“It is not about smart children, it is about happy children who have the confidence and courage to learn and pursue things dear to their heart.” ~ Alexandra Eidens. It is no secret that self-esteem plays a vital role in an individual’s academic, professional, and personal success and satisfaction. As parents, educators, and caregivers, we want to plant the seeds of evergreen confidence starting from a young age. Fortunately, something children naturally do and love has all of the ingredients for healthy self-esteem now and in the future – play!
“It is not about smart children, it is about happy children who have the confidence and courage to learn and pursue things dear to their heart.” ~ Alexandra Eidens. It is no secret that self-esteem plays a vital role in an individual’s academic, professional, and personal success and satisfaction. As parents, educators, and caregivers, we want to plant the seeds of evergreen confidence starting from a young age. Fortunately, something children naturally do and love has all of the ingredients for healthy self-esteem now and in the future – play!
Urban parks are incredibly valuable for the health and welfare of people of all ages. They enrich the community, protect the environment and its inhabitants, and even boost the economy. City parks offer plenty of recreational opportunities, bolster property values, help reduce crime, purify and cool the air, keep municipal waters clean, and much more.
Whether you are moving to a new city or planning to buy a house in the city you already call home, it is nice to know how many children are living in your area. Maybe you are a young single person looking for a place with a fun nightlife and you don't need to worry about what type of school districts you are around. Maybe you are starting a family or already have one and schools are something of importance to you. Maybe you just want to be in an area where you know your kids will have a lot of other kids to plan and explore with.
Child development happens best in moments of freedom for kids, whether it's through free play, free choice, or free times.
This infographic from the team at AAA State of Play looks at 27 reasons why play and freedom throughout the summer months can benefit children in very big ways, and it features a great mix of both facts and quotes.
Childhood milestones start the day a baby is born and go until that child matures into an adult. A baby's first smile, first word, first steps should all happen around the same time as their peers. Some children hit developmental milestones early while others may be delayed. Watching your child meet these important milestones in speech, emotion, learning and movement can show you how they are developing. If your child is not meeting these milestones it should be brought up with your doctor who can try and diagnose why they are not hitting these marks like their peers.
The recess policies in schools across the United States vary greatly in different parts of the country. Recess has been proven to boost academic performance, and this infographic from Playground Equipment shares the recess policies for each state in the country, and even assigns a letter grade to each. Based on the findings, only nine states received an A grade for their current policies, where eight received an F. One state that received an F is Texas, which says "No laws or recommendations.
Facebook had announced its plans of creating a version of
Instagram exclusively for children under 13, and the social media company is
now receiving a warning from an international coalition of children's health
advocates to not pursue the plan.
An open letter was organized by the youth advocacy
non-profit Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, in which several groups, individual
advocates, and researchers called on Mark Zuckerberg to abandon the plan,
saying that it would put young people at risk, hence doing more harm than good.
The letter also quotes researches, suggesting that excessive use of digital devices and social media is harmful to adolescents.

The era in which kids used to wake up early in the morning just to catch their favorite TV shows airing belonged to the older generation. Now, the kids mostly watch the latest cartoons or shows on YouTube or their tablets or TV. Moreover, the majority of the cartoons are now rather than being aired on TV are uploaded on YouTube channels. This trend of overtaking traditional TV has transformed the watching behaviors of not only kids but adults as well.
Not only do the kids watch the shows but want to create content for YouTube as well. According to the studies, a significant number of kids from the UK and the USA have shown their interest in becoming a YouTuber as their life goal instead of becoming a pilot, an engineer or an astronaut.

Microsoft is bringing a new feature to Edge called Kids
Mode, which is meant to provide a kid-friendly internet environment for
children by ensuring safe and customized browsing. The feature has not rolled out
widely yet, as it is only available to Edge Insiders in Microsoft’s Canary test
channel.
Many services and devices offer a Kids Mode to help customize content for children, like Netflix’s Just for Kids and Amazon’s FreeTime Service.

Parenting is not only fun and exciting; it is a huge responsibility to raise decent, sophisticated, and obedient children. Kids of today's generation are more attracted to cell phones and cartoons rather than playing physically. Moreover, most parents choose Netflix for their kids to watch cartoons as the platform has separate kids profile specifically for 'pre-school and pre-teen' kids, where only cartoons are available. To help the parents track their kid's activity on Netflix, the company has released a new feature 'Kids Activity Report' which will show a detailed view of what the kids are watching, on which program they are spending most of their time, which character do they like the most and the recommendations based on kid's interests.
Netflix will start sending an email regarding this new feature to all the parents who have enabled kids' profile on Netflix. The report will also share 'joke of the day' and coloring pages that include Netflix characters and shows, which can be printed out for the kids as an activity at home. Furthermore, a set of questions will also be there to ask your children about their favorite characters and shows. This is undoubtedly a great way for parents to monitor their kids' interests and activities and help them connect with their children better.
Tracking younger kids is extremely crucial for the parents so that they can prevent their kids from getting their minds polluted. Moreover, kids should also understand what they are watching and whether it is good for them or not. If older kids don't like the idea of getting tracked their activities tracked by their parents, it is a family matter, and parents can disable the report anytime they want.
Where are childhood vaccination rates the highest in the United States? Using information collected by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the insights team at TruePeopleSearch found the percentage of children in each state that had received the Dtap vaccine, the MMR vaccine, the Varicella vaccine, the Influenza vaccine, the combined 7-vaccine series, and the HPV vaccine for both females and males. They then tallied each state’s ranking across these seven different vaccines, that are required by public schools, to find their final rank in terms of total childhood vaccination coverage. Massachusetts was found to have the highest average rank across the vaccines, while Utah’s low percentages brought them down to the bottom of the list.
When we are younger, we look forward to affording the
luxuries of buying candies and toys from the store which is the reason pocket
money makes children so happy. Parents give their children some allowances to give
them a whiff of handling finances. It is a small source of income among the
youngsters. Parents usually ask their kids to do the household chores in exchange
for some money or they just set a weekly/monthly allowance.
This infographic was created as a way to address and concerns some people have when moving with kids or family. Whether because it is a stressful situation for the kids or for the parents, moving often involves a long process that can take a heavy toll on the family. Thus the idea behind this graphic is to provide the best moving with kids solution in an easy to consume and easy to share manner, that’s both social media friendly as well as engaging and fun-looking.
After launching the Kids Tab in Google Play, Google is now introducing Google Kids Space for select android tablets. The purpose of Kids Space is to provide apps, books, and videos that children can explore for both fun and learning.
When Google developed Family Link to help parents manage their children's online experiences, the feedback from parents suggested that they were looking for more than just parental controls and wanted more enriching and engaging content for their kids. To fulfill the request, Google launched Kids Tab to help parents find all the 'teacher approved' apps for their kids. Now with Kids Space, Google aims to extend the kids mode on its platform.
Google is launching the feature for certain Lenovo tabs initially and plans to make it available for other Android tablets in the near future.
For years, games were tools for learning and continue to do so. The rise in the use of digital devices and learning opportunities online has paved the way for Game-Based Learning. Games have become part of traditional classrooms and online teaching mediums.
Learn about tech and habits to help get you and your child into the rhythm of learning from home here.
During life-altering crises such as the pandemic coronavirus, both kids and adults can find a sense of sanctuary, normalcy, and peace by playing, laughing, and staying active as a family and as individuals. Play keeps the spirit thriving and the body active, which is especially important when life becomes chaotic and uncertain. Play also helps children learn naturally which can keep their minds active when school is out.
This infographic provides 29 excellent quotes and tidbits of research to support the power of play, especially during unprecedented and confusing times.















