In a way I talk to my friends more than ever: Facebook, Twitter, text messages and email mean it’s easy to communicate with them. I can show all my friends what’s happening in my life with a quick status update and a photo, and they can do the same. I can show them I’m thinking of them by writing on their wall or ‘liking’ their status. We get to know the facts of each other’s lives ... But sometimes knowing these facts feels lonelier than ever. Read full article
I recently came across a blog post about the potential for mobile phones to weaken kids’ conversational skills. The post at the 21st Century Fluency Project (originally posted by Katherine Bindley at Huffington Post) talked about the positive and negative influence of mobile phones and technology in general on the ability of children and teenagers to communicate effectively.
The topic caught my eye as my 12-year-old son was going to be receiving his first mobile phone for Christmas. Read full article
Not long after the release of Sony’s PlayStation 2 (PS2) in 2000, I won a copy of the newly-released PlayStation game 'This is Football', in an online competition. Around the same time I was also given a shopping voucher as a bonus from work, and I used it to buy a PS2 unit – our family’s first-ever games console, and our first-ever DVD player ... It got to the point that we would ban the PlayStation for periods ... Read full article
This week there have been several articles in the media about the Network for Internet Investigation and Research in Australia . The team of experts behind the website are hoping to use it to provide information and support relating to internet addiction and obsessive behaviour associated with the use of computers and computer games ... Sadly, when I read the comments following the articles, the discussion was not centred on ways to develop positive computer habits and to diagnose and help those with harmful behaviours linked to internet usage. Read full article
Who else has this problem? This one always comes to a head in our house during the school holidays. Where are the entertaining and challenging and fun Playstation Games for teenage boys? I confess I have not done thorough research on this topic but having two teen boys in our house means that this question is frequently raised. Perhaps more than some parents, I am very careful about what I allow our teenage boys to play online or on the Playstation. Read full article
We post so much here about social skills and also about social networking sites like Facebook, this video just had to be shared. Watch it with your teenagers who will LOL and ROFL with you - it's actually a viral ad. campaign for an opera but trust us, it's worth a watch. Extremely funny if you have every used Facebook and Twitter. Read full article
Yvette Vignando appeared on The Morning Show on Channel 7 with Rod from Gadget King to talk about new tablet technology for children and the views of some people who say it may have an adverse affect on children learning to read and spell. Yvette said it comes back to parental responsibility and making sure children still have time to develop in other important ways. Read full article
This is a parenting biography with a difference - 6 months in the lives of a family with three teenagers who somehow survived unplugged from technology, just. For any parent who's ever sent a text to their child at the dinner table - or yanked the modem from its socket in a show of primal parental rage - this account of one family's self-imposed exile from the Information Age will leave you ROFLing with recognition. But it may also challenge you to take stock of your own family connections, to create a media ecology that encourages kids - and parents - to thrive. Read full article
Wednesday 2 February 2011 - Links to Latest Parenting and Education news: Curing Childhood Cancers ~ Teen Blogger Jailed ~ Behaviour of 'Poor' Children in UK ~ Swearing in US Schools ~ School Achievement and Race in US ~ Police Taking Teens Home off Streets ~ Influence of Technology on Childhood Read full article
Monday 24 January 2011 - Links to Latest Parenting and Education news: Surrogacy Law in NSW ~ Robot at School ~ Pink and Girls ~ Parental Worry ~ Girls in India Read full article
