Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in kansas city, KS

Kids and the Internet: It's okay! Really!

by Jenny Meade

July 07, 2009

So, kind of following up on yesterday's post about my kid getting his own email address, I thought it might be a good time to talk about the Internet. Namely, at what point do you let your kid get on it?

Well, that depends on you, really.  But at my house, I figured out a long time ago that the internet might just be more useful screen time than the television, because they can play games and actually be practicing their math skills without even realizing it, instead of just losing brain cells from listening to Spongebob laugh his horrible little laugh. And also, screen time is when the screaming stops, and Mama needs that.

Does your preschooler need an email address? Probably not. But if you're interested in some online interactions that are safe and offer educational games, there are several sites that we like.  It's also pretty easy to set your child up with their own log in to the computer if you're using Windows XP or Vista, and therefore you can set the internet safety zones higher than you would for your own log in, if it makes you feel better. And it's empowering to them, too.

Here's a few to start with (and be sure to be there and help them type, because browser typos can get interesting in a hurry if you haven't set the safety zones higher as mentioned above.):

• playhouse disney
• Webkinz
• Club Penguin ( a little more complicated, probably 6 and up)
• Poptropica
• Funbrain and Funschool (our school district uses these)
• This is Daniel Cook

Pen Pals in these modern times.

by Jenny Meade

July 06, 2009

When my oldest was four years old, we up and moved to San Diego for two years. It was a tumultuous, but a very fun and invigorating time. Thankfully, Drew always made friends quickly and never met a new experience he couldn't take head on.  He even developed some great friendships during his year of kindergarten there, with a boy he still talks about and whose family we try and stay in touch with.

Recently, that boy's mother let me know that he has his own email address, and that Drew could send him emails. I hesitated, at first, email seems like a slippery slope into web chat rooms and predators if I let my imagination get away with itself. But that's simply not true, or rational, and here I am a blogger telling the entire internet stories about my family without so much as a pseudonym, why couldn't he have his own email address.

So I signed him up for a gmail account. He got to pick his handle, but I picked the password, and he isn't yet savvy enough to know how to change it. I am, and if at some point he figures that out and tries to go around me, he will lose computer privileges fast than you can say "Global Thermonuclear War."

But for now, he's having fun sending stupid emails that say things like "HeYYYYYYYYYYY Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude How are youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu?"and "I Like PIE."  (Don't ask. I don't have an answer. It's a boy thing, apparently.)

It's all good. 

All work and no play makes Mommy and Daddy crazy.

by Jenny Meade

May 11, 2009

Recently my husband and I came the conclusion that we're both behind the curve, on pretty much everything in our lives. We're both behind at our jobs. We're both behind at home. The house is a mess, the laundry sits on the floor in our bedroom separated by clean and dirty piles. Whereas we used to have the weekends to recover and catch up from the work week, we now need an extra day between Sunday and Monday in order to catch up from our weekends of soccer, baseball, soccer, swimming, and occasionally mowing the grass. (That which is seen by the neighbors inexorably gets done, which is why the laundry still sits on the bedroom floor.) It's just that time of year - so much to do, so little time. 

I think all parents go through this. I have to admit, before I had kids, I thought the hardest part would be doing the new mommy thing. All the books you read set you up for this - the constant crying, pooping, feeding and laundry cycle with variable sleep patterns thrown in for good measure is supposed to make you lose your mind, right?

Nobody tells you that is a walk in the park compared with driving and dropping off and picking up and feeding on the run and driving some more, and cleats and soccer balls and mitts and baseballs that get lodged under the seat where nobody can reach them. No one mentions the part about how all that seemingly endless laundry you did over and over to wash the spit-up out of those wee little rompers? That is NOTHING compared with big kid laundry loads of towels and sheets and ketchup stained T-shirts, and baseball pants and soccer socks and the clean and sterilized rubber mulch that constantly clogs up the lint filter in the dryer.  

Also? You have to actually parent them, not just rock them to sleep or stick a nipple in their mouth. Who knew.  

I am telling you, here and now: Babies? Babies are easy. Kids are hard. And the work is never-ending.

On Mother's Day, while I tended to some church commitments, my husband and the boys stayed home and played Monopoly.  The house was still a mess when I got home. There were dishes in the sink, the same piles of laundry on the bedroom floor, the same dog staring at his empty water dish and whining. But my family was having some quiet fun together. And I realized I missed it.  We need to do it more often. 

People, let yourself have some fun on the weekends, or wherever you can. The laundry can wait. Besides, after a while they figure out how to sniff their own underwear to see if it's clean, anyway.  Call it a Rite of Passage and let it go.