Parts of Ten: Ten Great Sites for Parents Internet Directory for Kids and Parents

Ten Great Sites for Parents

Explore your own world and that of your children with these award-winning sites. Some of these sites have sections for kids, but they're mostly for parents. So put your feet up, have a cup of coffee, chat with other parents, get the lowdown on family finances, dream of that perfect vacation, and find a pleasant support network in cyberspace.

Essential Information for Parents

www.mcs.net/~kathyw/parent.html

Provocative look at serious family issues: Part of a larger site that deals also with domestic violence, abuse, trauma, AIDS, and dissociation, this particular section of the site features articles provided by parenting experts and links to their sites. From Habit Smart, for example, come articles on kids and alcohol. You can also link to the main site, which covers addictive behavior. The site is suitable for parents and older children (with parental supervision). Among topics covered are enforcing child safety on the Internet, ensuring girls' self-esteem and positive development, getting general and medical parenting information, raising kids with special needs, parenting effectively, preventing child abuse, understanding preteens and teens, and promoting positive communication.

Family.com

www.family.com

Family matters: The people who brought you Mickey Mouse (yes, Disney) now bring you this expansive, family-based resource. You can customize information to cover the region in which you live, or look at national support, consumer, and news coverage. Among areas featured with original articles and relevant links are recreation, hobbies, computing, food, education, parenting, and travel. Seasonal topics involve back-to-school preparations, winter weather crafts, holiday preparations, and tips on how to play (playing is good for grown-ups, too!). You get plenty of opportunities to interact with other parents through chats and discussion groups. Although the home page may seem a bit daunting at first, spend a few minutes clicking buttons and looking around, and its deft organization gets to you. It's got some really neat navigation touches you won't find elsewhere. Link to programs, plug-ins (Shockwave), and helper applications from the help section to take full advantage of this site, which is frequently updated.

National Parent Information Network

ericps.ed.uiuc.edu/npin/npinhome.html

Intelligent guidance for caring parents: Quality writing, full-text articles by experts, and carefully selected links make this site an outstanding searchable resource. NPIN is sponsored by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York City; and by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Try the Parents AskERIC question-answering service or the PARENTING Discussion List. Topics covered at the site include urban and minority families, assessment and testing, child care, media influences, children's health and nutrition, childhood development and learning, family-peer relationships, gifted children, preteens, adolescents (ages 9 to 14), and teens. Under Teens, for example, find articles and other resources related to pregnancy, teen parenthood, AIDS, drug and alcohol use, and health and development. Other articles cover child safety on the Internet, divorce, single parenting, and many other social, emotional, and learning topics. The figure at the top of this section shows the NPIN site.

Not Just for Kids

www.night.net/kids/

Opening to the strains of Rockin' Robin, this site welcomes you with its cheeriness and whimsy. (Can't hear the music? Get info on the MIDI plug-in at the bottom of the home page.) As you tap your toe, tap your mouse to check out Rosie's Rhubarb Reviews of sites about animals, reading, writing, chats, keypals, science, fun and games, sports, travel, parenting, kid stuff, and entertainment. This site definitely has a childlike feel to it, but its links and activities are meant for kids and parents to experience together. Grandpa Tucker's Rhymes and Tales features silly poems, stories, and activities for the whole family. So if you've had a tough day at work or home and everyone is feeling a little blue or out of sorts, call up this site. If you're not smiling and busy within five minutes, it has been a really bad day.

Parent News

www.parent.net/

Up-to-date parenting info: The immediacy and current relevance of the information on this site make it uniquely appealing. Plus, the site is not overwhelming, and it's very easy to use. Any new issue or event affecting parents is covered here. The site's layout is neat and to-the-point. Click subject areas that include news, movies, health, books, and homework (great list of links so you can convince your kids that you know everything). Read articles and find general resources or check out the featured item in each category. This site is sponsored by an optical firm, so eyecare topics have a way of showing up, too. The site is updated weekly, and you can read archived coverage in the various topic areas.

Parent Soup

www.parentsoup.com

Emphasis on parent-to-parent communication: Uncomplicated design, good content, and a real desire to get parents talking (chats, discussion groups, feedback forms) are strengths here. Enjoy articles and links in a wide variety of areas, including family activities, babies and toddlers, health and safety, finances, pregnancy, relationships, and education. One especially fun area to visit even if you don't need it is the baby name finder (more than 5,000 entries -- find out what your name or the names of your kids mean). You do need to become a member (it's free) and download free software to participate in parent-to-parent activities, such as the chats. In the Parents' Picks section, members describe their reactions to books, baby products, travel, toys, computer stuff, Web sites, and movies (such as thumbs up or thumbs down for kids). A panel of experts takes questions on a range of subjects from concerned parents.

