Virtual learning from home! Keep the kids (& you) safe & sane!

Aug 25, 2020

Episode 23

Virtual learning is one thing most of us are facing right now. Listen in to this episode for a few tips on how to set up your child for a success and to also help keep this safe and sane, and maybe you as well. Lol.

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Full Transcription:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey, Hey, here we are for another episode. Thank you so much for joining me. Uh, last week's episode was crazy popular. It was shared so many times, and I'm so glad that y'all were so responsive to that. I am planning on doing a grooming series of episodes, where I focus a little bit more specifically on a couple of platforms that are particularly high risk, and that are difficult to monitor and understand from a parent's perspective. So hang tight for that. I will have that coming soon. I'm working on it right now, but today we're going to talk about some things around having our kids at home and doing the virtual learning a few tips for you to navigate this. A few things that you can add to what you're already doing to give you a little bit more peace of mind. So stay tuned.

Speaker 2: (00:46)
Welcome to your source for tips, tools, and support to help you be that mom that is tuned in and proactive for yourself, your family, and for the wild ride of raising kids in this digital age, inspired by a mother's love with a relatable real life. Proud to be that mom flair. This is the be that mom movement with your host, Dolly Denson.

Speaker 1: (01:09)
Hey friends, did you hear there is an app that will transform the safety of your kids, smartphone and technology use. It is my favorite way to sleep easy at night and have peace of mind because it is monitoring my kids' activity online without me being in their business. It is the bark app and yes, bark like a dog bark bark bark. It tells you when there's something that you need to be concerned about starting at a small fee each month, you can protect your whole family across all devices. Get connected with bark today. Use code, be that mom for 20% off your subscription for life and get a seven day free trial to check it out. Alrighty. So here we are again, and today's episode is going to definitely help you right now because we are all facing this whole virtual learning thing going on, right?

Speaker 1: (01:55)
At least we are where I am. We have like mandatory three weeks of where everybody has to do virtual. I don't know why my voice just cracked right there, but everybody has to do virtual. And then after that they have like hybrid calendars and some parents can keep them home and some can not. And all that. So anyways, we all are kind of in the same boat that our kiddos are on devices, more than they used to be. And it's so hard to put up any type of restrictions when, Oh my goodness, we're all home. Most likely sometimes not, but you know, they don't, they can't interact with their friends as much. They can't do all the things that they were used to doing. So it's easy to kind of bend those rules and get a little lax. And I think we've all been observant to the fact that more time on screens actually seems to kind of make them lose their mind a little bit, forget their manners, all of that stuff.

Speaker 1: (02:43)
And while we notice those things, there actually is a chemical thing that goes on in the brain from what I have read that causes that behavior. So it's very important for us to be mindful of this and to still have limits in this space. So I have three things that I want to share with you today to kind of help you navigate this whole schooling from home or schooling on computer, more than your child used to be. So I, in the past week, I've had four kiddos at my house that have been doing the virtual learning thing. Our school for our areas started last Monday and our youngest child goes to school online just like he did last year. And then I had my best. Friend's three kiddos here who are in third grade and twin girls in sixth grade. And so we had all of them doing their learning stuff and they did great.

Speaker 1: (03:33)
It went so well, but we had a few things set up that I think were helpful and that I think you might find helpful too, before I get to that, I just want to tell you that from what I've read with the increased screen time, and maybe, maybe the behavior changes that you were seeing, that there is actually a chemical reaction in the brain when they are exposed to screens over a prolonged period of time. They see it a lot in kids that do a lot of gaming, where it is a high dopamine level activity while they're doing the gaming, it invokes that high dopamine level of happiness and euphoria and all of that. And then when they come off of playing the games, it's a low dopamine time and you may see anxiety, depression, withdrawal, all of those things. If they have been allowed to be on the games for a long period of time.

