to block your view of the people sitting across from you at the dinner table.

The first step, for me, in trying to starting to deal with the box was to make peace with the person and the times. My mother's health problems (she was severely affected by bipolar disorder) prevented her from being the kind of mother she tried so desperately to be (connected, nurturing, calm, happy, involved). And the seventies were, after all, anything but the age of enlightenment when it came to speaking openly about mental illness, let alone confronting its impact on the children of a mother who was really struggling.

The next step involved making sense of the major events that occurred during my childhood and adolescent years and how I reacted to them: the choices I made and how each affected the person I became.

I'm now in the life reno phase. Using architecture as a model, I've started rebuilding some parts of the house that are going to need a powerful foundation if this building is going to weather the sunshine and storms of the next 45 years. (I just turned 46 and my two grandmothers each lived into their mid-90s or beyond. That's the goal I've set for myself: to thrive into my 90s.)

I've become much more proactive about managing stress because stress is a trigger for the seasonal affective disorder and the bouts of depression that I've struggled with in the past.

I've become much more effective at advocating for myself. (I honed these skills while advocating for my kids – just one of the many gifts motherhood has given to me.) The mere fact that this item didn't show up at the end of my list shows how much progress I've made.

I've confronted my life-long nemesis – the bully in all her assorted forms – and I've put her on notice that she no longer has a place in my life.

I'm doing more of what I love and connecting with all kinds of people who share my passion for making the world a better place for everyone's children.

I'm developing a more holistic view of what it means to be healthy. (I've even finally found a way to work out and have fun at the same time.)

So why am I sharing all this with you? In case you're on a similar path and you'd like some company.

This is, after all, hard work. There are times when it is tempting to haul that box out of the basement and bury it the backyard -- or haul it to the closest dump. But all you'd end up with is an angry replicant of that same box. The only way to neutralize the contents of that box is to work you way through it. Writing and tapping into other creative forms of creative expression can be tremendously helpful as you mentally sort through its contents. So can talking with others who are working through the same process. Ditto for connecting with the right therapist. Doing so helps to normalize the experience by reminding us that very few people have a perfect childhood, just as none of us are perfect parents or flawless human beings.

The more we plug away at this, the clearer we become about who we are and how we want to live our lives. That allows us to feel good about what the future holds for ourselves and kids as we continue to grow together as a family.

I saw an old couple bein' visited by their children
and all their grandchildren too.
The old couple weren't screwed up,
and neither were their kids or their grandkids.

- H.I. McDunnough, Raising Arizona

Five Parenting Predictions for 2010

Most crystal balls haven't kept pace with the pace at which the world is changing, so you have to be feeling brave to try your hand at predictions of any kind these days. I guess that means I'm starting out 2010 in gutsy mode. Here are five parenting predictions, which span the world of parenting and pop culture.

1. Family dinner conversations will become livelier, thanks to Twitter and Facebook.
With family members joining social networking sites where they hone and share their opinions online, dinner conversations can't help but become a little more lively and opinionated. Fortunately, research has shown that discussions around the family dinner table help to make kids smarter.

2. Parents will gravitate to e-books and e-readers as their budgets allow and as parenting e-books become more interactive.
As parenting e-books become more interactive, they'll have more to offer a generation of parents who are used to interacting with text as opposed to digesting it word for word.

3. Even more reality TV shows will focus on families.
Jon and Kate Plus 8 may have faded to black, but Octomom Nadya Suleman will soon be bringing her 14 kids to air, along with Canadian stunt family, the Dunns. This kind of begs the question: what reality TV show format for a family with kids remains to be tapped? Perhaps someone should pitch NASCAR Family, A Baby and a Bakery, or This Family Can Sing. Or maybe not.

4. Parents surfing the web will be subjected to increasing SEO-world vs. real-world parenting disconnect.
The battle for ad dollars and eyeballs can lead to cheesy headlines and bizarro-world stories, even on parenting websites. The net result? It will become increasingly difficult to find a simple answer to a garden-variety parenting question – unless, of course, all the baby sleep questions are asked by readers named Tiger or Britney.

