Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.
- Claude Monet
Dad Suggests was created to share with others the many different things that we have loved sharing with our own children.
Our hope is that - by reading or visiting our children’s bookstore - you will find something special to enjoy with your own family.
- Ryan
This is a positive way to calm down an angry child. What do you do when your child is so upset that their anger leads to bad decisions - like saying hurtful things or even hitting? Check out our special trick for calming down our kids in a fun way.
These are the best logic games for kids. Children aren’t born with the ability to masterfully resist their impulses and weigh the potential consequences of their actions. For that reason, learning logic through games is not only a lot of fun, it truly grows an incredibly useful skillset.
A Family is a Family is a Family by Sara O’Leary is a picture book that celebrates love - and how it’s love that makes a family. The message inside is extremely important for kids. If you’re looking to vaccinate your child for bigotry, just read them this story every night.
These are the very best picture books that teach kids empathy. Teach your children how to empathize with others. All of these kids books do a spectacular job of placing you in the shoes of someone else, and they show you that other creatures have lives and feelings too.
Quiet Please, Owen McPhee! is a picture book about listening. Trudy Ludwig has once again proven herself to be the queen of empathy. Ludwig and Patrice Barton have teamed up again to bring us another incredible story that will lead to our kids reflecting on how their actions might affect others.
The Dad Suggests 2018 Holiday Gift Guide. These are all personal recommendations for books, games, and toys to give as gifts to your family. They caught our attention this year and sparked the imagination of our own children (currently ages 6 and 2). And, to be perfectly honest, they all blow me away with their quality too.
Costume Quest is now a Halloween-themed video game, graphic novel, and TV show. It perfectly captures the essence of what makes Halloween so magical. When I first played Costume Quest, it filled my heart to the brim with beautiful Halloween nostalgia.
In the picture book Zen Ghosts, Stillwater the giant panda tells a spooky, ancient tale of a young couple in love. Stillwater is the recurring star of the Zen series by Jon J. Muth, and he always has beautiful and thought-provoking stories to tell to his friends.
These are the very best Halloween movies to watch with your family. Movies are perhaps the very best medium for setting the appropriate Halloween atmosphere. What better way to get into the spirit than vicariously living through a spooky adventure?
Sir Simon: Super Scarer may be the best picture book about a ghost ever made. Cale Atkinson wrote that he has wanted to make a ghost story for a very long time. Passion can make all the difference in a work of art, and Atkinson’s passion here is clear.
Shadows in the Forest is a board game from ThinkFun that you play in the dark. I knew intuitively that my son’s face would light up when he heard there was a board game you had to play in the dark. I knew the wheels in his head would start to turn thinking of the possibilities.
These are the very best Halloween picture books. One of the best times to set the Halloween mood is during story time. Typically we pack up our holiday-specific books with the decorations, but never the Halloween ones! These books are too special.
These are the best cooperative board games for 5-year-olds. We think it’s helpful to be able to share our strategies and logic with the little ones. And playing cooperatively with a common mission is a great way to introduce children to the whole point of playing board games - to have fun.
These are the top 25 movies I can’t wait to share with my kids. This is a different kind of movie list. This is a waiting list. When your children aren’t old enough to watch some of the best movies ever made, the next best thing to do is put them into a list and ponder the movies you’ll show them as soon as possible.
The Halloween Kid is a very special Halloween picture book by Rhode Montijo. It does a remarkably good job celebrating Halloween and bringing up powerful feelings of nostalgia surrounding the holiday. It should go down as a Halloween classic.
Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters is a fantastic family board game that reminds us of playing Luigi’s Mansion - and it makes us happy for many of the same reasons. The artwork and the ghost figurines are very high-quality, and cooperating with the family in a haunted house is a true pleasure.
These are the best jokes for kids. Jokes are actually really good for us - both emotionally and mentally. And they’re particularly good for the growing brains of our kids.
These are the very best ways to use Amazon Echo devices with kids and families. Alexa has a lot of skills for kids and families now, and many of them happen to focus on literacy and imagination. Discover how the Echo can provide hours of entertainment for your children.
