Parenting Our OnLine Savvy Children
As a busy parent who runs a lot of my business online in different time zones, it means it can be hard to get it right when setting an example for my children.
Children learn more from what they see us do, rather than what we tell them, which can bring up a myriad of problems. How can I tell my teen son not to spend so much time online, if he sees me checking my phone all hours of the day?Even the excuse of “It’s for work” isn’t good enough!
I strive for balance and for more times when I am completely present with no distractions from the online world.
Also, hearing how other parents navigate this topic is something I am always interested in hearing more about.
I recently had a work trip to Brussels where I met author Wayne Denner. Wayne speaks to this subject a lot and goes into schools sharing his wisdom with students. He also works with parents about online safety. He has a great guide for Students called “The Students Guide to an Epic Online Reputation (and Parents Too).”
This book provides students and parents with sound advice on how to manage social media, the internet, and their smartphones responsibly, to promote opportunities for them.
There is no doubt about it that online is most definitely here to stay, and God only knows how far advances in AI will take us. And I want to stress to my teen that it’s not all bad by modeling the positives to him in.
Armed with inspiration after my Brussels trip I went browsing for some fun games that I would be actually able to play with my child because gaming online is not something I do that much of. I was thrilled to come across online Monopoly.. its not exactly Monopoly but its not far off it. It has the much more enticing name of “Kingdom Wars.”
It’s based on the same principle of acquiring land and charging anyone who lands on your land rent, as well as the possibility of being sent to jail! The characters in the game cracked me up, with their angry, warrior faces.
The fact that I get Monopoly meant I didn’t feel totally inadequate playing it with my son who has such an easier time grasping online games than I do. But then that’s an age thing, or at least that’s my excuse. I am better at creating sales funnels and writing blog posts.
After a few rounds of Monopoly, it was on to a cryptocurrency game, the “Bitcoin Bubble Shooter.” Talk about being up-to-date with buzzwords. This was definitely more of a game where I let my teen off on his own and watched as he advanced through the various stages of the game, earning power-ups.
This whole experience showed me there is something online for all of us and although I was online with my son, we managed to have a laugh, I got to show off my monopoly knowledge and he got to advance to all sorts of levels in the bitcoin world.
As I said it’s all about balance for me, after our online gaming we brought the dog for a walk, without any smart phone or laptop between us!