My first suggestion for people would generally be the Canon Powershots since they’re so popular amongst the general public.

That being said, I still prefer my Sony W1 (fairly old at this point, but takes awesome pictures and gives you plenty of versatility.) I know it locks me into the Sony Memorystick, but with any camera, you almost need to buy whatever memory goes with the camera you choose. That may be interchangable with something you already own, but it also may not. Olympus does the same thing with their xD memory. The memory I use will be useful for the lifetime of my camera, and I’m sure something bigger and better will be available next time I’m upgrading.

That also being said, I agree with a previous poster in that getting a camera with high zoom (i.e. greater than 3x, not counting digital zoom) is important, especially if you want it for your kids. Image stabilization-capable cameras will generally have higher zoom, though (the higher the zoom, the more the shakiness will become apparent in your shots). In terms of what’s done well, my friend has an awesome Panasonic DMC-F series camera that I can easily recommend. Canon has their own: S 1 IS. The A720 also has the image stabilization, but not the zoom. Every major brand has theirs (Nikon, Sony, Olympus), but I know less about these. The flash in all of these models is also much better in terms of lag than most of the pocket-sized point-and-shoot. One thing to note, though. With all this extra zoom and image stabilization technology, these cameras are bigger than the little pocket-sized ones. I think of them as mini-SLRs in terms of size.

Hope this helps!

Thanks so much- this really helps!

Hugs,
Melinda

Good luck, and dpreview.com is a great one to compare models.

So my advice is to make sure that you can zoom in enough to see your kiddos clearly across a classroom, auditorium, or from the sidelines of a sporting event.