Safe Search Kids - Education, Parenting, Internet Safety for All

Most schools have now reopened and many children are reaping the social and educational benefits of in-person learning.  However, if your child thrived through online learning or is immunocompromised, it might be a good idea to keep them enrolled in a remote-learning school.

Additionally, school closures for things like snow days are now a thing of the past — teachers and students alike are well set up to offer online learning in lieu of physical classrooms.

If you’re a parent to a school-aged child, you simply must know how to help your child focus during online learning. Here are a few of the best practices to consider.

A Dedicated Space

Children may have a hard time separating their educational career from their personal life when learning at home. This is understandable, as we would all struggle to focus if our favorite toys or TV programs were just a few feet out of view. You can help children avoid distractions by creating a dedicated space that facilitates learning and engagement.

The space you choose for an at-home classroom will largely be dependent on the layout of your home. In general, though, your child will do best in a room where you can observe them, yet they feel as though they have privacy and are able to contribute to class discussions without worrying about being too loud.

The space you choose should also be completely free of clutter. Clutter is a major distraction for kids during classes they don’t enjoy, and can even pose a health hazard to younger children. You can declutter your home by intentionally organizing everything you own, and giving everything its own place. You should also try giving your child a home-desk, where they can store all their learning materials.

Fidgeting

Fidgeting is entirely normal behavior for children and adults alike. Some research even suggests that fidgeting and fidget toys can help children relax and focus during classes. However, as a parent, you probably have a good idea of when your child is fidgeting due to boredom or to distract themselves.

You can embrace productive fidgeting by providing your child with the kind of fidget toy or stimulus that suits their kind of fidgeting. For example, if they are body fidgeters, you can give them an exercise ball to sit on for part of the day, Alternatively, if you find that your child has a busy mouth, and likes to click or blow bubbles when they should be learning, you can give them caffeine-free tea to keep them occupied and well hydrated throughout the day.

Focus Throughout the Day

The hardest part about school is that children are expected to retain a high level of focus throughout the day. Unlike us adults, who are able to front-load more difficult work in the morning when we have more focus, children have to complete complex tasks in classes like math or literature regardless of the time of day or how they feel.

You can help your child retain their focus throughout the day by giving them brain breaks between classes or during their lunchtime. Ideally, these brain breaks will not involve screens and will get them up and moving. For example, a walk around the block, or even allowing them to help cook lunch will take their mind off learning, and help them return to the classroom with greater focus.

You also need to be aware of the food your child is eating, and how much water they are drinking. Typically, a school day diet should consist of whole foods with antioxidant-rich berries, protein sources, leafy greens, and plenty of water to keep them hydrated.

Testing for ADHD

Sometimes seeking help is the best thing you can do for your child. It doesn’t take much to have your child tested for ADHD, and the stigma around mental health conditions is finally being challenged and reversed in most areas of society.

According to the CDC, the symptoms of ADHD include inattention (difficulty organizing tasks, failure to pay close attention during classroom activities, forgetfulness during daily activities, etc.) and hyperactivity or impulsivity (fidgets or squirms in seat, talks excessively, interrupts conversations frequently).

The diagnosis of ADHD is typically made by your primary healthcare provider, who can then offer a range of treatment options that usually involve either behavioral and environmental changes or medication.

As a parent, it’s important to recognize that testing your child for ADHD does not mean you’ve “failed” them. You’re doing the right thing by reaching out to professional medical advice, and are showing your child that it’s ok to seek help when they need it.

Conclusion

Online learning can be great for children who struggle in traditional classrooms or aren’t able to return to a physical school environment.

However, maintaining a high level of focus throughout the day can be difficult — particularly if your home environment isn’t conducive to learning. You can help your child focus during remote classes by removing distractions from their at-home classroom, and by decluttering their space regularly. You should also reconsider the food you give them, and opt for focus-friendly whole foods that help them stay on track and engaged in their learning experience.

About the Author
Katie Brenneman is a passionate writer specializing in education, mental health, family lifestyle and online safety. When she isn’t writing, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or hiking with her dog, Charlie. You can follow her on Twitter.