5. The journalism robots will fail miserably as they attempt to play parenting expert.
They're already out there, apparently: -- the journalism robots, that is: harvesting text so that articles can be generated out of loosely related facts without hands-on help from any humans. We can only hope that the journalism robots have legal robot buddies willing to help them out if the parenting advice, as mashed together, happens to short on common sense or missing a safety caveat or two.

TIP

Give yourself a parenting advice timeout. Being bombarded with advice about every aspect of parenting 24/7 can leave us feeling like we'll never learn everything we need to know to do even a half-way decent job as parents. Unplugging gives us time to consider how much we already know and to reach our own conclusions about parenting, without being distracted by all the expert voices competing for attention in our heads.

Extra Votes for Parents, Healthy Body Image, and Fish Art

Newswire

Extra Votes for Parents?

"If [governments] are not ready to stand up proudly and give voice to the rights of children, then they should put into place reforms that magnify the voices that already exist. The most important would be reforming an electoral system that disenfranchises all those younger than 18 by allowing their parents to cast additional votes for each of their children. Maybe only then when they have to actually look their electorate in the eyes will there be sufficient resolve to make child rights the priority that a commitment [the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child] made 20 years ago stated it should be."
- Miles Corak, former research coordinator and lead researcher of the 2005 UNICEF Report Child Poverty in Rich Countries, writing in yesterday's Toronto Star

A Powerful New Anti-Bullying Tool:
Positive Body Image

Reflections of Me: Body Image and Self-Esteem (a preventative educational program designed for use from kindergarten through Grade 8) is one of the tools Ontario teachers are using to combat bullying in the classroom. It is designed to teach children to accept differences in others and to resist harassment and bullying based on body image.

The curriculum – which was developed by the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (EFTO) – recently won the Canadian Medical Association's Award for Excellence in Health Promotion. It consists of a video, curriculum materials designed for each grade level, and a brochure for parents.

According to the EFTO, parents play a key role in determining how children feel about their bodies and in promoting healthy body image in general. Parents can remind kids that genetics have a lot to do with a person's weight, size, and body type; reinforce the idea that all bodies are acceptable; challenge put-downs related to physical appearance and be a positive role model with regard to body image; encourage kids to tune into their own internal hunger and fullness cues; promote exercise and healthy eating as ways to nurture your body; and celebrate the uniqueness of all people.

Related:

Body Talk: The Straight Facts About Fitness, Nutrition, and Feeling Great About Yourself by Ann Douglas and Julie Douglas

One Fish, Two Fish, Rainbow Fish, Whitefish....

The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources' Kids' Fish Art Contest is back for its 7th year. Kids in grades 4 through 12 have until December 18th to submit a drawings of one of this year's official fish -- the rainbow fish or the whitefish -- in its natural habitat, along with an essay about habitat protection (see official contest rules for details). The winning design will be used on the 2010 Young Angler's License.

Twitter Lists for Parents: Find Great Parenting Resources -- and Other Parents -- on Twitter

Parenting Grapevine

Twitter recently introduced Twitter lists – a fun new feature that allows you to create lists of people or organizations you follow. Naturally, people on Twitter, who tend to be a rather obsessive bunch, are going a little crazy with the new feature. The net result? There's a fabulous new Twitter list being born every minute.

Here's a roundup of some of the best Twitter lists for parents I've spotted so far. (As always, if I've missed some of your favorites, you can add them in the comments section below.)

Parenting and parent education resources

As you'd expect, there are plenty of lists about parenting and parent education.

Nancy Prisby (CoachNancyP) has created a list of parenting education resources.

Parenting magazine (parenting) has created all kinds of lists for parents, including lists that focus on pregnancy, the lighter side of life (funny), and parenting tips. 

