Protector or Spy? How far is too far with internet security?

Tommy and I have always been pretty careful to keep up with what our kids read, watch and listen to. I've had my share of "discussions" with teachers and librarians about required reading, believe me. It seems, though, that as the kids get older (18, 16 & 10) we are not able to keep up as easily. We are older too and they can simply move faster than we can. :)

We have always taught our kids the "garbage in, garbage out" concept and that you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. So they can own some responsibility for their actions but as parents, what lengths do we go to when it comes to internet security?

This week, we set out on researching Parental Control software in order to protect our kids from the weirdo's and meanies out there in cyber world but we've come to a realization that alot of the softwares out there are more like spyware. You can watch what sites they visit, monitor their chats, take screenshots of things they view and even monitor their every keystroke even when they're not in the internet. That all sounds good in theory in the name of protection but is it too much?

We trust our kids. Tommy and I trust each other. We have no reason not to. But how far do we go to protect our kids and each other and balance that with respecting privacy? We all need some accountability in this area.

What if we did nothing more than what we do now, which is verbal communication and having basic security settings on our software that we currently use? What if our kids stumble across something and it causes them to stumble? I mean, that can happen by typing anything on google images. No software is going to filter google images. It's just impossible to be completely safe.

I would feel like a horrible parent if I found out we could have done something and didn't but I also feel like a horrible parent if we "spy". Of course, if they know we're doing it then it's not spying. On top of that, though, the software is expensive and still not the perfect solution.

What's a parent to do???

I recently put word out among my facebook friends and asked what they do and what they recommend. The consensus was basically to "do what your gut tells you to do and do all that you can to protect your kids. You'd rather having them mad at you than hooked on porn." I can go for that but we want to maintain a healthy and honest relationship with our kids as well. Our job as parents is to influence and train them to make good choices because one day we will not be around to protect them from everything.

So, we're still not sure what we're going to do longterm. We think for now that we're going to tell our kids that they aren't allowed to delete their history until we've looked at it. That we want access to their history and it better not be cleared or there will be consequences. They know that the demons are out there. Anna, our 10 year old, being a little more naive, will need more firm guidelines. She can only go to sites that we say she can and others will need to be by permission only, like google images. We will put our computers in a walk through area as best we can be more aware of what is on the screen. Our kids have always known that if we walk through and they hit the minimize button, that's no good. And they know we're watching.

So, going with our gut... we just can't afford to be lazy in this area so we'll pay closer attention and have more conversations with our kids about where they're going on the net and go from there.

We're not "buck passers" and we certainly can't "fix the internet"! But we can pay attention. Parenting is a tough business and leaves no room for laziness or complacency in any area but must be balanced with love and trust.

Blogs We Like - Singapore

By now, you probably know that we are preparing for our move to Singapore in June or so. We have been preparing for this move since last summer and have been following some blogs to help us find out what's there, what's not there and see the sights.

Below are a few blogs we like a lot and thought we'd share in case you want to read up or see some beautiful photos. Often, these bloggers travel and post stories and photos from other locations. We pretty much have our trips all planned out by using these blogs. They often post things that they have no idea how helpful the information was to me as I've been able to read between the lines. We've learned a lot about what is there and what is not, what to expect, etc. We have even been able to connect with a couple of them. The country of Singapore is small (smaller than Brazoria County) so I'm hoping to get to meet a few, if not all, of these bloggers once we're there. We appreciate them all taking the time to share their journey with us. It has been a most helpful blessing!

http://millysmix.blogspot.com/ This one is my (Andrea's) favorite since she posts things from a family perspective.

http://www.oureverydaythings.com/ This is my NEW 2nd favorite. She takes some beautiful photos and is also family oriented.

http://laurainsingapore.blogspot.com/

http://seenthisscenethat.blogspot.com/ Mostly pictures he takes of destinations, parks, etc. in Singapore.

http://tryingsingapore.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

Those of you who aren't wanting to hear much about our move to Singapore, here's your warning and now's your chance to remove our blog link from your reader. (Although I hope you won't.) Moving to Singapore is quickly becoming a major focus of where our family is headed and what we are doing so it will be hard to blog without the topic of Singapore showing up. :)

Helpful Homeschool Links and Information

I've been needing to put this together for a long time to share with a couple of friends and also just to have all of these links documented somewhere. I got most of these from trusted homeschooling friends and we stumbled up on a few of them on our own.

