What can you trust more than word-of-mouth comments from your fellow parents?  KidMatter is an online site where parents can share their experience and knowledge on kids related matters.  The mission of KidMatter is to enable the collective wisdom of the parent community to be easily gathered and shared.

Yep! KidMatter is free to use.  As parents ourselves, we understand the tremendous amount of time, energy and money that we spend on our children.  We always seek information so that we can make better judgment on choosing the right and best thing for our kids.  We hope that parents will share their experience and knowledge to help each other on things matter to all of our children.

There are many things that you can do on KidMatter.  Here are few highlights:

 - View what your fellow parents have to say about schools, classes, camps, and other kids related matters.

 - Submit your own reviews, recommendations and ideas, and share your own experience and knowledge.

 - Want to plan a birthday party or a classroom party? Check out the part zone!

 - Want to keep track your kid's soccer activities, or coordinate carpool schedules? You can create your own private or semi-private groups to effectively communicate and coordinate with your fellow parents.

 - If you want to meet new parents, you can create or join public groups.

 - Post your questions on KidMatter Answers, and receive suggestions from fellow parents.

As parents ourselves, we completely understand how little time you might have.  What KidMatter wants to achieve is to help parents reduce the amount of time needed on searching for valuable information.  What's more valuable than your personal experience and knowledge?  If every parent can share that with others, it would definitely benefit everyone, including you. Remember, the only way to keep this parent community alive is for everyone to take an active role and build it!

To set up a new account, click on the "Register" link on the left panel of KidMatter.com.  You will be asked to answer few questions and accept the Terms of Use before an account is created.  We will then send you an email activation request.  You must activate your account before it becomes active.

You may change all your personal profile information at any time after the account is active.

To delete your account, click here to contact us.  If you delete your account, you will lose all your ranking and points.

To view your account information, you must first log into KidMatter site.  After you log in, click on your own name link on the left panel to view your account information.  To modify your profile, click on Edit->Update Your Profile.

Don't worry.  If you forget your username or password, simply click on the "Lost Password" link on the left panel of KidMatter.  We'll ask you to enter your email address.  We'll send you your username and reset your password.

Depending on member's role and participation on KidMatter, users are given different titles. Based on user inputs and our analysis, we may adjust the ranking titles. We reserve the right to change that without prior notice. Here is the current ranking:

• Senior Member
• Advisor
• Senior Advisor
• Executive Advisor

We want to inform everyone how active a member is on KidMatter, and how much useful information that the member has offered to others.  Members can earn points by participating actively on KidMatter via multiple methods.  Members who earn enough points will have different titles bestowed upon them.

There are multiple ways you can earn points. Based on user inputs and our analysis, we may adjust the point system. We reserve the right to change that without prior notice. Currently, here is how points can be accumulated:

• Add a new listing: 3 points
• Provide a review on a listing: 3 points
• Other member votes that your review on the listing is super useful: 2 points
• Other member votes that your review on the listing is useful: 1 points
• Other member votes that your answer for a question is super useful: 2 points
• Other member votes that your answer for a question is useful: 1 point

Once enough points are earned, members are assigned to the appropriate ranking titles. Based on user inputs and our analysis, we may adjust the number of points associated with each ranking. We reserve the right to change that without prior notice. Here is how titles can be earned currently:

• Senior Member: earned a minimum of 200 points
• Advisor: earned a minimum of 400 points
• Senior Advisor: earned a minimum of 1000 points
• Executive Advisor: earned a minimum of 2000 points

Often you are only interested in businesses that are local to you.  For every section and category of business listings, there is a Near (Address, City & State, or Zip) box on the page.  If you have already logged in, your address (entered when you signed up) will be defaulted as the reference location.  You can filter businesses by how far they are away from you via the distance sliding bar underneath the Near (Address, City & State, or Zip) box.  If you want to search a different location, simply enter the address, city & state or zipcode of that location.

If you find a business listing, recommendation, or idea that you like, add to your favorite list by clicking on the "Add as favorite" button on the listing detail.  You will receive email updates when a new review is added.  You can also view and delete your favorite listings by clicking on the "My Favorite Listings" on the user menu on the left panel.

If you are a registered member of KidMatter, you can submit a new business listing even if you are not affiliated to the business in any way.  Simply navigate to the right category that the business belongs to, and click on the "Add new listing" button.  You will be prompted to first search for the new listing that you are planning to add to avoid any potential duplicate listings.  If the listing does not already exist, you can fill out the information for that business.  It will be useful if you can provide as much detail as you know.  You may also provide a review on this business.

If you have a cool idea such as party idea or gift idea, or a recommendation on books or toys, everyone would love to hear about it.  You can submit your idea or recommendation the same way you submit business listings.  Navigate to the appropriate category, and click on "Add new listing" button to add.