PBS (pbs) has created a list of the top resources for parents.

The LATimes' social media guy Andrew Nystrom (latimesnystrom) has created an umbrella list -- moms - dads - kids - parenting -- consisting of both people and resources.

Sweetmama.ca (Sweetmamadotca) is just starting to create some lists, and it looks like those lists are going to be fun, so you may want to check back to see how those lists come together.

If you want to see what lists other parenting publications and websites are creating for parents, you may find these lists of parenting publications and parenting websites useful.

I have also created some other parenting-related lists.

Parents with the write stuff

A number of lists for parents have something to do with writing or blogging.

Beth Blecherman (TechMama) has created a list of mombloggers groups.

Debbie Ridpath Ohi's (InkyElbows) has created a list of Toronto kid-lit authors.

Rachel Jameson (RachelJJameson) has created a list of young adult authors.

And I created a list of parents who love to write because a surprising number of the people who follow me on Twitter love to write.

Find that (Canadian) parent

Maria (BOREDmommy) has created a list of Canadian moms.

Emma Willer (ewiller) has created a list of Canadian parents. 

John James (JustAnOttawaDad) has created a list of Ottawa parents.

phdinparenting (phdinparenting) has created another list of Ottawa parents.

Gwendolyn Floyd (LeftCoastMama) has created a list of Vancouver parents.

The closest thing I've found to a list of Toronto parents is Catherine Connors' (herbadmother) list t-dot-com featuring all things Toronto.

Parents just want to have fun

Some of the most creative lists I've discovered are the ones that Gabrielle Blair (designmom) has been putting together. I particularly enjoyed these lists of hers:

• Takes copious notes
• Knows how to drive stick 
• People with bangs
• Probably left-handed 
• Punctual

Two parting comments

So there you have it -- my list of Twitter lists for parents. I hope you'll share some of your own current faves (or some of your own Twitter lists-in-progress) in the comments section below. But first, I have two parting comments.

1. It will be interesting to watch how Twitter lists evolve over time -- how people find new uses for them; eliminate some of their lists that aren't particularly useful (because someone has created a better version of the same list) and replace those lists with something even more innovative, creative, and useful to the Twitter community.

2. My Twitter lists (@themotherofall) are still very much lists-in-progress. (These things are surprisingly time-consuming to put together.) So if you know you should be one one of my lists but you aren't there yet, help me out by following the appropriate list so that I'll find you when I'm doing list maintenance. I'll still use my discretion, of course, but you'll make my job a whole lot easier. And I'll be able to lose some of my Twitter list guilt. (Like any parent needs more guilt.)

From Mean Girls to Perfection Pressures to Baby Names

NEWSWIRE

A roundup of essays, opinion pieces, and/or noteworthy news items about all things parenting.

THE MEAN SCENE

“Girls are not brought up to be assertive. They’re raised to be nice and pretty and have lots of friends. But they themselves recognize meanness as an integral part, even a normal part, of their growing up....It’s what girls do to get by. They need to dress the part and look the part and gather their army of friends around them. Their capital is their friends, their hair, their name-brand clothing – that’s power for them.”
- Nicole Landry, research coordinator with the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology in the Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, and author, The Mean Girl Motive: Negotiating Power and Femininity (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing), quoted in "Survival of the Meanest" by Marilyn Smulders at dalnews.dal.ca.

LITTLE MISS PERFECT

Researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax have come up with a theory to explain the vicious cycle that can link perfectionism to binge eating. Psychologists Simon Sherry and Peter A. Hall analyzed the daily behaviors of undergraduates and discovered that students who binge eat use the experience of eating to block out overwhelming feelings of loneliness, failure, and sadness. The relief is only temporary, however, as those emotions are replaced with longer-lasting feelings of guilt and shame. Learning to modify goals and expectations to better reflect what's realistic and achievable can reduce the desire to binge eat as a way of coping, leading to a happier and healthier individual, they concluded. The study was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

PARENT LAB

Noteworthy research from the world of parenting.

