Domestic Psychology

small people, big phones

// May 19th, 2010 // 5 Comments » // parenting, technology, teenagers

My children have cell phones. Their friends have cell phones. Cell phones serve a purpose and I don’t want to argue about what others have said so clearly. I do want to point out two things.

First, parents need to have identifying information in their child’s phone so that it can be returned to the rightful owner if it is misplaced. I have “ICE” listed in the address book on all the cell phones in our house. The original purpose of ICE was to let emergency personnel know who to contact in case of an emergency, but it would have made returning the phone that someone left in the elementary school’s lost and found easier and quicker.

Second and more importantly, even though American Tourister needs to make cell phones for tweens/teens, breakage is not the worst thing that can happen to your child’s phone. Insurance accommodates phones soaked in pockets while practicing marching band in the pouring rain. It’s not even the dreaded cell phone thieves that are absolutely everywhere. Remember how upset Marsha was about the possibility of someone else reading her diary? Cell phones are the new diary. They are filled with facebook posts, text messages and pictures. Middle school boys have learned that “borrowing” a girl’s cell can reveal all kinds of embarrassing details. Nobody wants the entire school to know that, “if u lk me pls lt me knw cuz i lk u.” Aside from the embarrassing lack of English comprehension glimpses into your soul, there is the very real possibility that a girl’s phone has pictures you wouldn’t find published in the school yearbook.

There were more tears shed over a single missing cell phone at the middle school dance than all the histrionic drama about boys. Eventually the phone was found on a counter in the boys’ bathroom. It wasn’t stolen. It was used for espionage. Putting ICE in the phone is easy. Teaching hormonal teens that anything they write, type, text or photo is potentially public is much, much more complicated. It’s not just teens that struggle to understand this. Full grown adults are still whining about facebook not respecting their privacy.

facebook is the new aol

// March 3rd, 2010 // 1 Comment » // technology, teenagers

“Augh! My paper that I spent an hour writing is GONE!”
“Relax. Let me see if there’s a saved copy of it. Were you using Word?”
“I was typing it up on facebook.”
“Facebook? You were writing a school paper on facebook?”
“Yes.”
“Open up something other than facebook and start over.”

“Did you see the links to colleges with art programs that I sent you?”
“No. Where did you send it?”
“It’s in an e-mail.”
“I never check e-mail. Send it to my facebook.”

Amy says / Evan says

// July 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // kid quotes, preschoolers, technology

Evan: “What’s text?”
Amy: “That’s when you use your thumbs to write words on the phone.”
Evan: “I get to press buttons?”
Amy: “Yes.”
Evan: “Can I do that now?”
Amy: “If you got one.”
Evan: racing out of the room “I gotta go find a phone.”

Dear cell phone service provider,

// May 25th, 2009 // 9 Comments » // mail, technology, teenagers

We’ve been together for a very long time. I really don’t ask for a lot from you. In exchange for almost never hearing from me, we have FIVE phones and pay you an exorbitant amount of money. It’s time for you to start providing some useful services in exchange for that hefty bill. I want, no, I NEED you to create a parental control features for cell phones that is modeled after the WoW parental controls. I want to be able to go in at any time and change the schedule of when my teenagers’ cell phones can be used. That’s not all I want need. I need to be able to control specific functions on the phone, like sending calls, receiving calls and most importantly, texting. I should be able to completely turn off texting from midnight until 6 a.m. I should be able to turn off all incoming/outgoing calls except 911 and me during school hours. I should be able to change my mind about these settings any time of day or night. In fact, I think that anytime a teenager’s phone goes over 10K text msgs in a single month, you should send a text count message to my phone. I’m not kidding. Let’s get this set-up going right now.

Thanks,
Cathy

a day in the life

// May 13th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // Doug, holidays, home, life, marriage, me, parenting, school, technology, teenagers

5/11 3:00 p.m. – Amy brings home a pile of disks filled with pictures that I agreed to compile into a montage for the First Graders’ end of the year celebration. Two of the teachers sent over 500 pictures each while one only sent about two dozen blurry pictures. My goal was a 10-15 minute loop that had a balance of all the children.

