Parents and kids alike feel some excitement, and may be a little bit nervous, as they prepare for the first school day.
Most of the kids will be a bit nervous about a new start. New teacher, new class, new curriculum, maybe a new school! How will the first day go? Will they like a new teacher? Will their friends be in the same class?
There are a lot of things to worry about for kids and parents.
What can you do as a parent to make this day feel easier and less frantic for the kids (and yourself too)?
Be prepared. Help you child to pack the lunch and backpack the night before, have school clothes ready.
Those easy steps will help to avoid last minute rush and help you and children keep calm on this important day. Reassure your child that they are fully prepared, and remind him/ her that everybody feels nervous in the beginning, even the teacher!
If the previous school year was not very successful and the child was struggling with the curriculum, this may add to the anxiety.
There may be a score of reasons for the poor academic performance; there are some that are of our own making. I am talking in particular about addiction to computer games.
What starts as an innocent pass time could turn into a something serious, interfering not only with your child’s grades but also with mental and physical health, ability to interact with peers and siblings.
Many parents (including myself) have been fooled by the word “game”. It is a game. Right? Is it not what kids are supposed to do? So what’s a big deal if they play computer games it’s a modern world, and they have to learn computer!
Those are the valid questions (and answers at the same time) that many parents are going trough. After all it is very convenient for the parents: children are at home, quiet, you always know where to find them, and they do not nag you or ask countless questions, you do not have to think how to entertain them.
However convenient this might not be, we as parents have to take the responsibility of knowing what our kids play, for how long and whom with. The latest research shows that addicted children spent up to 18 hours playing games, and that the addiction to a computer game is similar to addiction to alcohol and drugs.
It will interfere with their ability to interact with the real world. It will cause them to want more and more of the same. It will cause them to act and feel upset, sometimes to the extreme, when the game is taken away from them.
With the modern games being so lifelike, even adults are getting hooked. A young mind of a child with no life experience can and will take computer games as a part of learning.
In real life when you fight and someone punches you, it hurts. When you offend someone a friend or a teacher, there is a consequence. That is how you learn.
Not the same with the computer games. With a lot of minor playing violent computer games, they will learn to be violent with no consequences. That is why from time to time you hear about those bizarre cases where the child run away from home , when a play station was taken away, teenager killing a score of classmates as a revenge “ for not accepting him” etc.. What is the industry response? In the interview with CBC channel a spokesperson for a gaming corp. said “We cannot be responsible for parent’s choices”, meaning— you are on your own. Of course, industry is in the business of taking money, and the easiest way is to put all the blame and responsibility to parents.
Of course not all the kids will be like that but why take chances? You as a parent will not leave up to the kid to try alcohol and drugs and figure out themselves that it is bad for them.
You will not stay quietly watching you underage kid smoking—he is too young to understand and needs to be taught what’s right and wrong.
Why take a different approach with computer games? You as a parent have the responsibility to make sure the games they play are rated appropriately for the child’s age
And even if the rating is appropriate—check the game itself. If you do not feel right about the game- then your child probably should not be playing it.
Also monitor how much time is spent on the computer: 3 hours is the maximum amount (and that is really stretching it). The recommended computer time is 90 minutes.
You have to set up the rules from the start. As o you buy a new computer, be prepared right away that with it comes the responsibility. Talk with your child and set up a time he / she is allowed to be on a computer. Make it a firm time, no “5 more minutes, 10 more minutes”. From experience trough I can say that it can be very hard to ask you child turn the computer off. Many games/ websites are designed in the way that keeps them glued to the monitors to get more virtual rewards. Games offer points for simply being online,
Games could not be saved until you reach certain point etc. Firms put many countless hours into figuring out how to keep your child hooked.
It is you as a responsible parent who has to face the daily battle. Apart from just being annoying (you have to keep nagging your child to get away from the computer) it is also reflects on your relationship with the child. They start to see you as something negative.
You take away their game. You are the bad guy. Some parents give up and let it be.
Some parents reach a certain level of frustration and lock a computer away for a certain time only to start a vicious circle again and again.
The answer? Get timing software. Used and proved time and again, it takes away “the human factor”. The child knows when they get a reminder from a computer; it will be turned off in 5 minutes, not a second later. They learn to take it. That is just how it is.
They know that they will have to do something else.
It also takes away your negative image. Yes’, you are the one who purchased and installed the program, but there is no daily power struggle because of the computer.
We encourage parent to try different computer time restricting programs to see which one is better suites for their needs, and we do have a free trial period on all of our parental controls http://www.YourSafetyGuide.com.
We are working hard to make best software products for parents because we are parents too!
The money spent on software is well worth saved time and effort of getting your child out of the computer.
Article by
SuperBond
Everyday battle to get your child shut down the computer? Make it easy with the software from IT Works