Internet Mom News

We all dream of staying home with our kids, but for some of us it can only be a dream. The reality is that most families think they need two incomes to survive, which is often the case if we have overspent and found ourselves in debt. Single parents must work, since they are the sole bread winner. This desire to stay at home makes many of us a target for online work-at-home scams.

First, it is entirely possible to make a very good income at home, but it will take work and time to build up that income. Those ads promising thousands or even hundreds a day without any effort are all scams.

Never, ever pay anyone money to get a job. The only exception to this rule I have found are some online phone customer service positions that require you to pay a fee for a background check. Even these don't require the fee upfront, though. They instead take the fee from your first paycheck.

On the flip side, never give a potential employer free work. As a writer, I come across this scam often: “Write a 500 word sample on the planning a Caribbean vacation.” These people are likely going to steal that sample and publish it somewhere, and you will never hear from them again. I do send samples, but only links or copies of previously published work.

Check out the company before giving them your information. Many legit online companies are easy to find in the Better Business Bureau listings. A bit of Googling can reveal quite a bit too, such as whether or not others have been scammed by them. Join a few work-at-home forums. These members are helpful and can help guide you to legitimate opportunities.

I know it's the weekend when requests for computer time begin bombarding me from my kids. Even though we're a tech savvy family, I'm a real stickler about limiting the boys' exposure to both computers and television. I spend a lot of time around children ages 6 to 12 in my role with local scouting, and some of the things I have seen made me stingy with the screen.

It's saddening to see the amount of kids whom can entertain themselves for more than a couple of minutes. These children cannot engage their own imaginations fully and only the biggest and brightest can capture their attention. I don't want my boys to grow up with such short attention spans. There is no good reason for an 8 year old to be jaded!

Our family's answer is strict limits on screen time. They get a couple of hours on the weekend and that's it. Sometimes they spend their time on TV, but usually it's on the computer or game console. My oldest gets a bit more screen time throughout the week, both for educational purposes and he can earn a bit here and there. (Unless the sun is shining, then outside they go!) We've been rewarded with imaginative, creative kids that can entertain themselves for hours and are seldom bored.

If you want to try limiting computer time, begin with a cold turkey blackout week. Like breaking any addiction, the first few days are hard. Tantrums, whining and bickering are the norm, so be prepared. After a few days the kids come out of the computer trance. If you can stretch the blackout to a month, you'll be surprised. The kids are generally more peaceful and they may even forget to use up their newly allotted computer time. Mine do occasionally. Give them computer time in small doses. Many kids that aren't tech-addicted actually get bored with the passive nature of computer games!

Facebook is a part of most of our lives these days. It seems the more the site invades our privacy, makes inconvenient changes, and becomes a hotbed of scams, the more hooked we are on it. Net etiquette is still in its fledging status, it seems, since Facebook seems to bring out the worst in otherwise pleasant people.

1. Not everyone play “Farmville” and similar. Constant status updates requesting game help from your buddies can clog a news feed quickly. Take advantage of the Groups feature so you and your friends who do play a game can post to your hearts content without clogging up your non-player friend lists.

2. TMI is TMI, even on Facebook. Some status updates belong in a message. Your friends list at large does not want to hear about your hemorrhoids, sexual prowess or nose picking fetish. If you wouldn't yell it out in a crowded shopping mall, don't yell it out on Facebook.

3. Keep it readable. Spelling and grammar errors occur, but don't try to misspell or overly use text-speak to look cute. You will give everyone over the age of 13 a migraine. Also, avoid all caps or cute typing techniques, like capitalizing every other letter. It is annoying and rude.

4. On this same note, don't turn into the grammar police. Typos and honest mistakes will occur. Posting corrections on everyone's status updates doesn't make you look witty, it makes you look like an ass.

5. Monitor your kids. This is a serious one for safety. Let your child know they must be on your friends list. It's also a good idea to make it a rule that you have access to their password. I'm not telling you to snoop on your kids. Let them know you will do periodic checks, no reason to be secretive about it.

6. Now, once your child is on your friend list you need to behave yourself a bit. Be a model of the online behavior you want your child to emulate.

Studies have long shown that too much television isn't a good thing, especially for children. We took that to heart in our home and reduced our kids TV time drastically – one or two hours on the weekend, tops. Enough so they can watch a favorite program or a movie. Funny thing is, they rarely use the time (except for documentaries. My 11 year old is a documentary junkie).

I expect those studies to change in a year or two, though, due to a phenomenon that may beat out the television as the supreme rotter of kids' brains. I'm talking about the smartphone. This bit of technology that so many of us now wonder how we lived without (me included!) seems to be taking the place of TV with the preschool set. Everywhere I go I see moms enjoying pleasant adult conversation while their docile offspring sits quietly nearby staring at the little 4-inch screen in their hands.

I hang out with a lot of crunchy mamas and Waldorf-types. Most of these mamas limit technology around the wee ones, are proponents of natural toys, and actively work to provide a creative and imaginative environment for their kids. Yet, on more than one occasion I have seen them pass the Angry Birds to the child or set up a Netflix movie on the phone to occupy the little during a long wait.

I've perused a few articles on the subject over the last year, and frankly I'm disgusted. Yes, I have let my kids try out a game or two on my phone, especially when I first got it, but it has never become a crutch. I find moms saying the phones let them buy silence from their kids, or go out to dinner without the littles whining, or even work as bribery to get homework done. Wow, this is not parenting at its finest. Why buy silence when you should be interacting with your children, learning about their interest and modeling conversational skills? If your kids are that horrible at a restaurant, where have you gone wrong in modeling and enforcing expectations of correct behavior?

One mom recently summed it up. She was behind me in line at a Starbucks and had a screaming toddler, probably not yet two, at her feet. She smiled apologetically at me as she passed her phone to the little one. “I'm so sorry. She always throws a tantrum when I come here unless she gets her Dora on the phone.”

Yep, that just about summed it up for me. My kids won't be babysat by technology.