If you're going to homeschool, whatever you decide to use, be okay with making adjustments to make it fit you and your child. You're probably not going to find anything that is perfect. However, Teaching Textbooks for math comes pretty darn close! That is my all-time favorite and I can't say enough good about it!

In most communities, you can find homeschool groups to join that enable you to network ideas and also participate in field trips, etc. There are also many co-op options in most areas. Just takes a little digging. The internet might just be your most valuable tool! We haven't participated in the groups or co-ops but they are always an option for something you might not feel comfortable teaching. For me, one of the downfalls of homeschooling is that I lack passion in teaching particular subjects. A trained and educated teacher might have been able to make Julius Caesar come alive for Jakeb or Alegbra 2 be fun or come up with a much better science or history project for a 4th grader. But since I'm not knowledgeable about those things (and other things) I almost feel like my kids are sometimes missing out. This is out-weighed, however, by many, many other benefits.

I'm sure this is not a comprehensive listing. When I think of or run across other helpful information or links, I'll post again. If anyone reading has anything to add, please feel free to comment.

My main pieces of advice for homeschool parents are:
1) If you're married, both husband and wife need to have a strong committment and dedication level. This has been a very challenging year for me (and fulfilling!) but without Tommy's support and help, I would definitely have gone bonkers! If you're single, make sure you have some type of support from grandparents or close family and friends or a homeschool group. It would be so hard to do this alone!
2) Be sure and physically look at your curriculum choices if at all possible. Either at a store or at a friends house. We were headed in one direction with Anna but when I physically saw it, it was absolute chaos on a page and would not have worked well for Anna's learning style at all! Saved us a ton of money!
3) Remain open minded to new ideas and techniques. If something is not working, be willing to try something new.
4) Be flexible but not so flexible that your kids think they are in control and can do whatever they want.
5) Relax every now and then, ditch the lessons and have fun being with your kids! Instead of reading about clouds in your science book, go outside and look at them. What a treasured time!!


Links we've actually used:

http://freetypinggame.net/ This site is tons of fun for the family to play with each other!

http://www.multiplication.com/interactive_games.htm Anna struggled with her multiplication tables at the beginning of the year. She knows them well thanks to this and some other fun math games we found. We love the Jump Start software games and I also found a music cd with the multiplication tables put to classical tunes. She HATED it but it was incentive to learn them when I told her that when she learned them all she wouldn't have to listen to it anymore. :)

Snagfilms (You can find some documentaries here that are hard to find. This has been helpful to enhance history and science lessons.)

The Homeschool Store This is a great store in Houston and the only one I've been to. They have a lot of new and used stuff. It's stuffed from wall to wall so bring your Starbucks and plan on staying for a couple of hours and you might consider leaving your young kids with grandma or a friend. You'll need to be able to focus if you're going to research. They do have a video corner and they welcome kids, of course.

Homeschool Tracker (LOVE this! I could not stay organized without it. I make my lesson plans on this and enter grades. It tracks attendance and spits me out report cards. Wonderful tool! We used the free download since we only planned on homeschooling for one year. I'm sure the one you pay for is much better if you don't mind paying for it.)

A Beka We used this for most of Anna's curriculum. I have some major issues with how "King James" it is but we just made our own adjustments. It was our fall back since we used it when we homeschooled Tori in the 4th grade. I couldn't find anything else that I was happy with so we went with A Beka again. It's laid out well for non teachers such as me with handy lesson plans and answer keys and such. I particularly liked the core subjects in these - History, Science and Language. The reading program has been very helpful for her and she has improved considerably. Anna really enjoyed the science and we liked how it brings our history and creation back to the Creator. Math was okay but we ended up switching to Teaching Textbooks.

Teaching Textbooks (math) My FAVORITE math. We use for Jakeb, Algebra 2 and Geometry. We even switched Anna from A Beka to this mid year. It's awesome for the student and the teacher!! Only starts at 4th grade right now, though.

