Best 4 Our Kids

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When the first Atari console was released over twenty years ago, everyone, young and old alike, was into video games. It was something new that the family played for hours. Now, video games have become more sophisticated and are played by younger and younger groups of kids. But, even though these games are fun, watch out or your kid will morph into the unyielding vegetable known as the couch potato.

The term “couch potato” used to be reserved for the fat old man staring at the television but it now applies to kids caught up in the video game craze. You’ve weaned them from endless cartoons and cop shows but they’ve traded it in for a console and a joystick. It’s not that video games are bad. They have their redeeming qualities just like television. The name of the game here is moderation.

Even if you don’t know an elf lord from a troll prince you can make sure that that is not the only thing your kid knows about. Video games are a way for your kids to relax but not the only way. Engage your children in other activities (preferably outside) to break the couch potato cycle.

Endless video game playing has added to the sedentary lifestyle of today’s youth. Instead of playing outdoors with balls and bats they are inside sitting comfortably on the couch, at the computer, or one of those gaming chairs and signing on to virtual worlds unknown to most parents. It can be scary as a parent because we no longer understand the world of video gaming. When they aren’t at the computer or in front of the tv, they are playing games on their iPods or other portable gaming devices. All of this time spent in front of these devices (I call it “screen time”) can be quite harmful to your child.

Obesity is now an epidemic with our kids. They lack proper daily exercise to keep their weight under control. By exercise, we mean movement. Kids exercise more than you think. Walking to and from school, playing outside with their friends, or even dancing to their iPod tunes keeps the body active enough to burn excess calories. They don’t even have to play a sport to get what they need to stay healthy.

Video games are mostly played sitting down. That’s how they were designed. Think of it like an office job. Computers were designed to be used sitting down. It’s a necessary evil but it doesn’t have to ruin your health.

One solution is a set schedule for their afternoon. When your kids get home from school, let them know the order of the day. First, they can tackle chores. After energizing them again, lead them to the homework table.

Before you know it, it is time for dinner. After dinner, allow them to choose between television or video games. All of the other important things are done so they can relax and unwind with either but not both. This limits their time to one or at most two hours of gaming a day as their last activity before bed. After all of the other stuff you’ve given them to do, they might just fall into bed early.

You can break the couch potato cycle with a time limit on video games and by utilizing other creative ideas to keep your kids active and away from the screens.

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Both of my children struggled quite a bit with math for the better part of last year.  We tried asking their teachers for extra worksheets, but of course it was a struggle to get them to do extra homework.  We searched online for fun ways to learn and practice math concepts and didn’t have much luck until we came across IXL.

IXL is a website that teaches math concepts from kindergarten to grade 8.  It is very thorough, and has helped our kids a great deal.  We had them start right at the beginning to reinforce all of they math concepts they need to be successful in their current grades.  It can take quite a while to work through an entire grade, so if there was something they found really easy, we let them do a couple and move on.

We have them do 30 minute on the website each day before they do anything else on the computer.  They don’t seem to dislike it nearly as much as they would dislike working on math worksheets or learning from textbooks.

It creates reports for parents so we can see what they have been learning and how they are doing.  It also helps keep the children motivated by giving them awards and fun things for completing certain tasks.

If your children are struggling with math, I would highly recommend at least checking it out.  You can visit the site at ixl.com.

Popularity: 7%

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If you are like many working parents, you probably spend part of your working day wondering about what your children are doing when they arrive home from school and you are stuck at your job. You almost certainly devote time and money attempting to find methods to keep your children off of the couch and out taking part in sports, studying for tests or reading books. The problem is that modern day kids are clever and they find out
number codes and figure out other methods to access their treasured electronics. Some may keep one or two video games hidden, if their favorite after school past-time is playing video games, so that they can play them while you are not home to stop them or keep an eye on how much time is wasted on them. Not only is this a popular issue and problem for many employed parents, but finding a remedy has been nearly impossible for a lot
of us. Fortunately, there is now a unique approach to solving this problem that is much more effective than just locking the toys in a closet or using a push button security code.

