I saw these at the checkout at the CVS. Can these be used in Europe just like a regular credit card? Thought they might be fun for the kids.

Fun, perhaps, but not a good value. And you must use up the exact amount -- if you try to go over, it gets rejected!

You might be better off just having your bank make an extra plate(s) for your kids.
I gave an AmEx gift card to someone as a wedding gift to be used on their honeymoon and was later was told they were unable to use it outside of the US.

How old are these kids? Can a minor use a credit card (contractually speaking)?

I think gift cards are the latest thing at store checkout counters everywhere. They have everything under the sun at mine.

These aren't credit cards, so there is no contract for credit. It's just a prepaid ATM card, I would guess. Read the fine print, they probably can be, but check what fee might be taken off per use or to activate or something like that. They are probably bad values, I'll just bet, but don't really know (recent thread on AAA travelmoney card showed fees of quite a bit).

A lot of those gift cards don't work unless they are "activated" somehow when purchased or something, so you have to be careful with that. Definitely check on where they can be used as bardo suggests.

Just a warning.

I work in a retail depsrtment store. Well known company with stores all over. We have many customers that have presented Amex logo, M/C logo, Visa logo, etc. cards to us and often they will not work. They are used through the register like we are processing a credit card which is the way they are supposed to be used and frequently we have to request another form of payment because the card fails in some way. It is very embaressing (sp?) for the customer and for myself.