Safe Computing

We recently starting using the Windows Live Family Safety tools/environment on our Play Room computer and it looks hopeful. Here is a good write-up / how-to in the event you'd like to use this as well.

Vision over visibility

An insistence on looking past what you can see in favor of what could be.
- Bono

Leadership

A leader can quickly determine who is helping and who is not.

A good leader supports and enables those who are trying to help.

A great leader finds the ways to enable everyone to help.

Staying Connected While Away From Home

Work life…

In previous jobs I traveled quite a bit and although it felt good to make the phone call back home, I always wished I could do more to connect with my family and be with my family even though I was away. Through a healthy number of emails, SMS/IM messages, and webcam sessions, I could float into what they were doing, remind them that I was thinking of them and feel, in some way, that much closer and that much more a part of the numerous small, precious moments which make up the memories of one’s life. At times the content of those touch points could seem trivial (”miss u talk 2 u l8tr”) and other times monumental (”really miss u and the kids”) but they were enough to make me feel that my presence, my silliness, my daddiness/parentness was still close at hand adding to the family activities and discourse.

Another way to connect…

So while I was between jobs, this thought of “connecting” interestingly bubbled up while I was playing around with a web bookmarking service (Delicious) and the result was something which gave me one more way to be at home even though I wasn’t physically home. The idea was simple, create an account on Delicious (pretty easy) and create a “Tag” (which is simply just a word/phrase which you want to categorize things under, like “news” or “family” or “sports”. I chose “Hometone”). Then whenever or wherever I was, if I came across something on the net which I thought was interesting (and appropriate) for the kids, I would Tag it. Back home, on their play room computer (they only have one which they share in the play room and which has a nice sized screen so that they can see it from anywhere in the room), I created a shortcut that when they clicked on it, it would bring up the list of things I Tagged.

Parent / teacher…

Pretty simple and straightforward, but the result has been much more. While traveling to far off (and even not so far off) places, I would come across an interesting online gallery of Lego creations and think “if I were home, I would love to show the kids this and see if we could create one of them” and then tag it. Elsewhere I would come across a great audio clip (Baseball Driveway Moments for instance) on NPR and think “this would be something fun for us to listen to together” and then tag it. On another day and in another place, I would come across a great “learning Japanese” video and tag it knowing that at some point, far away from me, my wife and/or kids would click on the HomeTone link and be presented with a list of things daddy was sending them, a stream of thoughts and impressions daddy was thinking which brought daddy that much closer. This HomeTone is one of the things we’ve tried to set up in our home (our Learning Home) and it’s been a fun and rewarding endeavor for the whole family.

Life work…

Staying connected, deeply connected can still be difficult even in this over-connected world we are in, but it’s worth continually working toward creating and maintaining. All the noise and all the candy that is out there can pose a constant attack on what’s important and can cause you to take your eye off the ball so here is another simple and easy way to keep some of that in check and stay connected with your family in a value adding way.

This is also reprinted here at TheFatherLife.com (thanks Father Life).

Getting ready for a pet

Getting a pet for the family is one of those great events which kids and parents hopefully remember fondly.  After having Webkinz stuffed animals in the house for a couple of years, it seems that the kids may almost be ready for a real pet.  Between having stuffed animals and having relatives and friends with pets, they at least know they love pets and so the question is whether the entire family is ready.  Though answers to that question will vary from family to family, one little thing we've found useful is to use the Webkinz environment to reinforce some of the basic responsibilities they will have once a pet becomes part of the family.  There are many ways this interactive online environemnt can be used, but the one being mentioned today has to do with reinforcing the need to take your pet outside every day.  To those familiar with the Webkinz online environment, this will sound familiar and for those who are not, consider looking into it:

1. Get a Webkinz stuffed animal.  We received one as a gift so that was pretty easy.  Once you have one, you can set up the online environment pretty quickly for your kids.
2. Create an outdoor yard for your pet in the online environment.
3. Buy growable / interactive vegetables to put in your yard.  You do not buy these with real money, they are simply some of the things you can get with the Kinz cash which you are given online.
4. Plant the vegetables.  Once you do that, every time you and your child logon to visit your Webkinz online, you can go and see them grow, water them and do some simple tending to them so that they grow.
5. With that all set up, it's easy to have your kids visit their online Webkinz and have them take them for a walk in the garden to see how their vegies are growing.
6. That's it.  The simple suggestion to "visit your Webkinz and check on what's growing in your garden" on a regular basis has a good balance of fun, reward and reminders which can act as a useful scaffolding to hang other lessons and activities upon.

These online environments (e.g. Webkinz, JumpStart World etc) are not only fun places for kids but can also be great tools for families...and they may help keep the carpets clean(er).

Btw, if interested, here is a JumpStart clip for those not familiar with it...