Tips and Tricks

In case you haven't noticed, we're geeking out over the total solar eclipse that's coming on August 21. Where you live will determine what you see , but here in Nashville, viewing will be at a premium with almost 3 minutes of darkness in…

You've probably seen the stories about how kids have pranked their parents using the Text Replacement feature on the iPhone. You know, they set it so that when their parents text the word "No," it gets replaced with the word "Yes." Oh ki…

If you're like me, then you've probably thought that force quitting apps on your iPhone or iPad (by tapping the home button twice and swiping up) would make your phone run faster and save your battery. Well, turns out that tip -- which I…

This past week, I was unable to pick up my son from hockey camp, which meant missing his big game. Womp, womp. But, thanks to a cool Facebook Live feature you might not know about, my fiancé was able to film the whole thing, and not have…

If you're like me, you probably have 6,782 photos sitting in your camera roll on your phone, hundreds of song downloads you never actually listen to, and tons of out-of-date unnecessary documents on your laptop. If that sounds familiar, …

If you're like me, then you do your best to manage screen time using myriad methods. In our house, I've done The Marble Jar to read for screens, and pretty much everything in between. And still, there are tantrums and arguments when it's…

If you're going to be on the ground during the 2024 solar eclipse in April, mark your calendar because this is not to be missed. The only issue: you'll want to have glasses to protect your eyeballs, even if you're in the areas where you'…

If you're like us, then your kids having been begging for screen time the second they got out of school. But hey, just because you're home more doesn't necessarily mean you get more time on your screens, kids. So, to help you manage the …

I've been seeing a lot of research lately that seems to find a correlation between how much time we spend on our phones and our kids' behavior . Specifically, their bad behavior. The constant distraction of pings and alerts from my phone…

While it was announced on May 30, a lot of parents still don't know that the FTC announced refunds are now available for unauthorized in-app purchases on the Amazon Appstore . That means you, kids, and your itchy little in-app purchase-h…

I'm grateful to my daughter who (much to the chagrin of tweens and teens everywhere, I'm sure) tipped me off to a trick I wasn't aware of: Kids can easily download new apps to their devices without your knowledge, if you have Apple Famil…

If you missed the boat on photo gifts for Father's Day or Mother's Day ...no, wait! You didn't! We all live in the land of the smartphone cam, after all, and if you've got a camera -- especially that dandy iPhone 7S -- and a place to pri…

For those of you with teens applying to college, if you're wondering whether college admissions officers check student social media accounts, the definitive answer is "yes." This is clearly evidenced by this week's incident in which Harv…

When we saw the reports coming out of Manchester last night, we were completely devastated. And, we found ourselves thinking about what we would have done if our children (some of whom are tweens, and Ariana Grandé fans, by the way) had …

In a recent survey of 1500 young people aged 14-24, researchers discovered that Instagram was cited as the most damaging to a young person , followed closely by Snapchat, and then Facebook. In fact, YouTube was the only of the 5 networks…

As someone who's not on Snapchat (what? I'm old!) I admit I'm excited about the novelty of the new Instagram 3D facial filters, as anyone who follows our @CoolMomPicks Instagram Stories can tell today. I put together the quick, Cliff's N…

Just yesterday I was chatting with a couple of my mom friends at my daughter's track club about podcasts and I was surprised to discover that neither of them knew that they could easily access podcasts right on their iPhone. "Wait, they'…

We're not huge fans of sending emails on the fly, even with the "Sent from our iPhone and talk-to-text hates us" warning at the bottom. But if we do, there are 3 handy iPhone email tricks we use to make them look as buttoned up as they w…

Just this week, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) released new recommendations for middle and high school students , stating they should not start school until 8:30am, which for my middle schooler would be a full hour and a h…

If you think spying and snooping on your kids' social media behavior will help keep them safer, a new study in the Journal of Adolescence actually suggests otherwise, this recent post on Well Family discusses. In a survey of 455 adolesce…

So, you've seen all the cool photos that parents are sharing of their kids on Instagram and you're wondering how to take better Instagram photos of kids. Well, you don't need to be a pro-photog to snap fantastic photos of your own kids. …

If you've got toddlers on screens during the day, a new study out of England suggests it could be cutting into their sleep at night. And as we parents know, sleep is a precious commodity. Looking at data from about 700 British families, …

Last year my husband and I gifted our two older kids with their own iPod and Kindle, and along with the devices came a contract that outlined our expectations for using them. As my friends have started getting wifi-connected tablets or p…

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