My latest parenting mantra
By Nancy | May 29, 2008
I have a new and longreaching goal when it comes to technology in our family life: nonjudgment. Here’s why.
Several weeks ago, a friend and I attended a seminar on parenting and technology. The leaders opened up the evening by asking audience members to pose their questions up front, so the questions could be answered during the presentation. I was totally blown away by the intensity of the questions. In fact, three-fourths of the parents who raised their hands actually had very small questions but very large, impassioned rants that surrounded them. As my friend described it, they laid out all their baggage.
Now, I am well aware that I wouldn’t be blogging about parenting and technology if I didn’t have my own baggage and some deep-seated reasons why this particular topic gets under my skin. But it’s always easier to see what’s unproductive in other people, which is what happened to me at that seminar. Wow! I was them (though perhaps more discretely). And suddenly I could see how unproductive this emotional charge can be, especially in dealing with kids.
To me, nonjudgment doesn’t mean taking a “whatever” stance when it comes to use of electronics in our family. Limits and boundaries are important. It just means I’m striving to let go of the emotion that can sometimes infiltrate how I deal with screens. Carl Jung’s famous quote, ”What you resist, persists,” rings true here. TVs, computers, phones, XBoxes, Wiis are not good or bad. They are just machines. Children and their screen habits are not good or bad. They are just children. My own screen habits and parenting approaches are not good or bad. They are just me.
My Zen challenge going forward will be to enjoy what electronics have to offfer, to enforce limits without emotion and to quiet my interior judge. Take a deep breath, Nancy. And exhale. I’ll let you know how I do.
Topics: Teens, Tweens, By age, Setting limits | No Comments » | Add Your Comment
Click, meet your roommate
By Nancy | May 28, 2008
According to Wired Campus, social networks may be the perfect media for matching college students with roommates.
Tulane University recently announced a partnership with RoommateClick, a service that allows incoming students to select roommates through a closed social network.
RoommateClick provides about 10 colleges with customized roommate-choosing networks, where students fill out a questionnaire regarding their living habits (cleanliness, smoking, etc.) and provide profile photos and other open-ended profile information about themselves. Students can then search the closed network to choose roommates if they don’t wish to be assigned matches by the housing department.
Several other Web 2.0 companies also offer roommate selection matching. The school adopted the partnership because students were already using social networking in doing “background checks” on new roommates.
“Over the last few years we have seen such an increase in calls in July and August with requests to change rooms because of what students have seen on MySpace or Facebook,” said Marty Brantley, Tulane’s director of housing services.
Some truths remain eternal: Life can be treacherous for those not socially skilled - whether in the real world or virtual.
Topics: Teens, Analog lifestyle | No Comments » | Add Your Comment
Texting baby-steps
By Nancy | March 11, 2008
Andy and a circle of his friends suddenly want to do nothing but e-mail each other. It’s like they have a developmental urge to text, but have no cell phones. (They’ve come close to IM-ing, but it seems that whenever one friend figures out how to do it, the other forgets…so, frustrated with each other, they say, “Oh, let’s just email.”) A typical email dialogue goes like this:
Andy: That’s so funny.
Friend: What?
Andy: What you said before.
Friend: Yeah.
Andy: Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Keep in mind that, done with email, this meaningful exchange takes about 15 minutes to complete. Perplexing.
Topics: Tweens, Email | No Comments » | Add Your Comment
Don’t mess with my desk[top]
By Nancy | March 8, 2008
When Andy was three, I was chatting with a more experienced mom about her part-time job. “Do you enjoy it?” I asked. “What I love is that no one touches my desk when I’m gone.” At the time, I was too much of a newbie parent to understand. I said, “Oh!” but I thought, “Huh?” It didn’t take long, though, as my three-year-old got more adventurous, to totally appreciate her point. As a parent, your children gradually permeate every corner of your world until very little is left untouched. It’s nice to have a private corner or two. Like a desk.
Recently, one of my last private corners apparently became public property — a corner I hadn’t even noticed, until it was disturbed: It’s the computer desktop. I take for granted that when I sit down at the computer, it will always look the same: same programs, same arrangement of icons, same everything. In fact, this is the reason we set up Andy as his own Windows user: He can enjoy a unicorn background, while I can feel satisfied and content with “Windows Classic.”
