Websites That Can Help Parents Raise Their Kids
I've been a committed single dad of beautiful twins (Jack and Vanessa) for a number of years now. During that time, all my focus has been on doing whatever it takes to put a great roof over their heads, bread on the table and making each and every day as happy as possible.
That's me in a nutshell - the Renaissance single dad - raising my kids amidst life's eternal balancing act and I'd like to give my thoughts on what I perceive to be positive parenting in today's modern-day, me-first, media-driven culture, specifically as it relates to being a single parent on Long Island.
Building positive relationships with our kids and learning new and inventive ways to parent can help us connect with our children and develop more peaceful and interactive households.
With all the extracurricular distractions out there, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find quality time with our kids. Between sports practices, homework, video games, play-dates, and a steady diet of chauffeuring, the actual face-time we get with our kids is less than it has ever been. This is a fact that faces all parents - both single and married. With the current state of the economy, longer work hours, and competitiveness of Academia, there is just a lot less valuable time spent with our children.
Call me unorthodox, but the perfect solution lies at our fingertips, is all around us, and is becoming the de facto mode of communiqu for everyone both young and old. Our social and occupational lives revolve around it and our kids are the first generation that grew up with it. You guessed it - the Internet.
To be an effective parent to an adolescent, we need to know what is really happening in their child's life. At an ever-increasing rate, their entire social landscape is documented online in some way or another - Instant Messaging, Social Networking, Virtual Worlds etc. Their connected at school, at home, and even some with mobile devices like phones and PDA's. This brave new world of real time communication is not going away and it's becoming a very strong part of our children's adolescence. So in my view, parents need to know about it and understand it so that they can be there to guide their children through it....
The Internet can be a wonderful resource for kids. They can use it to research school reports, communicate with teachers and other kids, and play interactive games. Kids who are old enough to punch in a few letters on the keyboard can literally access the world.
But that access can also pose hazards. That's why it's important to be aware of what your kids see and hear on the Internet, who they meet, and what they share about themselves online. Just like any safety issue, it's wise to talk with your kids about your concerns, take advantage of resources to protect them, and keep a close eye on their activities.
Online tools are available that will let you control your kids' access to adult material and help protect them from Internet predators. No option is going to guarantee that they'll be kept away from 100% of the risks on the Internet. So it's important to be aware of your kids' computer activities and educate them about online risks.
Many Internet service providers (ISPs) provide parent-control options to block certain material from coming into a computer. You can also get software that helps block access to certain sites based on a "bad site" list that your ISP creates. Filtering programs can block sites from coming in and restrict personal information from being sent online. Other programs can monitor and track online activity. Also, make sure your kids create a screen name to protect their real identity.
Aside from these tools, it's wise to take an active role in protecting your kids online. There are a few great websites out there that are geared to helping parents better communicate with their children online. They are designed to be kid-tested and parent-approved and do a wonderful job of creating a safe, easy environment to introduce our children to the wide world of computing over the Internet.
My children are incredibly computer savvy and are usually tough critics when it comes to anything I recommend, especially when computer-related. However, there is one website that resonates with my family and probably transcends the fabric of every family. It's called
Scallyroo
(www.scallyroo.com) and is the perfect website for parents with adolescent children, (tweens and teens).
Scallyroo
is a free website, exclusively created to better bridge communication between parents and kids online by offering many tools intrinsic to the lives of our children, which we parents can monitor. Kids can set goals with their parents and parent can set goals and tasks for their kids, such as "If you do this, I will reward you with that". This is extremely handy when motivating your kids to achieve something, or when getting them to learn responsibility. Oftentimes, I set tasks for my children using Scallyroo (like cleaning their room) and incentivize them with a reward for doing so.
Scallyroo also enables parental oversight for many site features that kids come to expect with the advent of social networking websites like Facebook, although their package is a far more sterilized version, with privacy and safety being of paramount importance. Parents can peer into their child's profile and help manage their account, such as accepting/rejecting friend requests and overseeing their daily calendar. The site also allows parents to merge their personal calendar with their children's Scallyroo calendar, so their always on the same page. Parents can add or create events for their child's calendar and can also grab events from their child's calendar. It's super-simple to use and keeps family life aggregated.
This site really strikes the balance between what's cool for kids and what parents want as far as online safety is concerned. Being a single parent, this site is a godsend. It allows me to monitor my two kids both on and offline and does it in a non-invasive way that's critical to their 'growing up.'
Other good websites for parents and kids do exist, but none are able to strike such a delicate balance between what kids want and what parents need. Single Renaissance Dads or Moms the world over should look online to sites like
Scallyroo.com
for the unique parenting tools it provides, but also for teaching tools and fun activities it imparts on our children.
