Set up a Google alert for your child’s name. You can get a daily digest. You won’t see everything but might get advance warning of any problems. Adults should do this as well, by the way.

Take a look at this cool video by future GreatDad contributor, Mark Warnke. It will make you think, and then cry.

We’ve heard studies also that show that small babies cannot process the sensory overload of looking forward as they stroll. Millions of years of experience have prepared babies to stare only at their mother’s chest or back as they are carried around. Suddenly, we are forcing them to drive around knee-high looking at everything coming straight at them. Now,

Babies who face ahead cannot see their parents or caregivers and thus have difficulty interacting with them. On loud city streets, babies may have trouble even hearing parents talking to them.

Neuroscience has shown that brains develop faster between birth and age 3 than during any other period of life, and that social interaction fosters such neurological development. So, if babies spend a significant amount of time during their early years in forward-facing strollers, might it impede their language learning?

[From Op-Ed Contributor - One Ride Forward, Two Steps Back - NYTimes.com]

They are currently looking for volunteers to complete an online survey about fathers.

If you choose to participate in our study, you will be asked to take a web based survey consisting of four scenes describing different parenting situations.  The survey should take about 30-45 minutes.

They are seeking both parents and non-parents over the age of 18 to complete the one time survey.  

If you are interested please click here.

For some reason, perhaps because of the title, I thought Eagle Eye was a simple film about a drone surveillance airplane gone mad. There is a drone plane or two, but the movie is so much more than that. Directed by D. J. Caruso from a story by Steven Spielberg, and starring Shia Laboeuf (Transformers) and Michelle Monaghan (Mission Impossible 3), Eagle Eye is a high tech conspiracy movie that plays on your worst fears about how computers track our everyday move. It pits two unwitting innocents against the Department of Homeland Security when they are set up to be the agents of an assassination plot. Without giving too much away, this movie draws on the best of 2001, The Parallax View, and War Games.

The pyrotechnics here are stunning with some new car chase scene ideas you have definitely not seen before. A chase scene in the baggage handling routing system of an airport will have you twisting and turning as the main characters ride conveyor belts like a beaten up piece of old uggage. This is a movie that will keep your attention just because it does a few things not seen before

Dads will enjoy this action thriller, but Eagle Eye is not a movie for young kids. There is no sex and very little profanity, but there is a tremendous amount of chaotic violence and heart-pounding chase sequences. The plot action also involves death threats on a mom and her son if she doesn’t participate in the action.

Whether you agree on his politics or not, Joe Biden made a statement tonight in the debate that rang true. No one any longer can insist that a mom can somehow understand what it is to be a parent. Moms and dads today find themselves in new situations, as Biden did when his wife and infant daughter were killed in a car crash in 1972. He was suddenly left with two young sons to care for by himself. Luckily, most dads don’t have to endure that kind of trouble, but more and more are staying at home full or part-time to be with their kids, and they do understand what role good mothering and fathering play to the develop of children.

Age design $249 available in march 2009. Agedesign.ca

Mondernist shape-oriented designs.

Cool flip flops with a hideaway pull-out drawer for hiding crayons, shells, or very small pets.

And it later converts to a super trike. MSRP$1700!