GREAT NAME, HAPPY LIFE

There's a lot on the line when it comes to naming your baby. A recent study conducted by researchers at Cardiff University has confirmed what kids on the playground have known forever: it's easier to lead a happier life if your parents gave you the gift of a great name.

The researchers also found that people who really, really, really liked their name (like who were totally in love with their name) tended to score highly for self-deception. So if your friend Toaster insists that he absolutely adores his name, you might conclude that the dude protests too much.

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

RESOURCE SWAP

Parenting resource swap.

BABY NAMES

Let's continue the chit-chat about baby names by making it the subject of the first Resource Swap.

If you've written a blog post on the subject of baby names and you're particularly proud of it OR you've got some baby naming resources to recommend, email me so that I can include your recommendations in the initial roundup of resources.

If you miss this initial call for posts and resources, don't panic. You can add your links/resources once the post goes live on Thursday. In the world of parenting, deadlines have to be flexible, right?

~ ~ ~

PS: Thanks very much for the comments on Thursday's post. I really appreciate your feedback on the new blog format. I also received some very positive tweets. Those were much appreciated, too. Hope you're all enjoying a fabulous Canadian Thanksgiving holiday weekend with friends/family. Thank you for being part of my blog family year in and year out (and, in the case of many of you, for many years running, from blog to blog). I am very grateful for your loyalty and your friendship.

From Airbrushed Photos to Motherhood Realities to a Quiet Fish

NEWSWIRE

A roundup of essays, opinion pieces, and/or noteworthy news items about all things parenting.

PICTURE TOO PERFECT

"When writers take a news item or real event and considerably embellish it, they are required to alert readers by calling the work fiction, a novel or a story based on dramatized facts. Why should it be any different for photographs?"
- French Parliamentarian Valérie Boyer, quoted in France Considers Warning Labels for Airbrushed Photos, Time, October 5, 2009

"Cosmetic surgery rates are rising dramatically as are the numbers suffering from eating disorders. We need to bring some honesty into advertising."
- British MP Jo Swinson quoted in Lib Dems Call for Ban on Airbrushed Photos, guardian.co.uk, September 19, 2009

PARENTING GRAPEVINE

A roundup of parent wisdom via parent blogs and/or Twitter.

ANGER

"I haven’t been blogging lately because I’ve been angry," Tatiana writes in her blog Was It A Very Good Year. Then she goes on to explain why. The result is a powerful post about motherhood, womanhood, and wanting more from a world that too often disappoints.

BEDREST

"What started as a very cutting edge pregnancy -- all those high-tech fertility interventions! -- has ended up an anachronism," writes Deborah Siegel (formerly Girl w/ Pen, now Mama w/ Pen). "I now understand, in a very personal way, why pregnancy was once called 'confinement,' or 'lying in.' Hospitalized for early contractions at 30 weeks, I’ve spent the past 3.5 flat on my side.... "

RELATIONSHIPS

"I'm still coming down from the buzz I felt this past weekend," confesses Carly Cooper, Balance the Mother Load columnist at SweetMama.ca. "And it's not from the dessert wine I learned to love after my dinner. My husband Marc and I took a much needed mini-vacation. For the past six months, life got in our way. Work was demanding (spring and summer are Marc's busiest time), stress and overwhelm took over and as a result our relationship got off track. We knew things had to change."

WORK

Home-based business owner and mother Michele Dortch wonders, in her blog The Integrated Mother, if she should stick with the life she had created or go back to the traditional workforce. "I love my flexible, work-at-home lifestyle. But in the last year, there’s been a distant whisper that’s beckoning me to return to the “traditional” workforce. Whenever I hear it I think, “No way! I’ve been on my own since 2003. It’ll be impossible to go back to…that.”

ONE-QUESTION INTERVIEW

A one-question interview about something to do with parenting.

