My almost 2 year old uses a soother just for bed time. You can ask him and he’ll pull the plug and hand it to you, no worries. My dentist is pleased (although he would like us to pull the binky permanently).

However, if my son has an iPad and you ask him to hand it to you, it’s not going to happen. You can’t even take the iPad and replace with an iPhone, he knows which one he wants and he’s not ready to give it up.

The dependance we now have on technology to entertain our kids has led to some experts calling tablets “digital pacifiers.”

As much as kids enjoy playing with an iPad, parents should limit the amount of time they spend plopped down with the device, said Gwenn O’Keeffe, a pediatrician in Boston who has studied the effects of technology on children and works with the American Academy of Pediatrics. Toddlers under 2 shouldn’t play with an iPad unless it’s only being used to display books, she said.

Victoria Nash, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute who also has studied the topic, said some parents use gadgets as a “digital pacifier.”

“We know already that there are dangers with watching too much television and doing too much online gaming,” she said.
[Bloomberg]

One of the effects of too much screen time is a delay in speech development. My 23 month old only has a handful of words, most of them not fully formed. There is no doubt my younger son’s speech is behind the development my older son (no iPad) showed.

Still, the iPad is a treat for the couch or the playroom in our house. We don’t have a minivan that will blast Dora, Diego, and the Wonder Pets every time the family gets loaded up to go to the grocery store. And when we get there, I don’t hand them an iPhone to stare at while I wander the aisles.

Some swing the meter far to the other side. Waldorf Schools don’t allow any access to technology until 8th grade, and encourage parents to continue that ideology at home.

Waldorf schools … subscribe to a teaching philosophy focused on physical activity and learning through creative, hands-on tasks. Those who endorse this approach say computers inhibit creative thinking, movement, human interaction and attention spans.

The Waldorf method is nearly a century old, but its foothold here among the digerati puts into sharp relief an intensifying debate about the role of computers in education.

“I fundamentally reject the notion you need technology aids in grammar school,” said Alan Eagle, 50, whose daughter, Andie, is one of the 196 children at the Waldorf elementary school; his son William, 13, is at the nearby middle school. “The idea that an app on an iPad can better teach my kids to read or do arithmetic, that’s ridiculous.”
[NYT]

I’m trying to strike a balance between digital and analog play for my children. Along with the digital books that we share, I still turn pages and my iPhone attached son equally loves the time he spends on my lap reading books by Oliver Jeffers.

If you think your kid is spending too much time on their iPad and not enough time outside getting some exercise, don’t blame the iPad. Before the iPad, they were playing video games, and before video games they were watching TV, and before TV they were reading comic books. Throughout history, you will uncover generations of youth who would rather sit around and play than go outside and play.

It’s not technologies’ fault that a kid is lazy… it comes down to parenting, values and the child’s disposition.
[Twist Image]

How do you handle technology in your home? Video games, iPads, iPods, Gameboys, TVs, etc ..

Have a look at the boxes of toys you’ve got lined up for Christmas morning.

Wander your playroom and look in the bins at what your kids already have.

How many of today’s toys do you think will still be around in 10 years? 20 years? 30 years?

My mother saved a bunch from when I was a kid for Nana’s toybox. The Fisher Price town, airport and circus are classics. Timeless. My boys eat them up when they go there.

The Toy Hall of Fame has inducted 46 toys since it started in 1998.

Barbie, Easy Bake Oven, Checkers, Ball, Playing Cards, Kite, Lego, Teddy Bear and Marbles are all in the hall.

No Tickle Me Elmo. No Transformers.

The 2011 Toy Hall of Fame inductees included blanket, dollhouse and Hot Wheels.

Geekdad recently came up with a list of the Top 5 Toys of All Time.

5. Dirt
4. Cardboard Tube
3. String
2. Box
1. Stick

While you’re flipping through the Toys R Us catalog and going over your child’s wish list, think about this: when armed with imagination a child is unstoppable.

The surveys are in and kids want something from Apple for Christmas.

If you’re obliging them with an iPod Touch or the family an iPad, don’t just give them the box to open on Christmas morning. Pre-load it with a few apps, so there’s something to do.

