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02/24/2009
You're Not Being Fair!
I'm Dr. Laura Schlessinger and welcome to the Dr. Laura Channel. And I'm so appreciative that you parents see us as a source of information for dealing with your kids and technology. You know, kids have always been, let's just say, stubborn, recalcitrant and want to make their own choices when they're too young to understand all the ramifications. So how do you deal with some of this? Well, here's one question:
&'For our 14 year old girl, we set a rule that during Monday to Thursday of a school week, the internet is only to be used for school work activity. We set up a filter to monitor her activity and told her that we did that. Yet, she violated the rules more than once. We suspended all of her activity for a few days. She violates again, we increase the punishment duration and she violates again. We took away the internet and monitored her for 24/7 for 6 months. Now after doing well for a few months, she's at it again. We explain that actions have consequences but it doesn't seem to be working. What are we doing wrong? Her explanation at one time was, "It's not fair." But after a while she says she knows it was wrong and is sorry. However, it repeats again.&
This is one of the rare times I'm going to agree with the kid. [laughs] That's not really fair. You know, it's like in the old days when you could be on the telephone during the school week for a half an hour. Well the same thing holds now, even though we're talking about internet. During the week, you can be on the internet, talking to your friends or looking up stuff?you know, you put the filters on them so that they can't go to inappropriate places?for a half an hour a night. I think it's unreasonable to say &'zippo& . It invites cheating.
Yes, she should obey everything you say, but in the real world I think a little compromise is better because it teaches a child. It's like eating two cookies, not a thousand. If you tell a kid, &'You can't have any,& then they tend to gorge. If you tell them, &'Okay. Let's have two cookies a night as a treat,& then that'll probably be the maximum and they won't be tempted to do more. And you want to teach your kids moderation. So you can tell them, &'Up to a half an hour.& If you want to do five minutes, that's good. If you want to do 28 minutes, that's good. If you want to do 15 minutes, that's good?you have a half an hour tonight to be on the internet, on a school night. You're not going to get the stress and strain. So, sometimes, you parents are just not being fair. I'm Dr. Laura Schlessinger. If you still want to listen to me [laughs] tune in to my next YouTube video. Oh, I know I've got the kids now.
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