Today's interviewee: Andrea of A Peek Inside the Fishbowl -- a very popular Ottawa, Ontario, blogger (and blog).

ANN: I can't remember exactly when you launched your blog or how it got its name. All I know is that it was one of the first blogs I started reading -- and that I've never stopped reading it -- and you've never stopped writing it. Obviously, you're enjoying writing your blog as much as your readers enjoy reading it. I'm hoping you will answer this question for me: How has blogging made your life better as a parent and a writer?

ANDREA: My blog got its name from my business, quietfish, which comes from a line in a Dr.Seuss book called My Many Colored Days: “Green Days. Deep deep in the sea. Cool and quiet fish. That’s me.”

Blogging has had an immensely positive impact on my life. It’s opened up many new opportunities for me as a writer but it’s also my community. I’ve connected with other parents, challenged my creative brain, and gotten a boost when I needed one. I love to write.  I love being a parent. Combining the two has made me a happier person. Vive le blog!

PS -- Let me know what you think of the new/evolving blog format. As I noted in a recent post, I'll be rotating a variety of different departments in and out of the blog, to mix things up a bit and bring you more of what you want (according to the results of the recent reader survey). - Ann

Back-to-School Parenting: A Roundup of Back-to-School Parenting Resources

‘Tis the season when everyone has back-to-school on the brain, so I figured this was a good time for a paernting resources swap. I've pulled out some of my favorite resources related to kids and back-to-school. If you have other helpful back-to-school parenting resources to share, please post the details in the comments section below. Or blog about them in your blog and post the link below.

How to....

...Be Brave When Your Child Starts Kindergarten

The first day of kindergarten can be pretty tough, whether you’re a parent or a kid. Some parents find it's tougher on them than it is on their kids. The secrets to getting through the early days and weeks as the parent of a kindergartener? Hang tough on that heart-wrenching first day; and remind yourself that you will still have an important role to play in your child's education for many years to come.

...Prevent or Deal with Cyberbullying

A study conducted by Faye Mishna of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Social Work revealed that 50% of kids in Grades 6 through 12 had been bullied over the Internet. Online bullying has become such a problem for students that the Canadian Federation of Teachers would like to see cyberbullying treated as a crime under the criminal code. Here’s what you do to reduce the odds that your kids will be bullied online and to take steps to stop the bullying if the bullying has already started.

...Give College-Bound Kids Some Helpful Advice About Cooking

Two of my kids headed back to college during the past four days. And they each took that next giant step on the path to total independence: they’ll be cooking for themselves this year, as opposed to relying on a residence meal plan or living with mom and dad.

While I know they’re each quite capable of whipping up the basics, I wanted to inspire them to try new things in the kitchen -- and not to live on heat-and-serve entrees from the frozen food aisle. (Not only is that more expensive than cooking from scratch. It gets pretty boring pretty fast.) So I went looking for an online cooking guide that included healthy, delicious, and easy recipes, as well as some basic tips on food preparation (stocking the kitchen, avoiding food poisoning, etc.)

I was thrilled to come across Good Eats: Quick and Easy Food for Busy College Students, a fabulous cooking guide for time-pressed newbie cooks on a budget by co-authors Suzanne Sonneborn, R.D., L.D, and Cynthia W. Harriman. If there’s a college-bound cook in your family, you’ll want to pass along the link.

...Connect with Other Parents of Boomerang Kids

Sometimes the only thing that helps when you're dealing with a challenging parenting situation is connecting with another parent who truly understands.

Last year, while researching a magazine story about boomerang parenting (parents coping with so-called boomerang kids), Rona Maynard put out a call to parents who might be willing to share their experiences. The stories continued to roll in long past her deadline and an ad hoc support group began to emerge. Some of the more active participants in the discussion are moving the support group to a more permanent home and they want other parents who are dealing with the challenges of sharing their homes with grownup kids (and sometimes grandkids, too) to know that such a group now exists. You can find it at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BoomerangSupport/.