The devices come built in with stock charts, email, and a camera, but that doesn’t cut it on Christmas Day

Here’s a list of 55 apps to get on your kids’ iDevice before they unwrap the excitement.

Tickle Tap Apps has over a dozen apps that they bundle into collections [$3.99 each] of fun games that are perfect for toddlers.  They’re interactive and make silly sounds.  They help them count, explore, sort and laugh.

The Monster At The End Of This Book [$3.99] and the sequel Another Monster At The End Of This Book [99c] are must installs if you have children under 5.  My two boys play them over and over and over again.  The classic book starring Grover (and the sequel with Elmo joining) is beautifully re-imagined as an interactive story.  You still “turn” pages, but the way interaction has been woven into the game is hours of giggling fun for the kids.

Another incredible book app is The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore. [$4.99]  It’s a book that reads like a Pixar movie and each page has another interactive element for the kids to take part or a puzzle to solve.  This one has been “read” dozens of times by my boys.

Wood Puzzle Maze HD is a great old school toy given the iPad app [$1.99] experience.  Your child can practice problem solving with over a dozen different mazes that have them dragging puzzle pieces on a board as if it was a slot wood puzzle.  My boys took to this app immediately doing them over and over and over again.

Balloonimals brings the fun of our favorite family restaurant to our own kitchen table for $1.99 (or a free trial app).  All you have to do is choose a balloon, blow on the microphone and shake and twist the device to make your own Balloonimal.  You can touch them to perform tricks and of course pop them to start fresh again.

Buld A Train is a fun way to play witih an old school train set anywhere. Your kids choose the engines and cars they want on their train and then can swipe through a variety of track environments from mountains to islands to towns and cities.  They control the speed and the horn as the train travels in loops. They can even flick the switches to change the path of the train to pick up and deliver cargo.  Recent updates to this app make it worth the $1.99. 

For more, check out the 36 apps I use the most on my devices.

This article was originally published at The Future Shop’s Tech Blog.

I’ve said it before, print is dead. The way media is created and consumed is changing, but there’s one thing that new media can’t bring – bragging rights.

New media is so easy to create anybody can do it. It’s becoming pervasive. We can all write a blog, we can all post to YouTube, we can all become iReporters for CNN with our smartphones and Twitter for breaking news.

But because new media is so omnipresent and so easy to create, it doesn’t feel special. Old media is still important and makes your differently when you get recognized by it. (Ask any blogger. There is a legitimacy added to their work when they are recognized by old media)

I’ve had my own blog for years but yesterday when my son was Kid Canada on Kids’ CBC, I beamed with pride. He’s been on YouTube from the day we could first here his heartbeat and my channel has nearly a quarter million views, but my. son. was. on. TV!

I wanted to tell everybody I knew.

And then this morning we’re in the Globe and Mail. I’ve got a blog network that has had more than 500 000 views. But that’s old hat. Today I’m in the paper all across Canada.

Don’t get me wrong, print is dead. I read this Globe and Mail article online last night a full 12 hours before I could get it on my doorstep. The way we consume our news is changing, digital is supplanting physical as the medium of consumption.

Unfortunately when print dies that special feeling of recognition it brings goes away too.

If The Elf on the Shelf isn’t enough to have your little doubter believe in the magic of the season, there’s an app that can help.

Santa Message 2 U is a voice augmenting app that can have you recording personal messages to your kids from Santa. [$1.99 iTunes App Store] (And like The Elf on the Shelf, this is another mom-invention.)

We regularly “send emails” to Saint Nick. This app has been the perfect way for Santa to reply. Since I “send the emails” from my iPhone, I can play the replies to my son from the phone and he buys in.

A couple of tips – practice with the voice augmenting levels a couple of times before you play it for your kids. My first couple of takes had the Jolly Old Elf sounding a little bit like Saw. Creepy.

Ramp up the background noise in the app so it sounds like Santa is emailing his message from a very busy workshop of elves.

About once a week Santa fires a message to my son with a comment on something he’s done in the past couple of days.

He’s digging it and, most importantly, still believing.