Parent Zone

www.parentzone.com/index.htm

Links to selected site specialties: Click link titles or logos to connect to sites covering sports, finance, family health, parenting issues, child development, pets, and the daily news. One zone on this site is for kids, and another is for parent chats. This site is very techie, graphics oriented, and state-of-the-art, which you'll find either exciting or frustrating. Netscape Communicator Version 4.01 or higher and the Netcaster component are recommended and can be downloaded through the link on the bottom of the Parent Zone home page. Netscape offers a 90-day trial period, after which they ask business and government users for payment. This site covers many topics that you may not see routinely elsewhere (death, emergency medicine, interest-free money and freebies, offbeat travel destinations), so the subject matter as well as the design tend to be cutting-edge.

Parents At Home Page

advicom.net/~jsm/moms/

For parents who stay at home: Feeling a little isolated, perhaps even misunderstood? You've got friends and support at this site (and you can shop for baby stuff through the online catalog). With all the choices women (and men) have to make these days, some choose to stay home with their kids. This site is especially for (but certainly not limited to) those parents who are forgoing full-time paid employment outside the home to focus on their children. It's also aimed at parents who work at home (contract or self-employed) or stagger their work hours to be more available to their kids. The free online newsletter covers at-home issues and resources. At the discussion forum, you can share thoughts and ideas. Links go to related parenting and kids sites. You can find money-issue information, classified ads, e-mail pen pals, and support organizations waiting for you here.

ParentsPlace.com

www.parentsplace.com

Timely topics of interest: Check out weekly special features (such as dealing with clutter in the home or with PMS) and see what's happening at the various topic areas, including Sweets (a recipe for banana nugget cookies, perhaps), School-Age, Family (for example, getting along), and Dentist (how often should you replace that toothbrush, anyway?). Check out bulletin boards for parents, pregnant women, expectant dads, hobbyists, cooks, or unmarried partners. You need to join up (it's free) to participate in chats or board activities. You can search the site for topics of interest, and the internal search engine produces relevant articles from its server. Special live chats are announced onsite and cover all kinds of parenting topics (expecting, dieting, working overseas, dealing with kids' and teens' development issues, home-schooling, living as a military family, staying home instead of working, exercising). Additionally, you can get updates on product recalls.

Pathfinder

www.pathfinder.com/welcome/

Incredible all-around family resource: From the home page of this site, produced by Time Warner, you can click to the sites of major print and online publications (People, Money, Time, CNNSI); connect to sections devoted to show biz, finances, business, sports, culture, politics, current events, and lifestyles; or click to featured articles in any one of these categories (Back-to-School bargains, Foods to Fight Fatigue). And that's just what you can do from the main page! If you click to the Living section, for example, you find even more links and clearly defined articles (gardening, traveling with kids). And you can link to Living subsections with original, highly creative content of their own (ParentTime, Kidstuff, Sex and Relationships, This Old House). You can find what you need quickly or take time to browse and explore. Either way, this site is dynamic, graphically pleasing, easy to comprehend, and frequently updated, so it's an outstanding resource.

Other Stuff to Check Out


Web sites

www.dailyparent.com
www.familyinternet.com
www.familysurf.com
www1.zdnet.com/familypc/
www.women.com
megamach.portage.net/~rborelli/dads.html
www.einet.net/
www.crc.ricoh.com/people/steve/parents.html
www.dot-net.net/susanw/lasmadres/links.htm


Newsgroups

www.liszt.com
www.reference.com
www.dejanews.com


Mailing lists

lawlib.slu.edu/training/mailser.htm
www.liszt.com
www.neosoft.com/internet/paml/
www.reference.com
www.netspace.org/cgi-bin/lwgate/
emailhost.ait.ac.th/Search/pubmail-subj.html
www.cuc.edu/cgi-bin/listservform.pl


Chat areas

www.lifetimetv.com/chat/unmoderated_chats.html
www.parentsplace.com/genobject.cgi/talking.html


Online service area

America Online: FAMILIES

Suggested search-engine keywords

Yahoo!: Parenting, Families
Search.com: Parenting, Families

© Copyright, IDG Books. All rights reserved.