working parents Archives

Skip the office visits, parents: Speech therapy is now available online.

by Caroline Siegrist | Fitness + Health, Kids

We know that online mental health therapy access has exploded over the past two years, and increasingly so have other kinds of therapy. As a parent with a child in therapy (and a toddler who naps during the day), I know that just getting to the office every week can...

I fell in love with this perfect self-heating mug. Here’s what it does — and doesn’t do.

by Liz Gumbinner | Life and Home

Seeing as how the work-from-home life is here to stay for the foreseeable future — for better or for worse — I’ve been digging into our past posts for ways to improve my own home office space. (Turns out, our writers are extremely helpful!) One of...

How I came to choose the best light therapy lamp to help me beat the shorter days.

by Liz Gumbinner | Fitness + Health, Life and Home

So let’s talk about my absolute obsession with HappyLights, more technically known as light therapy lamps. I’ve always kind of dreaded the shorter daylight hours of the winter, knowing that Seasonal Affective Disorder tends to hit me hard. I get tired,...

Is the new iOS 15 Focus Mode feature helpful for parents? I tried it to find out.

by Caroline Siegrist | Best Apps, Tips and Tricks

Lately I’ve heard some mixed opinions about the Focus feature on the latest iOS 15. If you haven’t updated your iPhone yet, Focus mode is similar to the Sleep mode introduced with iOS 14 with even more detail and more ways to customize your notifications...

7 elegant cord management solutions to help tame tangles and tidy your workspace

by Liz Gumbinner | Uncategorized

Taming cords is one of my own top tech challenges, even as tech becomes increasingly cordless. So I’m always on the lookout for new ways to get my home office desk more organized and keep tangles at bay. Despite what design magazines tend to portray in their...

These noise-cancelling headphones are so good, I’ve waited a whole year for the Prime Day sale on them

by Liz Gumbinner | Uncategorized

Last Amazon Prime Day, my partner bought an outstanding pair of Sony Noise Cancelling headphones, which are by many accounts the best best noise-cancelling headphones of 2021. He has not stopped raving about them for an entire year, and for an avowed tech geek and...

Why Todoist is the first to-do list app I have actually stuck with for an entire year

by Liz Gumbinner | Best Apps

Every year I swear, this is the year I get organized! This is the year I find the best ever to-do list app and put everything on it and finally check things off my list instead of losing them forever and make more time for the things I love and life will be grand....

7 fitness apps for busy parents, or anyone who doesn’t have a lot of time.

by Ellyn Exley Dvorkin | Best Apps

You can still make good on that 2018 New Year’s resolution and get started with your workout routine to get in shape. We know, it’s February. But hey, that’s life! These fitness apps are perfect for parents because you can use them at home, with very...

4 gadgets for laptop users to help with neck and shoulder pain.

by Kristen Chase | Uncategorized

Last year, I was having some issues with neck and shoulder pain, along with a side of vertigo (ugh!). After a discussion with a chiropractor and a yoga therapist, I decided to make some changes to my work set-up, which was probably causing a bit, if not all, of the...

Addicted to your iPhone? Try this one easy trick to seriously curb your screen time.

by Kate Etue | Tips and Tricks

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 that takes my...

Hi! We’re Kristen + Liz

Kristen Chase + Liz Gumbinner of Cool Mom Picks

We started Cool Mom Tech in 2010 to help make our increasingly digital lives easier, more organized, more meaningful, and more fun, however old your kids may be.

We love that it's grown to become the go-to source for millions of parents who want commonsense info about tech delivered with a smile.

We even have the privilege of sharing our tips + tricks with The TODAY Show, CNN, HLN, GMA, Nightline, newspapers and magazines around the country, and our favorite -- regular parents who stop us at PTA meetings and ask us how old kids need to be to get a smartphone, and whether they really need to panic about Snapchat.

(Answer: It's complicated.)

We're so glad you're here! And we hope we can help you too.