Juliana Lapitino, President and CEO

Juliana Lapitino founded Kiddin’ Around, an online store offering educational toys and children’s furniture for the home, in 1998.  She did not set out to create a business, it just evolved quite naturally when she purchased The Learning Tower, a unique step-stool with a platform designed for children ages two to six that enabled them to get up and down from it safely on their own.  Our sales from this product alone were so encouraging that we created Mylearningtower.com, a website dedicated exclusively to information about The Learning Tower, including the offering of several Learning Tower accessories.

As our organization grew, our focus became directed toward meeting the needs of business owners, as well. By 2002, a growing number of retailers were beginning to recognize the advantages of having something on hand to entertain small children who visited their stores and business establishments.

As an educator and mother of young children, Juliana appreciated this new, forward-thinking approach to customer service, but she was troubled by the way this need was met. Most well-meaning business owners responded by setting out crayons, or a box filled with various toys.  All too often, many of these playthings were found to be dangerous.  They were broken, had sharp edges or small parts that children under the age of three could choke on, or were soiled and unsanitary.  Clearly there was a need for a safe alternative to this method of entertainment that posed a threat to children and a liability to business owners. 

In response to this situation, we added award-winning Play Tables, Wall-Mounted Play Panels, Children’s Activity Cubes, and other Child-Friendly products to our product line. These commercial-grade play units with no removable parts are designed to be safe, easy to clean, and educational and are manufactured under strict guidelines for use by children in public places. 

Today, we market these Child-friendly products for commercial use through Childfriendlybusiness.com, an online branch of Kiddin Around.

We originally sold most of these units to members of the Healthcare Industry. Kiddin’Around Child-Friendly Play Tables, Wall-Mounted Play Panels, and Children’s Activity Cubes are found in waiting areas in health clinics and hospitals—in the emergency and pharmacy departments, for example, and in waiting rooms in private medical and dental offices across the country.

However, there continues to be a growing recognition of this need to provide safe diversionary play for young children by retail and professional organizations, as well. Our Child-Friendly products are increasingly found in automotive sales and services facilities, in banking and financial institutions, in government offices and social service agencies, in public libraries, in educational settings, and even on U.S. military bases.

Kiddin’ Around is unique in that we are the only provider of these products that offers Child-Friendly Businesses a free listing on our childfriendlybusiness.com website that includes a description of their products and services and a link that brings online shoppers directly to their website. This listing gives public recognition to our clients and allows consumers to find Child-Friendly Establishments in the market place quickly and easily. Further promotion is given to our clients on our blog and in our monthly online newsletters where we announce new Child-Friendly Businesses and often run feature stories and news about our clients. These incentives to businesses to become Child-Friendly have given us a way to bring greater awareness to the need for child safety in public places.

Kiddin’ Around is proud to be leading this trend in customer service that makes provisions for the safety of young children in public settings. We are confident that our client list will continue to grow as more and more businesses reap the benefits and rewards our products offer and as the general public comes to expect that children waiting for services in public places will be provided with entertainment that is safe, sanitary, and educationally sound.

Today, our Kiddinaround.com website offers children’s furniture for the home and educational settings—for the classroom, for day care centers, and for libraries.  Our Sproutz environmentally sound classroom furniture for children is both safe and functional, and our new line of  sleek and stylish desks for children, teens, and adults—that require no tools to assemle--can be viewed and purchased through this website.