I would never put a video in front of my kid. While I don't use videos as a babysitter, they have come in handy on the airplane.
Getting down on all fours and imitating a rhinoceros stops babies from crying. (Put an empty cigarette pack on your nose for a horn and make loud "snort" noises.) I don't know why parents don't do this more often. Usually it makes the kid laugh. Sometimes it sends him into shock. Either way it quiets him down. If you're a parent, acting like a rhino has another advantage. Keep it up until the kid is a teenager and he definitely won't have his friends hanging around your house all the time.
Again, with two small children it's incredibly hard to commit yourself to anything because you're just getting interested in it and someone comes along and goes I want Thomas The Tank Engine on, and screams the place down until you put it on.
Television for a child creates such a high bar of stimulus that nothing else competes. A beautiful day is absolute crap to a kid who watches tv.
They'd rather see Scooby Doo or Spongebob than Daddy talking about the latest Wall Street Journal editorial. You do what you have to do to get your kids ready for school.
The Internet is just bringing all kinds of information into the home. There's just a lot of distraction, a lot of competition for the parent's voice to resonate in the children's ears.
Before I had kids, my bag was clean. In case I need to occupy them, I like to have Hot Wheels cars, See's lollipops, and a deck of cards.
At restaurants, I carry paper and markers and tell everyone to draw a picture with a unicorn, an octopus and an explosion. That keeps kids still for a minute.