Teachers:  Discover  online class productivity tips to help keep kids engaged.

There’s no denying that the divorce experience can be difficult for everyone involved. Even in the best-case scenario outcome that is a joint custody agreement, there can be hurdles to overcome. Nevertheless, as parents it is vital to make sure your children settle into a routine after your separation as soon as possible.

Consistency without continued confusion is vital while making certain every child feels loved and supported by both of you. This means taking steps to ensure your co-parenting approach is a caring and stable collaboration.

This certainly isn’t always going to be an easy task. So, let’s take a look at a handful of tips you can use to positively influence your co-parenting after a divorce.

Address Conflict

Divorce is an emotionally-charged situation. There can be resentments and disagreements on both sides after the formal process is complete. However, it’s important to make sure this doesn’t spill over into your co-parenting. As such, you both need to commit to actively addressing elements of conflict as they arise, rather than allowing them to fester and exacerbate the situation.

Learn how to talk about conflict. Avoid using language associated with blame when there is some aspect of behavior or parenting that you disagree with. Wherever possible, talk about conflicts in-person, as text messaging and phone calls can be easily misconstrued. Choose a neutral venue and calmly discuss the source of any issues.

Most importantly, collaborate on a route forward. Compromise is not always easy to achieve, but it needs to be a feature of your co-parenting approach. You won’t always be able to agree on all issues, but you need to be open to finding common ground as co-parents to ensure the well being and protection of your children between both of your homes.

Keep Communicating

Let’s face it, there will be times that you simply don’t want to talk to your ex after your divorce. While this is understandable, it also doesn’t make for a positive co-parenting experience. When there is any kind of communication breakdown, this leaves room for misunderstandings, mistakes, and resentment to breed. It is also likely to result in your children receiving inconsistent messages from their parents.

As such, you both need to commit to keeping in regular communication with each other, even if this is limited to parenting elements. You can also find your relationship in general will be more pleasant if you maintain regular contact. Some people even find this easier to achieve without the emotional baggage of an unhappy marriage.

Maintain Your Parenting Plan

A parenting plan is a legally binding document that sets out the requirements for your childrens’ care following a divorce. If you and your ex’s attorneys have been ethical, it will have been shaped to ensure you and your children benefit from a fair division of parental responsibility and time sharing. As such, it is one of the most important agreements to form part of your divorce finalization. Both you and your ex need to ensure you stick to the terms of your parenting plan.

If your former spouse breaches the plan, taking the matter to court isn’t always the best immediate response. Expert family lawyers and solicitors advise that spouses should first try to reasonably discuss the matter and refer to the terms of the agreement. Don’t respond with a tit-for-tat breach of the plan yourself. Make a note of the circumstances, though. If the problem persists, provide the details to your attorney and seek their advice on how to proceed.

Support the Blend

After the divorce, you and your ex will naturally want to move on with your lives. This could involve you both becoming involved in new relationships. Over time, other children could be brought into the equation, resulting in blended family situations. This isn’t unusual; around 50% of families in the U.S. are remarried or recoupled. But it can certainly be difficult, especially given that your children will have new step-parents in their lives.

Always aim to be civil when interacting with your ex’s partner. You don’t have to be best friends, but your kids will take notice of your relationship with one another and issues here can make them feel uncomfortable. Work together to cultivate respect between your families, including stepparents as they offer stability to each child.  Recognize the difficulties and commit to a collaboration that provides the best experience for one another and your children.

Wrapping Up

Joint custody is often the best outcome for you, your former spouse, and your children. That doesn’t mean to say it’s always smooth sailing. It’s important for you and your ex to make efforts to address conflicts as they arise and keep communicating with one another regarding a number of issues, including child support payments. Remember that your parenting plan is designed to prioritize your childrens’ welfare, so you must maintain it. If a blended family situation arises, work to ensure everyone is respected and supported. It takes some effort and coordination, but a successful co-parenting experience is vital to your and your childrens’ well-being.

