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Families and Technology
Check out recent blog posts:
FRONTLINE on Kids and the Internet
Kids want ‘time with parents, not gifts’
What is “Information Overload’s” Impact on Families?
In This Issue
- Simple Secret to Improving Your Family's Well-Being
- What one thing can you do to reduce stress, feel better, be more creative and have fun? Read on to find out!
- Flexible Limit Setting with Time Tokens
- Popular talk-radio psychologist gives advice and we show you how easy it is to follow that advice with ComputerTime.
- Help! I Need My Product Key!
- You're not alone. Lots of people lose their ComputerTime Product Key. We have a new web page to help you out.
Simple Secret to Improving Your Family's Well-Being
by Mark Sicignano
On a weekday morning, last week, I was waking up, still a bit groggy, when I heard my daughter excitedly calling her brother over to the window, saying something about "birds". It sounded like my son was unimpressed, but her enthusiasm was surprising for 6:45am.
When I got out of bed and went to the kitchen, I asked, "What were you showing your brother this morning? Something about birds?"
She said, "Oh ya! I was getting ready for school, and I could hear all these birds singing outside! I can't remember the last time I heard them. I got excited."
I laughed at the weirdness of it all — but is it that weird, really? We forget how much nature offers us when we rush around all of the time. We're so busy with work, school, being connected to gadgets, and stuck indoors during the cold season. When winter wraps up and warmer days bring singing birds back, it really does make us feel better. We welcome back a missing piece of our wellness.
"Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again, it is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence… The voice of nature is always encouraging."
— Henry David Thoreau
I was happy that she kicked off her morning with the happiness of the chirpy birds, but if nature is so important to the well-being of my kids, I worry a bit. They get a lot less of nature's positive influences than my generation did as kids.
I would easily spend eight to ten hours outdoors with other kids on a weekend day in the summer. The kids I see today probably spend a quarter of that time outdoors on a good day! Computers, video games, cell phones and television contribute to keeping kids indoors.
This is why a coalition of groups, led by the Rio Grande chapter of the Sierra Club, wants lawmakers in New Mexico to implement a one-percent tax on video games, game consoles, and TVs. This would create a fund to help pay for outdoor education.
"We believe that an outdoor education program in New Mexico could be funded through a tax on the very activities that are divorcing kids from nature, promoting more sedentary lifestyles," said Michael Casaus, Sierra Club's New Mexico youth representative. "One of those culprits is TV and what we call screen time." (CNN)
Those are sentiments that most concerned parents share, but is more government intervention, laws, and bureaucracy really the answer? Do we really need to outsource parental responsibilities to the government?
Parents already have a lot on their plates and are stressed, but consider Richard Louv's point from his book, "Last Child in the Woods ": Nature can be an antidote to the problems parents are experiencing. "Stress reduction, greater physical health, a deeper sense of spirit, more creativity, a sense of play, even a safer life - these are the rewards that await a family when it invites more nature into children's lives," he says.
It's our job as parents to get kids off the computers and video games and get them outdoors. It is also important to be involved with them in nature and encourage it by being good role models. We should also enjoy what nature has to offer to us for our own well-being.
Click here to comment or discuss this topic with others.
Flexible Limit Setting with Time Tokens
Setting limits on computer time isn't a one-size-fits-all proposition for most families. It really depends on the child's age, their behavior, if they're getting enough physical activity, and their grades. It also depends on what they are doing on the computer; are they playing games or doing homework?
Dr. Joy Browne, a psychologist who has a call-in radio show, had some good advice for a mom who was having difficulty getting her son off the computer. She advised, for this particular 13-year-old, a baseline of one hour per day. Additional time, say fifteen minutes, can be given as a reward for good behavior, getting chores done, doing well in school, etc.
I wish that Dr. Joy had known about ComputerTime so that she could tell this caller about it. The caller was clearly having a tough time with the execution of these rules and dealing with the temper tantrums when it was time to get her child off the computer. As any ComputerTime user will tell you, one of the biggest benefits is taking the fight out of managing computer time.
ComputerTime is the perfect solution for implementing Dr. Joy's recommendations. You can set the baseline time of one hour by giving the child a Daily Limit of one hour. Then create Time Tokens of fifteen minutes each.
If you've explored the menus in ComputerTime Admin, you may have come across Time Tokens. Click on File and then click on New Time Tokens....
Now you can create a batch of Time Tokens. Set the time to 15 minutes, and create a bunch of them by clicking Create Tokens. On the next window, you'll see the Time Tokens (each Time Token is a 6-digit code). You should probably print them out and keep them in a safe place.
When you want to reward your child with extra time, give him one or more of the token codes. That was easy!
Help! I need my Product Key
It is a pain to reinstall all of your applications and restore your data when you buy a new computer or have to reformat your hard drive. Gigabytes of photos, music, tax returns! Then you have to dig up your original software CDs and find the product keys so you can reinstall everything.
Well, we can certainly make it painless to transfer ComputerTime to a new or reformatted computer. Simply download and install the trial version of ComputerTime.
After installation, ComputerTime starts up and you will see the ComputerTime Trial Version window.
Click Activate and enter your ComputerTime Product Key that you received when you originally purchased ComputerTime.
Wait… What's that you say? You lost your ComputerTime Product Key. No problem! Just point your Internet browser to this page:
Enter the email address that you used when you purchased ComputerTime, click Submit and your Product Key will be emailed to you within a couple of minutes. If it doesn't appear in your in-box, check your spam folder.
There! That was painless! Now that you have the most important software back up and running in just minutes, you can move on to installing all that other software and restoring your files.
If you have any questions or need help, simply contact Customer Support.
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