My husband and I purchased our first PC when my children were young. The people who needed time monitoring were I and my husband at the time- what an incredible machine this was! We discovered the wonderful world of Internet surfing, EBay, instant messaging and, I admit, I fell into the elusive lure of the chartrooms.

As my children grew, they also discovered the communication advantages of the computer. Since we only had one PC at the time, we had to share. It got to the point where we had to make schedules and time constraints "Ok...Mary uses it for 2 hours, from 4-6, then dinner (YOU MEAN WE HAVE TO STOP TO EAT DINNER?), then Tom has it from 6-8 and then the parents get their turns...."

Well, my kids found a way around this scheduling concept. Suddenly they needed the computer to "do homework". How could I, as a parent, argue with the fact that my children actually WANTED to do homework? Hence, a new rule was proclaimed- if you are doing homework, then you can stay on the computer until the assignment is finished.

I did not stand over my studious little children as they typed away furiously, frantically moving the mouse. After all it was homework right? When I glanced over, or walked by, I saw the assignment prominently displayed on the monitor.

I did become suspicious when it was taking hours for my children to complete a 50 word essay question.

Detective Mom decided to investigate. I "surprised" my daughter by sneaking up behind her and innocently asking "Oh, what kind of homework are you doing?"- just in time to see her quickly click off an instant message to her friend.

She feigned a look of horror followed by anger, as if how DARE I sneak up on her?

The excuses were obvious

Daughter: "I was asking my friend about homework".
Mom: "Then let me see the instant message".
Daughter: "NO WAY MOM!"

After that, I gave her fifteen minutes to finish her "homework" and relinquish the computer.

We have landlines and cell phones and texting, however for some reason, our children like the idea of chatting with several different people at once. They run to check MySpace and Facebook and email and can spend literally hours on the computer not being productive. The question is how much monitoring is our responsibility?

As children get older, they need to start understanding the importance of budgeting their time. We can set constraints with the understanding that there are exceptions. Depending on the age of the child, these

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about Monitoring your child's computer time?
We want to hear your view. Write now!