Additional Resources

• • Homeschooling and co-parenting while going through divorce
  • How Children of Single Parents are Affected

Old family photos are not like any other photos you own. Not only that it signifies your family ties, history, and heritage, it bears personal value to you and your family members. Photos share stories and carry deep emotions that words can’t describe.

These photos serve as a remembrance to a family member you lose and a great way to share and pass around fond memories with the younger generations.

We share family photos for a variety of reasons. For one, it’s our way of maintaining relationships with our loved ones. Or, it may be to celebrate a special occasion like Father’s Day or to simply strengthen our relationships with distant friends through social media.  Sharing family photos lets the people we love know that we value the relationship, and photo sharing expresses our desire to nurture it.

But in order to preserve your family’s legacy, sharing your old family photos with friends and other family members needs to be safe and secure.

Ways of Sharing Family Photos

There are tons of ways to share these photos online, but their security and safety may be in question. The security and safety of the images we share have become a problem when technology makes it convenient and fast but poses a significant risk because of privacy and security issues.

Photos (especially digital ones) provide a lot of information such as location, date, and time. And if these pieces of information are accessed by others outside your circle of friends and family, they can be manipulated and used to harm you and your family as a whole.

There are two methods of sharing photos: digital or online photo sharing through social media, cloud-based softwares, and other online applications, and the “old school” printed images.

While both of these methods are great, you need to establish effective ways to ensure that you are safely sharing your precious family photos.

Digital Photo Sharing

Sharing photos online takes only a few clicks and taps on your digital device, but as much as they offer convenience and digital storage, they are not as secure. Though this may be the case, there are ways you can minimize the risks of privacy breaches on the photos you share by taking the following safety measures.

Social Media

The most common mistake of social media sharing is that people tend to get too comfortable with sharing everything without realizing that other people are not on social media to socialize. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media sites have become a hub of scammers and hackers whose purpose is to trick people into giving out information they can use for their own agenda.

Explore Privacy Settings

When sharing photos on social media such as Facebook, read and understand the privacy settings before you share. This might sound tedious, but these privacy settings are created to ensure you understand how a specific platform uses stores and access all information you share within that platform.

Privacy settings allow you to choose the audience you want to access and view the photo you share. You can restrict specific people or groups of people by making a selection in the privacy settings dropdown.

Beware of Red flags

The red flags in social media have become sophisticated over time. You can almost never tell who the person you are communicating to because of hackers and scammers who pose to be someone else to get your information.

Confirm the person’s identity by contacting the person through other means like texts, email, or by calling them. This will ensure that the person asking you to share a photo is really the person you know and trust.

Another red flag to look out for is when you receive a new friend request from a person who claims to be one of your family members. In some cases, they could be someone else entirely. Withhold sharing photos with someone you have not established trust and whose identity you have not confirmed yet.

Cloud-based Photo Sharing Software

A more private way of sharing photos online is through cloud-based photo-sharing softwares such as Google Drive, Onedrive, and Dropbox, to name a few. Sharing photos through these platforms are completed through user-to-user sharing or through a sharable link.

Confirm Email Address

In this method of sharing photos, whether through user-based sharing or a sharable link, you need the person’s email address to complete the sharing process. Though email addresses are private, it is hackable. Taking extra precautions by calling or texting the owner couldn’t hurt to ensure your photos are not compromised.

Instant Messaging App

Unlike the examples listed above, instant messaging apps like Messenger, Whatsapp, and telegram also allow users to send and share photos but are more geared toward sending individual photos than sharing bulk images through the cloud. These apps are also hackable; hence taking the extra step mentioned above to protect your photos is highly advisable.

Sharing Physical Photo Print

If you want to avoid the risk of digital photo sharing entirely, sharing old family photos as physical photo prints is the best way to go. It gives an intimate, ethereal sense in a tangible way that allows family members to display old family photos on their office desks or display a large wall portrait in their living room or bedroom.

You can choose to share individual printed photos, framed portraits, or an album of photo compilation.  It doesn’t have to be an expensive process. You can print photos at home, or visit a local printing service that offers different types of photo prints. For those looking to share memories in a more creative and consolidated manner, using an online photo collage maker can be a fantastic way. It allows you to combine multiple old family photos into one beautifully crafted image, making it perfect for both physical and digital sharing.

