Page 198 - Resources and Support for the Online Educator

Chapter 7 • Household Guidelines

A big reason to put some sort of shared guidelines in place sooner rather than
later is that they help avoid those battles. Without agreed-upon guidelines and
rules, you might find yourself in the following scenario.

Over-gaming Scenario

Your son is playing his video game and not doing his homework or chores.
You try and approach it calmly at first and say, “Hey, son, I know you are
having fun playing that game, but could you wrap it up and finish your home-
work and chores first?”

By asking it like a question, you empower him to respond with a yes or no and
give him some level of control of the situation. However, you also run the risk
of him saying “just a minute,” and then continuing to play for hours.
A more strict (and even less effective way) would be to say, ”Hey listen, I don’t
understand why you keep goofing around with that silly game. You know you
have work to do, yet you make the poor choice of playing that game instead.
Stop procrastinating and turn that thing off before I throw it out the window!”
In the above scenario and final response, you have effectively thrown in judg-
ment and a fake consequence to solve a problem. You may think the game he is
playing is silly, but he obviously feels it warrants his attention much more than
homework and chores. Also, saying you’ll throw his device out the window
relays your anger, but again, it’s something you are unlikely to do (hopefully).

One of the things I’ve stressed over and over in this book is the need to have
constant communication with your child about their activity on their devices.
In the next two chapters, we’ll go into some rules and also restrictions that you
can put in place to help curb their inappropriate use. Please know that no set
of rules or restrictions can replace honest discussion and conversation with
your child. I’ll also throw in some more scenarios like the one above and give
some options for responses. Please know that every situation and every child is
different, so the scenarios and guidelines I offer are suggestions and not hard-
and-fast rules to follow.

78 Mobile Learning Mindset: The Parent’s Guide to Supporting Digital Age Learners

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