Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Old Fashioned

Call me old fashioned but there are some things about new technology that I'm not a fan of.  They are all great, smart phones, ipads/tablets etc that offer many conveniences today but I think way too many adult and children are addicted to them.  I personally don't own a smart phone.  I almost got one but decided against it because I didn't want to be that mom that sits on her phone wasting time while ignoring my kids, or that wife and husband that communicate on facebook while sitting next to each other, trust me I've seen it.  I can survive without one just like I have all my life.  My phone is functional for what I need it to do.  Call, text, take pics.  I do have a tablet, but my kids can only play educational games on it.  In a kind of lucky way, the screen got cracked and I haven't gotten it fixed yet.  It's sad to notice that I don't really need it even though it was nice to have, and fun, I'm thinking it wasn't a necessary buy in the first place to have at home.  I'm not a fan of tablets instead of real scriptures at church, and kids playing games on tablets during sacrament meeting drives me nuts.  I may be completely alone in this idea but that's ok!  I don't want my kids to be addicted to gaming/watching movies, or to not use their imagination or getting up and moving or not try to learn to be quiet and listen to the speakers in church.  But I also don't want them to be technologically behind either.  Most kids are pretty smart when it comes to tech things these days, and who knows what they'll be using by the time my boys are older so I want them to be familiar with technology moving forward.  We have an xbox at home and that gives them plenty of entertainment.  We have the kinect, and any of those games where they are up and moving, they are allowed to play pretty much whenever without a time limit (within reason).  Since those games are basically exercising, while having fun, they can have at it all they want.  When it comes to playing just regular games with the controller, those I have time limits on.  Tatton is usually the only one that plays those games anyway.  Depending on what's going on that day, he usually has to have all of his chores done before he can play.  And then he has a time limit of 30 minutes.  He can play one time before school, and one time after school but we try to keep it pretty limited.  On Sundays we don't watch tv, the boys can watch Living Scriptures movies, and after church we allow football this time of year, of course, family movies if we're watching them together, and playing kinect games as a family or a family game where there are multiple players.  But we try to have Sundays centered around things other than the tv.  I'm just curious if any of you have some rules that you have come up with in your homes and what has worked for you?