Rosetta Stone for Homeschool They have a great setup for tracking the kids lessons and grades for homeschool use. You can buy one and the whole family can learn. Can only be loaded onto one computer.

Apologia We used this for Jakeb's chemistry. A challenge but great curriculum. The chemistry home lab kit is even available.

BJU Press We used their World History for Jakeb. We love how it's built around the bible. Very intense, though, and covers a lot of material.

Rainbow Resource This is a one stop shop for homeschool curriculum. We ordered most of what we needed from here when we got started. Their prices are good. It's also a good place to go dig around and see what other curriculum options are out there that you may not be aware of.

Amazon They actually have a lot of homeschool stuff. We order Jakeb's history from Amazon to utilize the free shipping over $25 option.

Christian Book Distributors Same here. Good resource to price compare.

Progeny Press This is what we've used for Jakeb's literature. You can order age appropriate books and a study guide to go with it. I'm thinking of getting one of these for Anna to finish out her year and have something different to do than A Beka. They are very reasonably priced. We also used this for Jakeb's Poetry. He didn't like it but it was a good study.

Wordsmith (Creative Writing) We used this for Jakeb. The A Beka writing program, Penmanship and Language A, was fine for Anna.

Vocabulary from Classical Roots We used this for Jakeb to prepare him for SAT. It's laid out well but is a challenge to teach. He has learned a lot, though, that will be helpful for him when taking the SAT.

Analogies 2 We got this for Jakeb also to use to prepare for the SAT. Again, it's not fun but necessary.



Recommended links that we didn't use:

Kid Test I totally meant to use this and forgot about it until now when I was going through all of my emails to get these links. I may still go do this for Anna & Jakeb to see if they're on track. It's not free but I can't remember how much it is. Maybe $25 or something like that.

Dive Into Math

HEP Bookstore Homeschool Store in Houston. This store offers SAT prep courses and other helpful classes like how to make your student's transcript and such. Great resource but I haven't needed it. I did get some great info from their website when we began though from the FAQ's page. You should definitely check that out!

http://www.bravewriter.com/

http://www.excellenceinwriting.com/

http://www.sonlight.com/

http://www.mathusee.com/


UPDATE
Here are two more links for some good science project ideas that I found. I actually pulled several easy ones to try this week for Anna's study of matter, air and weather but there are lots of others there for young and old kiddos.

http://www.hometrainingtools.com/articles/acat_science-projects.html

http://home.howstuffworks.com/science-projects-for-kids-weather-and-seasons13.htm


UPDATE 2
This is a great resource for parents of children with learning disabilities or issues. They also have a resource for homeschool support. Check it out!
http://www.thewoodlandslearningcenter.com/

Proper Etiquette

(she must be messing with her nose ring!)

I've been thinking alot lately about proper blog, facebook and email etiquette. For me, for my kids, and maybe for you. :) I was thinking of coming up with my own list of do's and don'ts but since I'm lacking a creativity and time these days I decided to google it and see what happened.

I found some good stuff out there and thought, "Why reinvent the wheel?"

This link on blog etiquette or blogtiquette as it is apparently called is awesome! I'm even adding it to my reader, I think it will be a fun one to keep track of.
http://tipjunkie.blogspot.com/2008/05/blog-etiquette-or-blogtiquette.html

Here is an article on facebook etiquette I found interesting.
http://quarterlifecafe.honadvblogs.com/2008/08/04/the-new-facebook-etiquette/

And here is a list of the top 26 email etiquette rules. I love #6! and #8. #11 is my absolute favorite though. I hate to be left wondering....
http://email.about.com/od/emailnetiquette/tp/core_netiquette.htm

So go read them. Make your kids read them. Send this to all those people who send you all that junk. :)

And, let me know what your favorite etiquette rule is. Maybe you've got one that's not out there. Maybe it's something I do (or did in this very post) that you'd love to call me out on. Now's your chance! Please share...

Update: Here's one more link I found. Maybe the only one you'll need. She's got TONS of etiquette links listed including Twitter and My Space and others. http://communityorganizer20.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/social-media-etiquette-roundup-understanding-cultural-norms/