How old were your kids when they “figured it out?” How do you try to prolong the magic of the season?

I’ve said it before, kids are like dogs. They drool, they roll over, and they’re perfectly trainable to do fun tricks.

When they’re learning to speak, you can try and make them say “firetruck.”

Or you can get them to go and get you things. First, start off small. Have them go and pick up your shoes before you head out the back door. Have them get the remote that is just out of reach on the other end of the couch. Have them open the garage door when you go outside.

Then, once they’ve established the ability to consistently follow directions, you’re ready for the good stuff. Have them go to the fridge in the basement while you’re on the couch upstairs watching the game and get you a beer.

The best part? They are totally eager to do it and pitch in.

Kids are good. They bring you beer.

What’s your favorite trick you’ve taught your kids?

Let’s be real. Children’s books can suck.

I would rather take my friend’s daughter and 9 of her friends to a Twilight marathon than have to read Robert Munsch‘s Love You Forever before bed time. It may be the 4th best selling children’s book of all time, but the creepy way the mother spies through the window gives me the chills.

There are dozens of others that I flip through at the library, get four pages in at nighttime and then just start ad libbing because the story is so terrible.

There is, however, an author I will gladly engage an “again” wish from kids every time they ask; Oliver Jeffers.

If you don’t recognize his name, you’ll easily remember his art work.

How To Catch A Star is the story of a boy who longs to own a star and eventually catches one. The Way Back Home is about the boy and his alien friend co-operating to get off the moon. Up and Down and our favorite, Lost and Found, follow the story of the boy and his best friend, a penguin.

In 2008, the simple tale of the boy and the penguin he found riding to the South Pole and back, Lost and Found, was turned into an animated special.

His pictures tell incredible stories and the words on the page are few. Jeffers‘ imagination is stunning. His story telling is simple. His artwork is subtle.

Simply, his books don’t suck.

What are your favorite (and least favorite) bedtime books?

The email from the parent-teacher liaison in my son’s kindergarten class has arrived. The semi-annual request for donations to buy gift cards for the teacher.

How do you treat this request? Toss $10 or $15 or $20 into the kitty? I mean, we’re “supposed” to tip our garbage guys, hairdresser, grocery clerk, bank teller, mail person etc etc this time of year. Why not teachers?

Ruff Ruminations went and canvassed teachers in her area and this is what they said:

Often they do not use or like to receive the gift cards as they are for items like coffee or restaurants and one can only go to the same place so often or they might not even drink coffee or like to take luxurious bathes.

They prefer the gifts with meaning that are handmade

They feel uncomfortable receive expensive gifts [Ruff Ruminations]

$10 is no big deal, in the grand scheme of the excellent teaching and attention my son’s teachers give. It’s less than the tip I’ll give some bar star waitress to bring me a steak and a beer at a restaurant.

Still, we go the handmade route when it comes to gifts for our “support staff” (teachers, garbage, mail, neighbors etc) this time of year. Something the kids help make, something that has a personal effort put into it, something from the heart.

Superstore has bakeware that you can buy and then give away. They’re lined cardboard boxes that not only let you bake brownies or banana bread, but provide a cute box that you can giveaway. They come in packs of 4 squares or 6 loaves for $10 and also have red ribbons to tie a jaunty bow.

In the gift boxes, we bake Ghirardelli Brownies.

In 2010, Oprah named it one of her favorite things and The Today Show did a survey on best instant brownies and this won. They are fabulous. We bought a fleet of the instant mix at Costco last year when it was on sale.

If you prefer to go from scratch, here’s a knock off recipe that claims to be better if you can’t find the box. You could also fill the boxes with Christmas pastries, tarts or these simple peanut butter cookies.

We solved it simply by making some of the best brownies in the world.

What gifts do you give to your children’s teachers?

Second only to the furor over breastfeeding is to discuss vaccines in a group of parents.

Try offering up this gem at your next pow-wow: “I can’t meet you for coffee, I’m taking [insert child's name] to Dr What’s-her-name for MMR shots tomorrow.”

Immediately the tin hats will be folded, the conspiracy theories will come out, and a knock-down-name-calling-tin-hat-wearing-skeptical-cynical-afraid-of-science-government-sympathizing-brawl ensues.

