Category: Online Safety for Kids

As parents, we want only the best for our children. If you’re looking for how to help your child do well in elementary school, you’re in the right place. We’ve collected a variety of tips and tricks to help your child excel in elementary school below. To start learning how to support your child, start reading!

Become Involved at School

If your schedule allows, it’s best to be involved in your child’s education. There are many ways to support your local school district. Consider joining the PTO to stay updated with the latest information affecting students.

Another option is chaperoning on school field trips for your child’s class. What can be better than creating fun memories that will last a lifetime?

Tutoring your child and other students is another avenue you may want to pursue. This approach lets you understand your child’s studies and how best to help them.

Encourage Habits That Promote Learning

One way to help your child do well in elementary school is by encouraging habits that promote learning. You can try games that develop helpful skills for the classroom, such as math, spelling, and reading. Many apps promote education, including:

• HOMER
• Endless Alphabet
• Prodigy

Alternatively, you can take an active approach to more traditional means of learning. For example, to encourage your elementary student with reading, you can ask your child to clap when they know the meaning of a word. This game will help them become a better listener, which will help them with their overall comprehension skills.

Start the Day Right

Starting each morning before school on a positive note will help set your child up for a good day. Begin by waking them up with an early, nutritious breakfast before school. Healthy foods will help them pay better attention in the classroom.

Ensure you get your child to school on time so that you can set them up with good habits. If they take the bus, help them get to the stop with time to spare so they don’t have rush. Pay attention to the clock if you drive your child, and always leave early. You want them to they arrive before the first bell rings.

Set Up a Good Bedtime Routine

Sleep is an important part of functioning well, so it’s no surprise that our children need to get their hours. Medical professionals recommend that students in elementary school get around 9-12 hours each night. Without getting enough sleep, your child is bound to feel irritable and less motivated for school in the morning.

To help set them up with some healthy habits, try implementing the following activities in your routine:

• A bath shortly before bedtime
• Brushing teeth
• Using the restroom
• Reading a bedtime story
• A goodnight kiss

When it’s time for bed, it’s best to keep children away from screens. Also, avoid sugary foods or drinks that might keep them up longer. Staying consistent with your child’s bedtime routine will help them develop healthy habits they can carry into adulthood.

You play a crucial role in helping your child’s success. Try your best to place emphasis on education by getting involved in school events and field trips. Structure your weekdays with plenty of fun learning opportunities. Finish days right by establishing a bedtime routine that lets your child recharge.

Photos hold sentimental value and memories, and losing them can be devastating. The loss can happen due to device failure, accidentally deleting the files, natural disasters, technical malfunctions, and even leaving a social media like Facebook or Instagram.

Fortunately, with technology, you can now protect your pictures by making copies of them so that when one gets lost or damaged, you can always recover it. Below are ways to protect your photos from loss or damage so you can recover them on demand and learn to better manage your images.

1. Cloud Backup

Cloud backup is one of the most reliable digital ways to store and protect your photos. Thanks to technology, you can now access your photos and videos online, anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection. Depending on your preference and budget, you can choose between the various cloud service options, including Google Photos, DropBox, and iCloud.

Google Photos mobile app is your best option as it offers free storage and backs up your photos at high resolution. You also get access to unlimited storage. Once you back up your pictures, you can free up storage space on your device by removing the already backup media. Check out cloud services’ various offerings and pricing and select the one that suits you the most.

2. Local Backup

If you are in a place without internet connectivity, it can be challenging to access and retrieve your pictures from the cloud. Local backup means you don’t have to use the internet to access or retrieve your pictures and photos. It uses local storage options such as flash drives, discs, hard drives, tapes, and external hard drives to store your files. You can then keep the device anywhere you deem safe. Also, you will always know where your photos are, whether in your safe or your friend’s house.

Although using local backup storage options to store your pictures is inexpensive, you must be careful about who has access to it. It is also vulnerable to damage and natural disasters, which requires extra care when choosing how to keep the storage devices. Since it can be hard to remember to back up your photos, automate the process with the help of software to avoid forgetting.

3. Printed Albums

Like most people, you probably do not fancy the idea of printing out your pictures into physical copies. However, it is an excellent way to protect your photos from loss due to hacking, deletion, or hardware problems that can affect your storage devices. Printing out the pictures and compiling them into a photo album allows you to display your most treasured memories.

