Limiting your kids' iOS use
Concerned parent and reader Frank Reilly seeks a way to control his kids’ device use. He writes:
My two children each have an iPod touch and they spend a lot of time with them on Facebook and Instagram. My wife and I try to keep an eye on the time they spend, but we don’t want to be police either. I’ve looked at the iPods’ restrictions but they don’t do what we want, which is to limit the hours they can use these services. Any suggestions?
At the risk of offering parenting advice, the first step is to evaluate how much time the kids are really spending and then determine the harm it’s doing. If it’s interfering with more important activities—homework, chores, exercise, and time spent with the family and friends—it’s time for The Talk. And The Talk, in this case, emphasizes that while this technology is very cool, there’s more to life than staring at a screen and interacting with virtual friends. Then try to set up a schedule where social networking is placed in the context of a recreational pursuit.
If The Talk doesn’t take and the kids are spending more time than you’re prepared to allow, there are sterner approaches you can take. One of the harshest is to set up a system where the kids have to “check out” the devices during certain times of the day. When that time expires, they have to turn them over to you. Very few teenagers will put up with this approach, plus it puts you in the position of being the iPod cop.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
http://www.macworld.com/article/2025807/limiting-your-kids-ios-use.html
