Just A Guy With a Lot of Screens (In His Life)

Screens, screens, screens.  No, not the ones that keep out the flies, but the ones that are ubiquitous in our lives everywhere else.  We’ve got video, cell-phone, computer, game, movie theatre, and MP3 player screens (I refuse to call them iPods as I can’t stand iTunes and their monopoly and totalitarian way in which they force you to organize your music…I have no heat on this issue – HA!).

My boys are addicted to them, as with most of their generation.  And, my family would argue, I am addicted to my computer and phone screen (for e-mail), to which we finally instituted a limited after dinner policy.  One half-hour is all I’m allowed, after dinner, to check and respond to e-mails.  Writing and such must be done during “work hours,” whatever those are.

Fair enough, but my boys don’t have these limits other than no TV on school nights.  That doesn’t mean no computer time, so really what is the difference?  With YouTube, they can watch most anything anyway.  With video chat and other options on the web, they’re as addicted to their screens as I may be to mine. read more

Just A Guy Whose Kids Say They’re Bored

I’m amazed when my boys tell me they’re bored.  Bored?  With all the options they have today?  The best response I ever heard to a kid saying “I’m bored” was “No, you’re boring.” A brilliant response from a parent and I wish I’d said it first.  It is not our job to be our kid’s entertainment coordinator.

When I was a kid, we played.  Seems kind of quaint.  We made up games.  One of my favorites was called Mongoose, where we took two books and hit a ping-pong ball back and forth between them with the object to see how long we could keep it going.  Then, they’re all the adventures we’d go on in our own Huck Finn way.  Places to explore, bikes to ride, trees to climb. read more