Amazon aims to help parents monitor – and talk to – kids

NEW YORK (AP) – Amazon is introducing new tools to help parents see what their kids are doing on the company’s Fire tablets, and maybe even to spark discussions about the books kids read and the videos they watch.

Parents will be able to view each child’s activities through Amazon’s website. They’ll get details on books read and videos watched – and how long a child spends on each.

The service will also suggest some questions and activities, with open-ended questions designed to avoid classic single-word responses from kids.

The feature requires use of Amazon’s FreeTime service, a set of tools for pre-approving how much time kids spend on a tablet and what they do with it. The FreeTime service is free, as is the new dashboard tool.

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