My children respond extremely well to progress charts.  I’ve used them in practically every endeavor in training or discipline since they were toddlers (including potty training).  Now that they’re older, they are keen to start earning money and privileges and once again I find myself in need of a chart to help them monitor their efforts.
Since I just bought my very first iPhone, I was positively thrilled to find out about this cool app called iRewardChart.  This handy-dandy little application lets you create and customize unique reward charts for each …

I thought the Flip camera was a cool invention when it came out, but now that I’ve figured out a way to improve my kids’ behavior with it I think it’s even more amazing.
We have a family Flip video recorder that my kids used to make family movies of everything from plastic army men attacking plastic horses to capturing funny moments of Jeff on the potty to the dogs doing tricks.  I even started to carry the bright orange Flip Camera in my purse in an …

Most parents have been petitioned for a new pet at least once, if not several hundred times.  For example, about a month ago my 10-year-old daughter Grace asked for a guinea pig when I was rushing out the door to a meeting at work.  Seizing the opportunity to provide some good solid parenting advice, I turned around and told her that she needed to learn that she would be much more successful with requests such as this if she scheduled time with me and had all her …

This is our very first in a new series of feature posts by UpSpring Baby co-founder Julie Jumonville.  Julie is a lot of things: a businesswoman, an entrepreneur, and inventor, the member of rock band, and a community activist–but she’s also a mom.  Her two children Grace and Reece have provided her with plenty of life lessons and in her bi-monthly column, she’ll share those real-life parenting moments with you:
“I Want This” Disease!

“Mom, can I get this candy?”
“Can I get this Lego?”
“Can I get this plastic horse?”
“Can I at least …