Parent Hacks

Book a "nap flight" for holiday travel

Halloween's here, which means that the holiday travel season is around the corner. Here's a travel tip (more "power of suggestion," really) from raising4boys that may make your air travel a bit easier. More: Best of Parent Hacks: Thanksgiving

Read more →

Ping pong ball as potty training prop

From Paul: A family friend's son resisted potty training, so she put a ping-pong ball in the toilet bowl and had him aim at it. Aiming at the ball helped the little fella keep his concentration. Neat hey? Tags: Parenting, Potty training

Read more →

Self-adhesive DOT-It LED light as Halloween headlamp

Barb, author of Great Family Gadgets, suggested this Halloween safety tip.

Read more →

How to turn a ceiling-hung mobile into a crib mobile? Talk amongst yourselves.

Nicole, who's Much More Than a Mom, would like to appeal to the collective wisdom regarding the hanging of her new mobile: I’m not a mobile person. (That sounds funny. I’m quite mobile actually. I even run on a regular basis. I’m just not a mobile person. They always seem...

Read more →

Email for the underage: a follow-up

Sandy's tips point to why you might want to get an email address for your kid: (I know you had an article on this already early on this year. Just an add-on.) We created an email address for our son when he was about 3-4 months old, so it has...

Read more →

How to supervise your child's online conduct

Now that I've fanned the flames of MySpace dread, here's a fascinating list (passed along by Satch) of 11 tips for online parental supervision. We've discussed Internet filtering and online supervision before, but not as much as I'd expect, given your well-connectedness and Net savvy. Contrast this list with Dr....

Read more →

What to do if your teenager wants to meet a MySpace friend IRL? Talk amongst yourselves.

My kids are out of MySpace range for the moment (they're 7 and 3), but the time will come. Oh, yes. It will come. In ten years, it probably won't be MySpace...by then I imagine the Internet will be much more integrated into the social lives of teenagers. But for...

Read more →

No Halloween costume yet? Swap!

I'd bet there's a fair percentage of us who are still scrambling for Halloween costumes. Here's Jill's solution.

Read more →

We have three winners!

Congratulations to Carolina, Ashley and Megin, winners of Go, Diego Go! Wolf Pup Rescue DVDs! Thanks for playing along with my silly trivia contest. For the record, the working name for this site before my brother in-law Robin came up with "Parent Hacks" was "Hacking Baby." (The answer was here.)...

Read more →

Go, Diego, Goes

Parent Hacks is now on the radar of PR folks and others with Stuff Parents Might Like To Buy. Which is fine, because the people getting in touch have generally done their homework and get the Parenthacker vibe. I turn away a fair amount of review requests, but decided to...

Read more →

Cheap window gels keep the car seat-bound entertained

From the Instant Hausfrau! So, after benefiting so much from the collective parenting wisdom that is Parent Hacks, I'm so excited to finally have something to contribute! I mean, I came up with this, and it didn't hackfire! It's working! (Now that I'm sending it your way, I'm sure the...

Read more →

Send teacher notes to school in junk mail envelopes

Put those junk mail envelopes to good use!

Read more →

Watch out for lead in Halloween props and toys

The folks from the Sierra Club passed along this info about lead in Halloween toys. Interesting, unsettling stuff, and worth sharing: With Halloween just around the corner, we’re trying to get the word out about toxic toys and toy jewelry. A lot of parents buy toy jewelry to go with...

Read more →

Bake your own energy bars

It's not often that a hack comes out of getting to know a Parent Hacks advertiser, but that's exactly what happened here. A small button ad from Matisse and Jack's, makers of TrailBlaze Homemade Energy Bar mix, came through recently, and it piqued my interest. Energy bars I could bake...

Read more →

Personalized playing cards? Talk amongst yourselves.

Amy wants to know: I read somewhere recently about making your own playing cards -- someone had a template where you could insert your own pictures for the face cards, etc. Thought it would make a great family present. Now I can't find it anywhere! If you could help me...

Read more →