But recently, the desktop was touched. Not on purpose by the kids, but by the demons in their programs. After a Nickjr game had its way with us, the display resolution was set on “gigantic,” which meant rejiggering the display settings to get back to our “look.” (Who knew there was such a difference between 1024 x 768 and 800 x 600?) Another day, I went online to find a new and improved home page. Children claimed innocence, as did our ISP. Another day, a new toolbar appeared. Enough of the tools already!
I guess I need to do some work on sharing. But until I’ve matured in this area, it’s fair warning to my kids and the universe: Don’t mess with my desktop!
Topics: Setting limits | No Comments » | Add Your Comment
What’s the password?
By Nancy | March 1, 2008
For me, one of the major aggravations of the digital age is that each of us must manage a collection of passwords, just to access what is ours. And now I’m finding even parenting is not immune from password issues.
Andy has a multitude of screen/user names for Web sites and a few different passwords. His password path has paralleled his parents’. He started out with one very easy password to use everywhere, but that has mutated in several directions depending on site requirements (too short, too long, not the right mix of letters and numbers, too easy to guess, etc.). At one point he developed a complex numerical password based on the ages of everyone in our family, not thinking a few years ahead to when (now) everyone had aged. Now he recreates it by taking all of our current ages and subtracting from each. That’s a lot of work just to get into Club Penguin.
Now Alex has set up his first online “account,” after receiving a Webkinz animal for his birthday. And I felt things really getting out of hand when I saw Andy sitting at the computer with Alex, guiding him in how to make a password.
With kids this age (11 and 5), privacy isn’t such an issue, but safety is. Last week, I wanted to verify the parental controls in Pirates of the Caribbean Online, but couldn’t do that until Andy came home from school because I couldn’t log on without his password. And sometimes functionality rules. Recently, Andy did not log out of his Windows user account and left the house with Word open, which I was not able to access because I didn’t have his password. Argh!
I think it’s time for the family to invest in password management software. Or at least have a thorough group think on password strategies. Unfortunately, organizing passwords sits on the same to-do list as the task of organizing our file cabinet (the metal one). And the computer file folders? Let’s not even go there. So many organizational challenges, so little time.
Topics: Parental controls | No Comments » | Add Your Comment
Big brother gets a PS2
By Nancy | February 26, 2008
Andy bought a PlayStation 2 game system yesterday. I was really happy for him, because this was something he’s wanted for a very long time. And his parents finally caved realized this would be an asset to our household. Of course, some “rules” were part of the bargain, but by far the biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to deal with Alex in the mix. And no amount of talking to Alex about how this is a toy for 11-year-olds, not 5-year-olds, came even close to computing. Having Andrew play after Alex’s bedtime was not an option because that is supposed to be reading time. There was no choice but to just decide: Alex cannot play. Stand firm. Close our eyes. Put in the ear plugs. Ignore the ensuing tantrum. So, we did. So, we survived. For day one.
Topics: Setting limits | 2 Comments » | View or Add Comment
My online blunder
By Nancy | February 20, 2008
I recently did something very, very naive, and I’m going to confess it right here.
For Christmas, I gave Joe a Web site–a blog really–on which it was my intention to write daily notes to him about what an awesome guy he is and how much I appreciate him. Then one day, I noticed Andrew at the site, reading through it. There was nothing inappropriate for him to read, but I sort of felt as though our privacy was violated. I recoiled and said to him, “Hey, you shouldn’t be reading that!” He looked at me with disbelief and replied, “But Mom, you posted it on the Internet.” Thus, my moment of “duh.”
I also made the horrifying discovery that if you googled Joe’s full name, this personal site would come up in the first few results. (If you’re thinking of googling it, forget it – I have since rectified the situation.) Little did I know that the googlebot would pick up the one time his name was used, on a site with daily traffic of two visitors (on a good day).
If he were job hunting (which he is not), this would not be the most professional site for a googling prospective employer to see. I wouldn’t even want a long lost friend to see it. It was supposed to be a quiet spot for the two of us.
I have learned my lesson. So, let me restate what I thought was obvious until I put my head in the clouds: What is online, no matter how random or minimal you think it is, is not private. I have a greater understanding of how naive teens and tweens might get into trouble in this area. And I’m all the more committed to educating kids about the reprecussions of an online life.
Topics: Online recreation | No Comments » | Add Your Comment