5/12 1:00 a.m. – Evan attempts his nightly trek to our bed, but upon finding me sitting at my computer, the half asleep child demands breakfast. He then proceeds to dump buckets of toys.
4:30 a.m. – Finish First Grade “Year in pictures” presentation, scoop up a cranky Evan and go to bed.
7:30 a.m. – Evan wakes and demands breakfast. Again.
9:00 a.m. – Doug informs me that my photo montage isn’t communicating with the school’s Smart Board.
9:01 a.m. – Begin uploading multiple versions of photo montage to web.
9:15 a.m. – Start washer and dryer.
9:30 a.m. – Evan needs food. Again.
10:00 a.m. – School Matters’ maintenance work, read and reply to e-mails & scan feed activity.
10:45 a.m. – I learn that one of the teachers figured out how to make the photo montage work.
11:00 a.m. – Evan pees on me because he is sitting instead of standing.
11:01 a.m. – Take bath & get dressed.
11:45 a.m. – Start washer and dryer. Again.
12:00 p.m. – Sit down to eat a sandwich which Evan takes from me after I have two bites.
12:30 p.m. – Make a School Matters’ post, read and reply to e-mails, & update Facebook and Twitter.
1:00 p.m. – My father shows up to give me a cake. He doesn’t know why.
1:01 p.m. – My father talks about my brother.
1:20 p.m. – My father leaves and takes Tommy home with him to help with yard work.
1:30 p.m. – Doug looks visibly relieved by the surprise cake delivery.
1:31 p.m. – Wash 2 sink loads of dishes and fold several loads of laundry.
3:00 p.m. – Get snack for Amy & Evan.
3:30 p.m. – Scan feed activity, read and reply to e-mails, & update Facebook and Twitter.
4:15 p.m. – Intervene in Amy & Evan screaming match.
4:45 p.m. – Run to pick up pizza.
5:15 p.m. – Feed children, wash faces and brush hair while scarfing down 2 pieces of pizza.
5:40 p.m. – Leave house and drive to high school.
6:00 p.m. – Attend Color Guard parent meeting that is 90% having our handout read aloud.
6:30 p.m. – No car, so walk *run across Kingston Pike to wait at Books-a-Million.
7:30 p.m. – Doug picks us up and we drive home.
8:00 p.m. – Give children quick baths and put them in jammies.
8:10 p.m. – Clean up the 2 inches of water that Evan dumped on the bathroom floor.
8:15 p.m. – Amy has screaming tantrum because Evan took the towel that she wanted.
8:20 p.m. – Clean children’s rooms so they can go to bed.
8:30 p.m. – Summoned to kitchen where family sings “Happy Birthday” to me.
8:32 p.m. – Gifted new knee socks.
8:35 p.m. – My father and Tommy call to say happy birthday after my mother tells them to do so.
8:40 p.m. – Tuck three youngest in bed. They all acknowledge they had no idea it was my birthday.
8:50 p.m. – Eat piece of strawberry cake.
9:00 p.m. – Wash dishes.
9:30 p.m. – Go downstairs to watch tv in bed. Doug already there watching Earth Girls are Easy.

*Insert teenage daughter snarking about my “big, ugly shoes” and pleading for me to take them off and walk barefoot on Kingston Pike, followed by her mocking the way I crossed Kingston Pike “like a chicken in heels.”

Noah says:

// May 12th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // kid quotes, technology, teenagers

On Noah’s SECOND school trip to Dollywood, he killed his cell phone on the Sidewinder. After sitting in the car for half an hour waiting for him after the last Chess Club meeting, Doug and I decided to try making one of the old phones from Doug’s electronics boneyard work for Noah. We found one that held a charge and handed it to Noah. He fumbled with it for all of five minutes before moaning, “I feel like you gave me a Caveman’s phone.”

prom prep

// May 2nd, 2009 // 1 Comment » // flickr, technology

toes and hair

famous last words

// February 10th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // aspergers, life, media, newspapers, school, technology

Me: “I wouldn’t have chosen to tell that story if it was going to get KNS comments.”

it takes a licking and keeps on ringing

// December 13th, 2008 // 6 Comments » // technology

Nothing in our household is safe from the Tazmanian 3-y-o. Yesterday, Doug put a cookie sheet in the 400 degree oven and only noticed the cell phone sitting on the pan AFTER it was cooking in the oven. The pan was quickly retrieved from the oven. So quickly that the cell phone went flying off the pan and across the kitchen. It landed in the dog’s water bowl. Well, it didn’t land as much as it splashed into the water, hit the bottom of the pan and bounced out of the bowl. The hot, wet phone finally rested in the middle of the kitchen floor. A quick quiz of the usual suspects clarified that Evan had, for reasons known only to him, put the phone on the cookie sheet. The phone cooled off, dried and seemed unharmed this morning. Noah put it in his pocket as he went to play Airsoft in the woods. A little while later, an unhappy Noah asked us to call his phone so that he could find where the phone was hiding in the piles of soggy leaves and branches after falling out of his pocket. The phone chirped a happy noise like a homing beacon and made its’ way back into Noah’s pocket. Best. Phone. Ever.

*bonus points if you know the obsolete product commercial referenced in the title

I still need professional media

// December 5th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // media, politics, technology

I don’t need newspapers. I do need the people-formerly-known-as-newspaper-writers. I need an online news source that gathers only the truth from rumors on blogs and provides an honest and accurate explanation of local news. I need someone to explain the what if we do and what if we don’t of proposed political amendments. More than anything else, I need to be able to *trust the professional media source.

I don’t need newspaper blogs that dangle raw meat in front of angry people because any hit is a good hit. Leave the carnival of crazy to blogs and have the dignity to be above it if you are a professional media source. I don’t need every news article link spamming me on Twitter. Twitter is a conversation and that means you are listening and interacting. If you have zero followers or only post links to your own site, you are missing out on what makes Twitter special. I have a feed reader to show me new articles as they are published. If you are doing real investigative journalism, e-mail the updates to subscribers.

I need to be able to access all my information via computers and cell phones. It’s portable, immediate and constantly updated. I don’t need a pile of newsprint. My dogs are already housebroken.

*I trust Newscoma. Wherever she goes, I will follow.