Establishing a child's online presence
Once upon a time the norm was to enrol the newborn onto the waiting list for membership of an exclusive sporting club. Typically the best mate would coordinate this for his mate's newborn, just as Chubba did for my Kids A and B, signing them up to be MCC members. Whilst this tradition will continue, parents are now reserving domain names and webmail accounts.
A Blog for life
On Facebook we tend to share the crazy things our kids do and say, with the odd pic of our little person asleep in the backseat of the car. The extension to this is to create a blog to share this info, dedicated to a single child. The little person will then take over this blog as his/her writing skills develop, perhaps from age six or seven.
Gamification enhances learning
Building aspects of gaming into learning will enhance and maximise a child's learning experience. The idea is to make learning more fun and even addictive. Imagine your kids bragging at school about how many 'learning points' they earned on 'Mario Brothers Super Mathematics'.
Baby sign language
Popular outside of Australia, this will continue to grow down under as Aussie parents search for new ways to improve communication with their babies. I've had first hand experience with this one and know it works (shameless plug - see Baby Babble).
Kidify the Web & mobile devices
Kids are getting personal mobile devices earlier and are jumping on the Internet sooner. The list of kid-friendly applications continues to grow which could render devices such as the good old Leapster obsolete. Companies with a strong web presence such as Google and Wikipedia will make their sites more kid friendly with search screens provided in a more kid-friendly format.
Kids TV becomes interactive
Our kids will be able to interact with Giggle & Hoot via applications on a tablet PC, direct via a website, possibly even sms or direct message from mum or dad's Facebook/Twitter accounts.
Tree change
As workplaces embrace mobility and become more flexible, the workforce will become more distributed and physical ties to a workplace will be relaxed. People will have more scope to work from home, and home can be almost anywhere. People will move further out and your dream of sending your kids to a country school will become a reality.
Shared birthday parties
Times can be tough trying to financially support a young family. In becoming a parent you establish a whole new network of friends who have children of a similar age to yours. Seeing as you will likely invite the same core group of friends to every party, parents will have more joint birthday parties to share costs.
We might do this as an annual special. If you have suggestions on how new trends and technology will effect us as parents and our family life, email them through to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
