Posted by Corey | Posted in Posts | Posted on 01-16-2009
Fast Flash by joeandsarah
With great power comes great responsibility. - Peter Parker (Spider-Man)
Perhaps this is a little self-indulgent as I am a superhero nut. Even as an adult I can’t help but obsess about any movie or TV show having to do with super powers. It has been a fun few years with some fantastic treatments (Spider-Man 3 notwithstanding) of classic heroes from my childhood. Having kids gives me an excuse to continue my childhood fixation. Parenting.com has a great article on why this is perfectly healthy for kids. No mention of adults but I am sure I can find something on Wizards World. 
-excerpt and link below
How Batman and Wonder Woman can help your kid’s confidence
By Shaun Dreisbach, Parenting
Spider-Man. The Incredibles. Wonder Woman. A lot of kids love imitating these mighty superheroes, battling the bad guys and flexing their superpowers. You, however, may be less than thrilled about the idea — the running, the jumping, the fighting. “But from a psychological standpoint, superhero worship can be beneficial,” says Jeff Greenberg, Ph.D., a professor of social psychology at the University of Arizona. “Kids are pretty powerless and vulnerable, so pretending they’re superheroes is one way for them to gain a sense of confidence and competence in a positive way.
Posted by Corey | Posted in Posts | Posted on 01-06-2009
What is that thing making all the clicking noise that seems to entrance Mommy and Daddy for hours at a time? I need to get my chubby little hands on that. - I can only assume this is pretty close to what my two year old is thinking.
We keep our family computer in community space and I work from home a couple days a week primarily on my laptop. This provides a too tempting opportunity for the little hands in our house to pound away at the keyboard. All too many times I have returned to a spreadsheet representing my mornings work to find cells filled with “vvvvvvvvvvvvvvd. if8wa9vikjllkkkkk k”.
One option is for my kids to think their input is a magical make Daddy freak out device. The other is to lock the keyboard input to open files and give them an outlet for creativity and learning.
Enter CrazyLittleFingers, quite obviously created by a parent this program provides the solution. Now, your “bubs” (as the author affectionately refers to them) can explore away and get key specific images and sounds as a reward. Pressing ‘c’ will display a car and play an accompanying car starting sound, pressing ‘r’ will crow and provide a rooster image. You can customize the images and even link to quicktime videos. Ctrl-Alt-Del will get you out (if your kids figure that out before age 4, buy them a computer).
There is no built in solution to juice spilled sticky keys or removed keys so if you would rather discourage input on your computer all together there is also ToddlerTrap which disables mouse and keyboard input completely with zero reward (also good for cleaning). True, kids need to learn appropriate behavior and respect for property and space but I will submit that most times adults need to learn to chill the heck out and encourage a little fun.
Bang away lil’ punks!!
