Small Business
Apps We Love May 2018: Parenting and Childcare Apps
As we head into the summer months, many working parents will be searching for options to help with child care. You may have your tried and true favorites, you work from home, a responsible family member moves in for the summer, your kids are in a ...
May. 22, 2018
As we head into the summer months, many working parents will be searching for options to help with child care. You may have your tried and true favorites, you work from home, a responsible family member moves in for the summer, your kids are in a 12-month school, or you rely on camps. We surveyed the CPA Practice Advisor audience to find out if there are apps that can help with this annual dilemma. Here’s what we found out.
Angie Grissom, president of the Rainmaker Companies, recommends Care.com, an app that, among other things, lets you find nannies, babysitters, and also eldercare providers. It’s like the Uberization of care providers and it is available in many countries.
Sandra Wiley, CEO of Boomer.com, agrees. “The one I hear about from my team who have kids and my niece who has a degree in early childhood education and makes a VERY good living as a nanny is care.com. You can find quality childcare and if you are looking to provide childcare you can find awesome opportunities.”
Grissom also introduced us to the Greenlight app. “It allows me to control spending by category for my teen. I can load money from my phone at any time and designate how much he can spend in a category-food, gas, anything. It teaches him some responsibility with his spending.”
Finally, Grissom reminded us about Motosafety which we included in our recent apps column about Eldercare. “This has a plug in component in your child’s vehicle and allows you to track where they are, if they are driving in an unsafe way by speeding or erratic or sudden brake use. You receive a daily report card from the app.”
Marjorie Adams, president of Fourlane and owner of POSWarehouse, uses a nanny but she doesn’t stop there. “The BabyConnect app allows me, my husband, and our nanny to track child events through the day. We can see where our son is, what he has eaten, if any medicine has been administered, and even when he last pooped. This has made being a working mom much easier to manage by having a smoother transition at the start and end of the work day.
Brian Friedman, director of professional software at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting US, recommends iAllowance. “It allows me to ‘reward’ my kids for doing chores. They can select things to earn and work towards them.
Randy Johnston, EVP and partner at K2 Enterprises, CEO of NMGI, and one of our regular columnists, asked us to mention Akili Interactive, an app that has a computer game to treat ADHD.
Scott Hoppe, CPA, partner at Why Blu, recommends Urban Sitter to “find reviewed and local Nanny’s fast when your standard nanny can’t make it when you want a night out with your spouse.”
Lindsey Curley, CPA, CGMA, senior manager, firm services – public accounting, AICPA recommends The Wonder Weeks. “It’s a super cool app that has a personalized weekly calendar to help you better understand your baby’s mental development during their first 20 months. It gives parents tips on how to help babies navigate each mental leap and even gives an estimate of predicted fussy and happy days which is miraculously on target.”
Danielle Supkis Cheek, CPA, CFE, CVA, director at PKF Texas, said, “I keep my son’s schedule on a separate Exchange calendar that I have hosted so that I can overlay his schedule with mine. The Outlook app allows you to have multiple accounts so you can have it show on top your schedule on your phone as well.”
Diana Rivera, CPA, CGMA, director, MBAF Morrison, Brown, Argiz & Farra, recommends Class Dojo. “The teachers at the daycare, pre-school and now elementary school used this app with my kids. The app includes texting to the teachers, notifications, stories that the teacher shares with the group of parents from the classroom including pictures of their activities during the day. For me, the best feature of the app is that it informs me about my boys’ behavior during day.They know that ‘Mami’ is informed and knows what happened. It’s a useful tool to track their behavior outside our home, for warnings and REWARDS!”
There you have it. Now have a great summer! If you have favorite apps that you would like to share with our audience, please send a message with Apps in the subject to gperry@cpapracticeadvisor.com.