by Kristen Chase | Tips and Tricks
If it looks like your kids are hard at work on their laptop or Chromebook, they might actually be messaging with their friends. Turns out, tweens and teens are using Google Docs to chat with each other, and it’s honestly pretty brilliant. All you have to do is...
by Kristen Chase | Tips and Tricks
When it comes to digital parenting, there’s a seemingly endless number of conversations we need to have with our tweens and teens. And according to a recent survey, moving “how to make a strong password” to the top of the list is pretty important....
by Kristen Chase | Tips and Tricks
As someone who uses ride sharing apps like Uber and Lyft pretty frequently (and is often distracted by what’s happening on my phone), I know how easy it can be to just hop in a car that pulls up in front of me without checking everything out. But as many of us...
by Cool Mom Team | Best Apps, Internet Safety, Tips and Tricks
While parents are still freaking out about Snapchat and the Momo challenge, the truth is there are some risky apps for kids that can fly right under our radar. Some of them seem completely innocuous — while some are clearly bad news waiting to happen. To be...
by Cool Mom Team | Internet Safety, Social Media, Tips and Tricks
We couldn’t create an Ultimate Guide to Digital Parenting without including tips about how to keep your kids safe on social media. After all, for our tweens and teens, the Internet is social media, and they could sooner give up the games, the videos, and even...
by Cool Mom Team | Best Apps, Internet Safety, Tips and Tricks
As part of our Ultimate Guide to Digital Parenting, answering parents’ top questions about family technology, we’re sharing the best services and tools to help you monitor your kids on their gadgets. While most routers, phones, tablets and computers have...
by Cool Mom Team | Gear + Hardware, Internet Safety, Tips and Tricks
We can’t tell you how much debate we’ve seen over the simple question, “when is my kid ready for a smartphone?” It brings out nearly as much stress, passion and well, sanctimony, as questions about breastfeeding or sleep training. Well, after...
by Kristen Chase | Best Apps
Feeling inspired by Jordan Shapiro’s interview on NPR with our former Spawned guest Anya Kamanetz, and reading his book for our upcoming interview with him on Spawned, I decided to let my tween daughter give TikTok (formerly Musical.ly) a try. I’ve decided...
by Kristen Chase | Social Media
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for YouTube, first with the news about their growing pedophile problem. And now, YouTube Kids is under fire. We know lots of parents, including us, have found a little sigh of relief letting kids watch videos on YouTube Kids,...
by Kristen Chase | Social Media
Over the years, we’ve written about many issues that parents need to be aware of when it comes to the content on YouTube. But this recent report from Wired should really throw the huge red flag of caution up for parents, particularly if you have kids posting...