Using Technology in Our Home and Homeschool: Our Family’s Rules

I’ll be the first to admit that technology scares me a little. The sheer volume of information at my children’s fingertips is terrifying. I worry about what they might be accidentally exposed to, and I worry about their developing brains. But I have also been around children long enough to know that if they aren’t shown how to use this resource wisely and prudently and properly, they can easily become addicted and lost down the rabbit hole of screen time.

Our kids are little. So as we begin with the end in mind, we’ve set several hard limits to technology use in our household that we hope will help us maintain a baseline of responsible screen use.

1st Rule of Thumb: Public Use Only

First, the kids know that if they have a tablet, they need to be with us or within our eyesight in order to use it. There is no taking the tablet to the other room or being alone for screen time. This isn’t a problem right now for our kids, I know exactly what games are on the tablet and I’m not particularly concerned right now. But Mark and I want to set the precedent that nothing you do on a tablet is private. I think and hope this will help us out as they grow older.

2nd Rule of Thumb: Time Limits

The second hard limit is time. We are careful to limit screen time to about an hour a day, no matter what form it is. Obviously there are exceptions. Like right now, when half the family is down with the stomach bug. My kids have watched and played more this week than usual, because, survival.

3rd Rule of Thumb: Lots and Lots of Passwords

Third, we have passwords and pins on every single piece of technology we own. Gianna figured out how to swipe at 18 months, so it was a necessity, and one that we will keep. It means they have to physically bring the tablet to us and ask us to unlock it. There’s no sneaking time.

4th Rule of Thumb: Parental Controls

And fourth, we have parental controls on devices we allow the kids to use. We have one Kindle Fire that is set up for the kids. It came with Amazon Free Time on it, which has the best parental controls I’ve seen so far. It allows you to set time limits, activity requirements, and age limits. It also allows us to turn off the web browser and remove content that we don’t like. My one complaint is that it came pre-loaded with content, which meant I had to manually go through and delete everything I didn’t like. I would have much preferred being able to go through and add content I did want.

I’m sure that these rules will evolve as our children get older, and that we’ll be regularly tweaking and adding new ones, but for now, these are working well for us.

Does your family have any technology rules? What works for you and your kids?