Some people choose to vaccinate, others don’t. They cite fears of autism (or mental retardation) and wonder aloud why they would prick their children with poison to prevent disease. A still third group prefers “natural” vaccination by holding pox parties to infect their children with chicken pox from lollipops.

The Facebook group is called “Find a Pox Party in Your Area.” According to the group’s page, it is geared toward “parents who want their children to obtain natural immunity for the chicken pox.”

On the page, parents post where they live and ask if anyone with a child who has the chicken pox would be willing to send saliva, infected lollipops or clothing through the mail.

Parents also use the page to set up play dates with children who currently have chicken pox. [KPHO]

Call me a lemming, but I think vaccines make sense. We got rid of polio (in North America) and small pox because we vaccinated the population.

Jenny McCarthy thrust the risks associated with vaccinations into the spotlight in 2005 when she blamed a scheduled MMR vaccine on her son developing autism.

“The MMR scare was based not on bad science but on a deliberate fraud.” … such “clear evidence of falsification of data should now close the door on this damaging vaccine scare.” [Daily Telegraph]

Now, because of Team Jenny, the vaccination rate is slipping – letting disease slip back into our population pool. Oh, and don’t forget Michelle Bachmann‘s “mental retardation” links to the HPV vaccine.

You know when you get a prescription and the doc says finish all of it? You feel better 3/4 of the way through the bottle, but you need to finish the bottle to completely cure yourself. If you stop the meds partway through and you don’t finish it off. That’s what we’re doing; an incomplete vaccination of the population is not killing off preventible disease. Disease we’ve found a “cure” for.

The non-vaccinating movement has gained such momentum that Australia this week mandated that families either vaccinate their children or forego government benefits.

PARENTS failing to ensure their children undergo the full six-stage immunisation risk losing up to $2100 as part of an expanded scheme that replaces a small carrot with a big stick to increase vaccination rates.
From next July, the government is axing the $258 ”maternity immunisation allowance” paid irrespective of income to families of fully immunised children aged up to five. Instead the government will require parents have their children fully immunised or forgo three payments of $726 available under the family tax benefit A end of year supplement. [SMH]

Personally, I’m on Team Penn and Teller (NSFW language).

To be honest, I don’t know how comfortable I am with mandated vaccination. It’s true that some will have allergies associated with the ingredient found in the vaccine. Iit should be a discussion between patient and physican when it comes to vaccinating kids. That said, for the vast majority of our population, outright dismissal of vaccines as drug company propaganda and profiteering is nonsense. Vaccinating your kids is common sense.

We wear a seatbelt in the car. We wear a helmet on our bike. We vaccinate our kids.

Apart from a drawer lock in the kitchen where we keep the knives, we haven’t uber-baby-proofed our home.

We didn’t put up baby gates on the stairs. We didn’t lock off the cupboard under the sink. We don’t put helmets on our kids when they were learning to walk.

We’ve used common sense to keep the things they can get at out of reach. We don’t buy our sons hoodies with strings, we always wear a helmet when we ride our bikes, they stay within arm’s reach on the playground, we stay in the same room to play, and we keep an eye out for what they’re up to.

Have a look at this picture and tell me if you think there’s anything terrible about how it’s laid out – if there are any super dangers you could find.

My oldest son found one.

Zacharie (4) and Charlie (2) were playing in the room with our nanny when Zacharie decided he wanted to play “jungle guy.” He stood on the table, pulled on the blind cord, wrapped it around his neck.

Our nanny says she tried to talk him down and said “don’t do that”, but she wasn’t fast enough. He jumped.

We were lucky. Zacharie ended up with just a really bad rope burn around his neck. He looked like an extra out of CSI or Dexter. The cord ripped into his skin almost all the way around.

The room looked innocent enough. We always have the blinds down so the cords are high and out of reach. But the combination of adventurous 4 year old, slow nanny and table under the window almost added up to our son becoming a statistic.

I am trying to practice free range parenting void of irrational fears around my kids. But I might just wait a week or two to get back on that program, I’m hugging my son too damn tight right now.