The answer wasn’t in hiding their toys or games!  That hardly ever works since kids can get resourceful and know where to look.  The solution was to cut the electrical power off of the toys so that even if your kids did hide their favorite games or store an extra controller they still can’t get the actual machine to activate which also means they are not able to waste their time playing with them. What a lot of these parents came across is a new device on the market called the Power Cop.

The Power Cop is an electricity managing device that shuts off electronic devices based on the amount of time that the gadget is being used. Complete with a key locking mechanism on the box, you are the only person who will have access to set the timers up that manage the electrical power flow into popular time wasters like televisions, video game systems and computer monitors. You can choose how many hours a day your children, and their friends, will be able to access to the electric devices in your home because only you can set the timer and only you are able to switch it off and on.

You now have the ability to get to choose if your kids should get to play video games for two hours on a Monday and give them one hour of time with their video games on a Friday. If you are able to purchase 2 Power Cops, you can set one of them to allow 1 hour of electricity to a video game system and the other Power Cop to give 3 hours on the Television so that your kids can still watch their favorite shows if you would like them to, even right after their video game time has finished. You have complete flexibility to allow your children as much or as little time with their electronics as you feel is appropriate.  Parents have never had this much control over their childrens unsupervised time. Thanks to The Power Cop moms and dads can now easily encourage their children to get active, work on homework and read books by disabling brain rotting electronics so that there is nothing else to do but to do something productive or active.

With the Power Cop, your kids won’t be able to whine about losing their saved games or missing on a portion of a show due to the fact the Power Cop gives them an alert when his or her time is just about up so that they can get ready for their video games or the tv set shutting off.

The Power Cop provides reassurance to working parents or for parents who travel often or may just be on a random or yearly getaway. Not only can parents now control when and for how much time their kids can use electronic devices, but because they can turn the power off automatically, they can also make sure that their kids are also not squandering electricity by leaving electronics on all day and night.

Besides the eco friendly part of the Power Cop, Power Cop can also help you spend less money on your electric power bills since it is controlling the volume of energy going into your electronics. Since it shuts off after a certain time, your electronic devices will no longer be working and wasting valuable money. You will not only be helping to encourage your kids to get more active or to do their homework, but you’ll also be conserving electricity by making it so they cannot leave the television on when they leave your house since it will turn off automatically.

The Power Cop is an incredible creation and one that busy Parents just about everywhere who are concerned about what their children are engaging in after school will likely be scrambling to purchase. Not only can it help to calm your nerves about your kids wasting time playing video games but it might also help to encourage them to be more active or challenge their minds with studying and reading books. You can learn more about the Power Cop by clicking here.

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I have so many topics I want to discuss with this blog that I’m having a hard time deciding where to start. I guess I’ll start with something exciting (to me, at least). My son just turned 12 this week and for his birthday we got him a baby bearded dragon. He has always wanted a lizard but we never really looked into it too seriously because I always thought they were pretty high maintenance. I did a lot of research and bearded dragons are actually one of the easier starter reptiles, though they do require some knowledge and proper care. They are also very sociable, and we love ours already.

Anyway, the point of all of this is that it is important for our children to learn to be responsible for something. Our daughter has always wanted a dog, but we are not able to have one where we are presently living. Instead, we have allowed our children to have hamsters, and now the lizard.  It is so great to watch them learn how to love and care for animals. I love watching my children wake up every morning and go through their care routine with their pets. It is teaching them how to provide care for something other than themselves and to become even more independent.

If you live in an apartment or you want to start small, you can even have your children care for plants, although it’s not generally as exciting for the kids. Goldfish are a great way to teach smaller children how to care for animals. They will learn the importance of being consistent with daily feeding and care, as well as weekly tasks such as cleaning the aquarium. Hamsters are another good pet to have, either because you can’t have larger animals where you live, or to use as a “bridge” to caring for a dog or a cat. When learning to care for any type of animal, your children will develop skills that they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

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