Posts tagged as:

Safety

Online Predator Risks Put Into Perspective

May 7, 2009

Photo by Wesley Fryer You’re watching the evening news and the anchor says, “Coming up next! Something that will scare the crap out of you!” After a sequence of commercials, back to the news program where they report on a murder, or an abduction, or just something that shocks and frightens you. They peddle fear [...]

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Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy

April 26, 2009

Talking to my ex the other day about my 13-year-old son and how I would be willing to let him go hang out by the beach with his friends in the summer time, she made it clear that she wouldn’t agree to that. I pointed out that when we were 13 years old that we [...]

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A Tale of Two Types of Parental Control Software

March 31, 2009

Speaking to a customer who was trying out ComputerTime, I was asked if ComputerTime did parental control types of things. What she really was asking was, “Does ComputerTime do internet filtering?” Some people think the terms are synonymous. But parental control software is a more general term and can refer to different types of control. [...]

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Hearing Loss Occurs Sooner Than You Might Think

March 9, 2009

Whether you suffer hearing loss from headphones depends on three things: how loud you listen to music, how long you listen, and what type of headphones you listen with. Most MP3 players (such as the iPod) come with the earbud style headphones which are placed in the ear, will cause hearing loss faster than supra-aural [...]

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POLL: Does the Internet Worry You?

February 24, 2009

Following up on my previous post about fearing the internet… As a parent (or grandparent, educator, child-care-giver, whatever), Does the Internet scare you as a parent? Yes. I think the dangers are real. A little. Stay vigilant. Eh. It’s part of the world we live in. The real world scares me more.    pollcode.com free [...]

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The Only Thing We Have to Fear…

February 24, 2009

“Your kids may be in danger!” says the news media. They know fear gets people’s attention; attention let’s them sell advertising. The truth may just be less attention-grabbing. Is the Internet a dangerous place where evil lurks and kids are at risk? Do we need to worry? No. Probably not. Recent findings from a task [...]

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Free E-Book on Free Range Kids

February 16, 2009

Though it’s a couple of years old, I came across a free e-book about free range kids: No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society, by Tim Gill. This is not to be confused with the Free Range Kids blog by Lenore Skenazy, or her upcoming book called Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the [...]

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Roots and Wings: “But the world is a different place now.”

January 2, 2009

How old do your kids need to be before you’ll let them travel on public transportation? My daughter just flew from JFK to Houston with a friend the same age as her: fourteen. A direct flight, with adults dropping them off at the gate and picking them up at the other end. All things considered [...]

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Loss of “Right to Roam” and Nature’s Benefits

November 11, 2007

What made this article particularly interesting was the graphic that accompanied it, showing how each successive generation was granted less and less liberty to roam. The author of the article doesn’t take any technology-related angle, but you would think that with cell phone and GPS related technology that parents might be able to loosen up [...]

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