You can print the photos at home with a printer or take them to a printing shop for the best results. Only choose your best pictures if you go this route, as printing your entire collection can quickly become expensive. Since printed photos can easily become damaged if not handled carefully, below are tips to ensure their safety:

• Protect them from sunlight, humidity, and extreme temperatures
• Avoid touching your photos with dirt and oil
• Consider sealing your printed photos
• Choose high-quality printing services that use quality ink and printing material.
• Keep the photo prints in a box or frame

Don’t forget to backup your pictures before printing in case your house suffers a disaster like a flood or fire.

When protecting your photos, turning to technologies like the cloud, local storage devices, and external hard drives can help you keep them safe. By choosing the right and most secure options, you can easily manage your photos in storage and access them at any time.

Learn how to share old family photos safely.

Among the many expenses we expect to pay every month, health insurance is one of the most significant. This is especially true when you are supporting a family. Your entire family could require medical care at some point, and unless you have a huge amount of savings, it will be prohibitively expensive.

But what if you have healthy kids who live fairly secure lives. Maybe you have some savings or investments you could dip into if something happened. Do you still need to get your kids health insurance? Is it mandated by law?

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of when health insurance is mandated, here are some other types of insurance you should consider when you have a family.

What additional types of insurance should you have?

Supporting a family is expensive. This may make you feel tempted to skimp on insurance as much as possible. However, if you don’t have it when you need it, you could be in serious trouble.

One type of insurance you may not want to get is life insurance. Is life insurance worth it? If you are the primary breadwinner, the answer is certainly yet. Even if you are not earning income, the things you do on a day-to-day basis for your family would cost a lot of money to hire someone else to do. Life insurance gives your family the security they need at a time when they are particularly vulnerable.

Contents coverage in your homeowners insurance is also crucial. The things your family owns are more expensive than you think. Replacing a child’s entire wardrobe if it gets destroyed in a fire will cost you thousands of dollars.

If you have these kinds of insurance, do you really need health insurance for your kids on top of it? Could you not leave this one thing to your savings?

Do all Kids Have Access to Health Insurance?

Access of health insurance is usually not a question of availability, rather it is an issue of cost.  There is a continual effort to reduce the uninsured rate for those under 19 years old.  Government programs seek to reach lower income families, providing health insurance coverage for those below a certain income level.

Access for those on living on the threshold rate of eligibility for assisted coverage can also depend on the state that a child resides.  Direct purchase of coverage increases in states where eligibility for programs are limited.  Regardless of where you may live, you can seek a free Medicare insurance quote online to explore options for health insurance coverage.

Expansion states are those where governments are striving to expand eligibility for families who seek Medicaid and health insurance programs.  Changes in population, economic conditions, and federal and state policies will certainly affect one’s access to care.

Is health insurance for kids mandated by law?

What does the law say about whether kids need to have health insurance? It is pretty straightforward. The ACA mandates that parents need to have health insurance for their kids, or have their family on a family plan, and charges fines to parents who do not.

This may seem extreme, especially if you have the money to pay for visits to the doctor and occasional health conditions and injuries. However, the reality is that health care is far more expensive than you probably know. Even with a minor issue, the cost of care rises rapidly. Every single aspect is charged for, with a significant markup.

For kids who are diagnosed with a major life-threatening illness like leukemia, you may be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single year. While in most cases, treatment will ‘only’ cost about $50,000 in that first year, most people do not have that kind of money, and there is always a risk that costs will far exceed this.

Long story short, you are required by law to get health insurance for your kids, and it is something you should have regardless. In an ideal world, we would not have to pay huge amounts just to get our kids basic care, but the American healthcare system is not going to change any time soon. Even the regulations implemented through the ACA that help parents with health insurance costs may not always be around, with many lawmakers trying to repeal the act.

Length of Coverage on a Parents Plan

In most states, kids that grows into adulthood can stay on their parent’s health insurance plan until they are 26 years old.  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care (ACA) mandates this.  Even if a child gets married, is enrolled in school or not, or have turned down insurance through a job, the child can stay on their parent’s plan.  Furthermore, children do not need to be living at home and it’s not required that they be a tax dependent.  Of course, anyone 18 years or older are free to seek out their own health insurance coverage.