Granted that physical photo prints accompany the cost of printing, the end result of a timeless display of family heritage that you can pass along to your family members will last throughout the years (with the right amount of care). Besides, without the risk of these treasured photos getting into the hands of the wrong people is worth every penny.

Final Thoughts

However you want to share your old family photos, whether through digital means or old school photo prints, the importance of making sure that they are safely shared with family members, and friends cannot be undermined. Following the safety precautions above will significantly lower the odds of compromising the memory and legacy that your old family photos represent.

Every parent wants their kid’s birthday party to be special, fun, and absolutely perfect. Throwing a party at home might make you feel like you have limited options, but that’s actually quite the opposite. A DIY party means having complete control over the preparations, decorations, and everything else in between.

Here are some awesome ideas for a memorable birthday party for your little one without leaving the house:

1. Put Every Surface To Work

A party at home doesn’t always have to be confined to the living room. Pepper your whole house with decorations and repurpose other rooms into snack corners or game areas. If you have a backyard or garden, consider having an outdoor cookout for an alfresco hang out with your child’s guests bored kids.

Your child and their friends will surely enjoy some barbecue or roasted marshmallows where you can set your grill. Moreover, you can cook and conduct some games simultaneously to avoid dead air during the party.

2. Let Your Child Make The Call

Your house, your rules – so you don’t have to stick to traditional party traditions. Whether your child wants to have a game day or a movie night, order pizza in place of home-cooked meals, get their opinion on anything and everything.

To add fun and excitement to the party, you can list some parlor games that your child wants to play for their party so that they won’t get bored during the celebration. After the activities or games, you can reward them with fun prizes.

Additionally, your child can also decide whatever they want to have for their birthday party.

3. Bring The Party Online

Arrange a virtual party for family members and friends who couldn’t make it to the party. Choose a specific activity that will be the focus of the event so it won’t be reduced to an awkward hi-hello with faces on a screen.

Furthermore, you can still have a theme and designs for your kid’s online virtual party. For example, you should select your kid’s favorite as a theme. Having backgrounds can make your child’s online party fun.

To make the virtual party even more exciting, you can also prepare online games that each virtual guest can play. You can also send cakes or food to them so that they can also enjoy themselves while virtually having a birthday party.

4. Create Some Do-It-Yourself Decorations For The Party Theme

If you’ve decided that you’ll conduct the party face-to-face, it can be more special if you can have do-it-yourself (DIY) party decorations with things you already have. You can even find free decorations online like printable decors that you can cut and paste to your walls. It may be a game-themed party where kids play a variety games or if your child loves cartoons, you can have a cartoon-themed birthday. You can print out cartoon characters to use as decorations for your walls.

Furthermore, you can also involve or let your children help decorate their party so that they feel that they’re part of the enjoyment.

5. Buy The Cake That Your Kid Wants

A birthday can’t be complete without a cake to blow. Your child shouldn’t miss the sweet and creative cake they can eat after singing happy birthday to them. You can always choose a theme your child wants and request it from professional bakers, and let your child enjoy it.

Moreover, you can also add sparkling candles to add more thrill to your child’s cake and ensure that it’s safe around the kids. The birthday cake can be the highlight of your kid’s stay-at-home birthday too.

6. Don’t Forget The Gift Opening And Giveaways

Of course, you shouldn’t skip the part where your birthday boy or girl will open the gifts that they received from their friends or the guests. Moreover, this can be an exciting part of the birthday party and see them open their birthday present. Opening gifts in front of the guests can provide an exciting feeling too.

Before ending the party, you can give out goody bags or small souvenirs as a token of appreciation to guests who attend or join your kid’s birthday party. Giving back to your guests means that you appreciate their time and effort to attend the birthday.

Conclusion

A stay-at-home birthday party can be a great option if you have enough space and want to customize the whole event that your child likes. Even if you’re just at home celebrating, the main point of throwing a party is that your kid likes the theme and having fun with their friends and guests.