Last week I had Poppy at home for the first of her three week break. ET started his today. I've expressed a strong concern to them both that they don't fritter away these precious weeks online just hanging or chilling with their mates. I'd far prefer they do some real world things and I'm prepared to help with transport etc if that's necessary. ET has agreed to do some study as well as it is only really a matter of weeks before he heads into HSC work. Big time.....! Poppy is pretty good. She has contact with her friends but it doesn't seem to be obsessive and generally she will just go on for a little while to see what people are up to then jump off. ET on the other hand has the myspace/msn bug.. I'm still using cyberpatrol's time management facility to help ET manage the use of his online time. It's crazy that I have to do that but it seems impossible to rely on his trust..... and of course it's far more interesting to 'chat' than do household chores or walk the dog!!
Life Hacker point us to an article on the Wall Street Journal site about 'making a computer contract with your kid'. If you are finding the behaviour of your social networking/msn addicted child/teenager difficult to handle consider Jeff Opdyke's solution of a brief but so far effective 5 sentence contract.
I prefer this idea of brevity (five sentences is great!!) as opposed to the family online internet safety contract but to be fair the latter does address safety issues more than just time spent online and connected behaviours.
I'm tempted to suggest one or two screen free days during the holidays ..... how will you handle this issue?
Is it a problem for you or not?