That's me in a nutshell - the Renaissance single dad - raising my kids amidst life's eternal balancing act and I'd like to give my thoughts on what I perceive to be positive parenting in today's modern-day, me-first, media-driven culture, specifically as it relates to being a single parent on Long Island.
Building positive relationships with our kids and learning new and inventive ways to parent can help us connect with our children and develop more peaceful and interactive households.
With all the extracurricular distractions out there, it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find quality time with our kids. Between sports practices, homework, video games, play-dates, and a steady diet of chauffeuring, the actual face-time we get with our kids is less than it has ever been. This is a fact that faces all parents - both single and married. With the current state of the economy, longer work hours, and competitiveness of Academia, there is just a lot less valuable time spent with our children.
Call me unorthodox, but the perfect solution lies at our fingertips, is all around us, and is becoming the de facto mode of communiqu for everyone both young and old. Our social and occupational lives revolve around it and our kids are the first generation that grew up with it. You guessed it - the Internet.
To be an effective parent to an adolescent, we need to know what is really happening in their child's life. At an ever-increasing rate, their entire social landscape is documented online in some way or another - Instant Messaging, Social Networking, Virtual Worlds etc. Their connected at school, at home, and even some with mobile devices like phones and PDA's. This brave new world of real time communication is not going away and it's becoming a very strong part of our children's adolescence. So in my view, parents need to know about it and understand it so that they can be there to guide their children through it....
The Internet can be a wonderful resource for kids. They can use it to research school reports, communicate with teachers and other kids, and play interactive games. Kids who are old enough to punch in a few letters on the keyboard can literally access the world.
But that access can also pose hazards. That's why it's important to be aware of what your kids see and hear on the Internet, who they meet, and what they share about themselves online. Just like any safety issue, it's wise to talk with your kids about your concerns, take advantage of resources to protect them, and keep a close eye on their activities.
Online tools are available that will let you control your kids' access to adult material and help protect them from Internet predators. No option is going to guarantee that they'll be kept away from 100% of the risks on the Internet. So it's important to be aware of your kids' computer activities and educate them about online risks.
Many Internet service providers (ISPs) provide parent-control options to block certain material from coming into a computer. You can also get software that helps block access to certain sites based on a "bad site" list that your ISP creates. Filtering programs can block sites from coming in and restrict personal information from being sent online. Other programs can monitor and track online activity. Also, make sure your kids create a screen name to protect their real identity.
Aside from these tools, it's wise to take an active role in protecting your kids online. There are a few great websites out there that are geared to helping parents better communicate with their children online. They are designed to be kid-tested and parent-approved and do a wonderful job of creating a safe, easy environment to introduce our children to the wide world of computing over the Internet.
My children are incredibly computer savvy and are usually tough critics when it comes to anything I recommend, especially when computer-related. However, there is one website that resonates with my family and probably transcends the fabric of every family. It's called
Scallyroo
(www.scallyroo.com) and is the perfect website for parents with adolescent children, (tweens and teens).
Scallyroo
is a free website, exclusively created to better bridge communication between parents and kids online by offering many tools intrinsic to the lives of our children, which we parents can monitor. Kids can set goals with their parents and parent can set goals and tasks for their kids, such as "If you do this, I will reward you with that". This is extremely handy when motivating your kids to achieve something, or when getting them to learn responsibility. Oftentimes, I set tasks for my children using Scallyroo (like cleaning their room) and incentivize them with a reward for doing so.
Scallyroo also enables parental oversight for many site features that kids come to expect with the advent of social networking websites like Facebook, although their package is a far more sterilized version, with privacy and safety being of paramount importance. Parents can peer into their child's profile and help manage their account, such as accepting/rejecting friend requests and overseeing their daily calendar. The site also allows parents to merge their personal calendar with their children's Scallyroo calendar, so their always on the same page. Parents can add or create events for their child's calendar and can also grab events from their child's calendar. It's super-simple to use and keeps family life aggregated.
This site really strikes the balance between what's cool for kids and what parents want as far as online safety is concerned. Being a single parent, this site is a godsend. It allows me to monitor my two kids both on and offline and does it in a non-invasive way that's critical to their 'growing up.'
Other good websites for parents and kids do exist, but none are able to strike such a delicate balance between what kids want and what parents need. Single Renaissance Dads or Moms the world over should look online to sites like
Scallyroo.com
for the unique parenting tools it provides, but also for teaching tools and fun activities it imparts on our children.
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