 You can modify the listing you submitted by clicking the "Edit" button next to the listing title.

If you see a listing that has wrong information, please contact KidMatter to let us know.

If you see a review that is inappropriate and that violates the Terms of Use of KidMatter, you can click on the "Report this review" link on that review and provide a reason.  KidMatter will review your report and determine the appropriate action.

If you cannot find the right category to submit a new listing, and you believe that it is a good category to have on KidMatter, please contact us with your suggestion.

You can use groups for different purposes.  For example,  teachers or the room parents can create private groups for communicating with all parents in the class. Parties, events, and field trip scheduled can be posted on the calendar; parents can use bulletin board to discuss issues; and the group manager can post announcement by emailing to the whole group or posting on the bulletin board. 

Another example is a carpool group. if you make carpool arrangements with other parents to drop off and pick up your kids, you can create a private carpool group with those parents.  Once the group is created and other parents are invited to join the group.  Any one of the members can easily create repeat carpool schedule on the group calendar.  All of you in the group can view the schedule. 

Or If your kid participates in a soccer team, the coach may create a group where practice schedules and announcements can be posted via the calendar and the bulletin board.

Or if you want to join a public group to discuss how to balance work and family, you can do that too with the Group feature.

For all the groups that you are part of, you can easily view a summarized upcoming events list on the home page after you log in.

There are three types of groups that can be created on KidMatter:

1.  Invite To Join:  This is also known as private group.  Membership to this group is through invitation by existing members only.  Any group member-specific information or communications amongst the group members via the Group service are kept private to the group only.

2.  Approval To Join:  This is is also known as semi-private group.  A user of KidMatter may see the title and description of such group.  Only registered user may request to join the group.  The membership is only granted when the request receives explicit approval of the group manager.  Any group member-specific information or communications amongst the group members via the Group service are kept private to the group only.

3.  Open To All:  This is also known as public group.  Any registered user may join the group without the approval of group manager.

To create your own group, first click on the "Group" link on the user menu on the left panel, then click on "Create Your OWN Group!" link to create your own group.  Make sure to select the right group type.

Private groups can only be joined via invitation from existing group members.  You must ask an existing group member to send you an invitation which contains an activation URL.  You need to click on the activation URL to join the group.

To join a semi-private group, you can click on the request link to join the group.  The account manager would have to explicitly approve your request before you are allowed to join the group.  So providing a good explanation of why you want to join the group will help.

Public group can be joined by clicking on the joining link for that group.  Account manager will be notified of your action, however no approval process is necessary.

To see what groups are already available, click on the "Group" link on the user menu on the left panel.  You will see a summary count of the groups in different categories.  You can click on each category to see the category specific groups.  For semi-private and public groups, you will see the group name and a brief description.

If you want to invite other people to join the group that you belong to, log in and go to that group, click on "Invite People" link.  Enter that person's user name on KidMatter, or his/her email address.

If you want to remove yourself from a group that you belong, log in and go to that group, click on "Unjoin Group" to remove yourself from the group.

You can only delete a group for which you are the manager.  To delete the group, go to that group, click on "Delete this group" link.  Be careful when you do this, once the group is deleted, any content posted to the group is deleted as well.

You can only modify the group settings for which you are the manager.  Go to that group, click on "Edit group settings" to change the group type, name and description.

The Kidmatter Answers is intended for members to ask questions and receive answers from fellow members.  There are different categories for topics.

If you have a question that you would like to ask other members,

• go to KidMatter Answers
• enter the title of your question
• click "Next" button
• select the appropriate main category and subcategory, and enter details of your question
• Click "Submit" button to submit your question.

Sorry, you can not delete a message once it is posted.

If there is a question on KidMatter Answers that you are interested in, and would like to receive email notification whenever there is an update, you can click on the "Subscribe" button on the question detail.  You can view and manage this subscription list from your "My Stuff" link on KidMatter Answers.

If there is a question that you like and would like to track in one click, you can add that discussion question to your favorite list by clicking on the "Favorite" button on the question detail.  You will NOT receive email notification when someone posts a new message on this question.  However if you want to receive email notification when there's an update on the question, you can do so by clicking on the "Subscribe" button.

Sometimes the information that you are looking for is very specific to where you live.  When you post your question on "KidMatter Answers", you can check the "Local Message" box on the thread.  The default location that is set to is the address from your profile.  If you are reading through the messages on KidMatter Answers, you can click on "Show Local Questions" to view all the questions that are within your vicinity, or "Show All Questions" to view all questions.

If you cannot find the right category to post your question, you may post it on the Other Questions->Other Questions category. If you believe that a new category should be created to cover the topic that you want to post on KidMatter, please contact us with your suggestion.