How do you apply for a plan?

You can apply for health insurance for your kids through the healthcare.gov website. In certain states, you will have to go through the state’s website. Make sure you have your kids’ social security numbers, your employer’s information, and your own health insurance details at hand.

This is something you should not delay any longer. If you are struggling to make ends meet, the good news is that ACA subsidizes healthcare plans.

Technology is continually becoming a bigger and bigger part of our everyday world. This has been an ongoing trend for quite some time now, but was specifically accelerated over the past few years. The major technological and digital acceleration that happened recently was largely due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic spreading across the globe.

As the pandemic reached its peak, businesses were shutting down left and right unless they were able to successfully transition to remote and digital operations. As a result, students began taking classes online and the remote-work and work-from-home cultures have absolutely erupted.

Additionally, though, this means that more students and professionals than ever before are performing the majority of their work tasks through a screen of one type or another. A laptop or desktop computer, a tablet, a  video-conference, or any other tech-facilitated activity today likely involves a screen.

Additionally, even our freetime is overloaded with technology and the presence of screens. From social media, to mobile gaming, to console-gaming, television streaming, and just about everything in between. Almost everything we do in a day in 2022 involves a screen.

While technology can certainly make life a lot easier, spending all of our waking moments in front of screens simply isn’t good for the health of our eyes in the long run. This is why blue-light glasses have come about and risen in popularity over the past few years.

What is Blue Light?

Blue light is a wavelength that’s naturally present in a light source. In fact, blue light is even present in light that’s emitted from the sun. However, blue light is a particularly short wavelength which many doctors associate with a higher risk for eye-damage. Because blue-light is a naturally present wavelength in all light, it is actually emitted from the majority of electronics. Even lightbulbs and other less intricate forms of technology radiate a percentage of blue light.

TV screens, computer monitors, and other high-end-technology though, are often created with LCDs or liquid crystal displays. As such, LCD screens produce a lot more blue light than non LCD screens. However, because of the clarity and crisp imaging that LCD screens provide, they continue to be a popular choice for consumers and manufacturers alike.

It’s also important to note that most of the harm from blue-light comes from over-exposure, and that blue-light isn’t innately bad for us. In fact, blue-light can also improve alertness, awareness, and be a signal to our bodies and brains that it’s time to get up and start the day.

Understanding all of the different ways that blue light is naturally present in our lives, as well as all of the additional sources of blue-light that we utilize in our normal everyday routines can illuminate a need for greater eye-protection if possible. Afterall, we rely on our eyes in more ways than we even realize.

The Potential Harm of Over Exposure to Blue Light

Over exposure to blue light has been associated with headaches, eye strain, visual fatigue, and has even been identified as a culprit in interrupting one’s natural circadian rhythm. Chronic headaches can be a nightmare to deal with, while having an abnormal circadian rhythm can make it difficult to ever get a reliable amount of sleep in a night.

Not only that, but if you’re someone who needs to be able to read large spreadsheets or deals with data on a regular basis, visual fatigue and eye strain can really tamper your ability and in turn, productivity.

The Theory Behind Blue Light Lenses

The idea behind blue light blocking glasses is that they’re made with a specially designed lens that blocks or drastically reduces the amount of blue light able to pass through. In turn, this cuts down on computer-screen-induced eye-strain, visual fatigue, and can even help lessen the severity of screen-induced headaches.

As such, if blue light blocking glasses can be successfully manufactured, working professionals, pro-gamers, and anyone else who finds themselves regularly using a screen for hours-on-end, can finally rely on a product that will reduce eye strain and fatigue caused by the short blue-light wavelength.

What the Science Says so Far

However, this is kind of a big if. The studies conducted on blue light blocking glasses have been relatively inconsistent and inconclusive so far. There have been multiple trials conducted with blue-light blocking glasses, but the results haven’t proven anything definitively.

While more research and trials are needed on the efficacy of blue-light blocking glasses, some individuals still swear by them, and they may be worth trying for yourself.

Final Thoughts on Blue Light Lenses

If you’re regularly using screens for hours at a time in your day-to-day life, you may be looking for ways to reduce eye strain and vision fatigue. The best way to reduce these effects is by taking regular 10 minute breaks every hour or so. If you’re looking for more, though, blue light blocking lenses may just work for you.