Speaker 1: (04:22)
So what psychologist child psychologist recommend is that you balance the screen time with non screen time and they call it the high dopamine activities and the low dopamine activities. So I don't know if school necessarily invokes that euphoria and all of that. It's probably not exactly the same thing, but certainly something to be mindful of, that there is a chemical reaction in the brain when interacting with screens, even though it probably isn't happening so much with school, because it's probably not super fun for them, but that's the first thing to think about. And to be aware of is that when they have screen time, they need off screen time. So if they have spent a couple of hours on the screen, it's best to try to balance that with a couple of hours off of the screen as well. So in addition to that, what I have found helpful with schooling from home is the location of where the child is doing their virtual learning.

Speaker 1: (05:13)
Now I know in practical terms, if your house isn't larger, if your family is large, this may not be possible. But for us, what has worked best is to have them sit in a public place. So not in bedrooms with closed doors, if you have no choice, but to put them in a bedroom, have them keep the door open and have them not be sitting on their bed, like have them sit at a desk or a table and then have a routine around what they do each day. So getting up at a certain time, just like they were going to school, brushing their teeth, getting dressed, all of those things will keep kind of a normal type of routine going while also helping them to concentrate more and just have a normal routine. So with the three kiddos and my son that we had here this past week, we have my son and the youngest of my best friends, kids sitting at the dining room table.

Speaker 1: (06:01)
And then the two girls, they sat in our computer room at a desk. So everybody was kind of in a public place. We could see what they were doing. They could stay focused. They had earbuds in their ears too. They could see their teacher and hear their teacher, but the rest of us, wouldn't all hear everybody's teacher talking. So that seemed to work well, to focus on those things and then to have like a lunchtime for them and, you know, just a normal routine for them to do during the day kind of like if they were at school. And then the last thing that I just want to mention is to think about to their exposure and access to the internet and the things that they can access online. And I know this is something we talk about a lot in all of my podcast episodes, but I want you to think about a couple of things.

Speaker 1: (06:40)
So if you have school issued tech, you likely cannot put any type of parental controls on that device. They probably have that all locked down. So there's two things that I would think about. Number one is bark does offer a bark for schools program and quite a few schools already use it. So you might want to check with your school and just see if they use it, that they install it on their system. And so it monitors activity from their end and can alert them of things that the kids are doing. But if that is not in place or not possibly possible to be put in place, and even if it is, I still look at the wifi level at your house home, there are three devices that I recommend you check out. The first one is the bark home device. It is not yet released to everyone.

Speaker 1: (07:25)
It is in beta testing right now. It is supposed to be the most robust out there. And it will be, I believe it's going to be released by the end of August, 2020. I am recording this at the end of August, 2020. So hopefully any day now bark home will be released for purchase, but there's two other things that you can look at. One is Google fi and the second one is the on then router. I don't know if I pronounce that right, but I hear that they are easy to use and have great features for what we are needing to keep our kids safe. They allow you to name devices and have accounts for each one of your kids, or have like a profile for each one of your kids. You can turn off access to the kid as a whole, to any devices assigned to them or to specific devices, including smart TVs, Xboxes, iPads, phones, all of the things where if they connect to wifi.

Speaker 1: (08:18)
So it gives you a great option to shut it down after school is done so that they don't continue to access things and we'll go do non screen time things, but also filter what they are allowed to access things like YouTube and different things like that. It won't allow certain things with certain words and however you set up the filters to get through for them to act cause that's on the devices. So I do think that that that is a great option for anyone at any time. And I do think that the bark home device will be a great option once it's released and it should be released any day, but these other two are also great options as well. I hope you found this helpful and you will go forward using these tips and that I hope that everything is going well with your virtual learning in your staying safe and well, wherever you are at in the world.

Speaker 1: (09:03)
And that eventually this will all be behind us, but I also hope that we can take it, take the lessons from it and use it for good in our futures to help each other be happy and healthy and to focus on the things that matter most in our life. Okay. So I hope you found this helpful. I hope that you were already in my free community, but otherwise I will chat with you next time. Hey, if you are a mom that has a lot on your plate, like I do, and you struggle with anxiety or sleep or even chronic pain issues, please check out my soul cbd.com. They are the one and only CBD source that I trust. And you can use my code, be that mom for 15% off of your purchase.

Speaker 2: (09:48)
Thanks for tuning in being that mom isn't easy, but together we can be that mom's strong. Don't forget to leave a review, connect on social and join Dolly's free community till next time.

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