Kid Safety & Technology | Mom Minute

I know this will probably date me, but I distinctly remember my mom limiting me and my siblings’ game time on the Coleco Vision game system when I was young.

It always seemed unfair at the time, but she said that she was doing it for our own good, and that I would understand when I had kids of my own.

As I grew older, and the Nintendo and Xbox came out, I started to see how much time can be wasted in gaming. Although the effects of gaming can be argued from various positions, positive and negative, we can all agree that there should be moderation in its use.For today’s #MomMinute episode, we asked the beautiful Maria Quiban, from the YouTube channel MommyLovesTech to join us to talk about about children and safe uses of technology.

Taryn, a viewer, asks the following question… “What age is appropriate for your kids to start using technology (for example, cell phones, iPad’s and the Internet)? How do you teach them about Internet safety?”Today, it seems that more and more teachers are assigning internet homework to younger kids.  My son has homework on the internet and he is in kindergarten.

How do we keep them safe from the dangers of what they can find out there?

We have two kid computers, both with access to the internet but can only be used in the kitchen/dining area. This does cause a bottleneck should all of them have homework online, but doing this is to keep things out in the open.

In our home, Brooklyn and Bailey had one cell phone to share between them when they turned 12, mostly because one of them always seemed to have babysitting jobs where the couple they sat for did not have land lines.

As part of the deal, the twins signed a contract that included strict rules for cell phone use, including any texting, camera, and social media use. Part of that agreement included an open disclosure that we, as parents, have the full right of access to the phone at any time that the child is on our family cell plan.  Brooklyn and Bailey each have a cell phone now, given their side business online.

{We will likely do a post in the future that goes into further details on how to put your own contract together for your children.}

We also have what we call an eBasket {literally a basket we found at Target} that sits in my home office.  At bedtime, each of the children are required to place into it their iPods, cell phones, iPads, and ear phones. This removes any temptation to stay up late listening to music, watching movies, or texting friends. It also allows us to go through the items to see what activity in which our kids have been engaging.

To see more about kid safety and the internet, with ideas for how to balance tech use in your home, please feel free to view the #MomMinute episode with Maria below…

What suggestions do you have on the subject?

Please free to leave your comments below…

Happy Parenting!