Common Sense Media: Find Out If Web, Music, Books, Apps and More Are Safe

I’ve written before about using Common Sense Media to see if movies are appropriate for my family. Now I can tell you how it works for books! (Which I did not know before this weekend!)

The other day my son came to me and said:
‘Mommy, my books from Scholastic never came in. Remember? The ones we ordered for $18.00?’.

I did remember. I looked up the withdrawal transaction from the bank and noticed that after all that time struggling on Scholastic's website (it wasn’t as simple as it used to be) they never withdrew money from my account. I had a record of taking money out of my son’s to cover his purchase (that’s what my kids usually do, they use their own money to buy things they want when they have it) but it never came out of my own.

Sadly, I said, ‘Sorry, buddy, I guess that order never actually went through…you remember we were having trouble that day with the website?’. He nodded. It was a horrible experience, but in the end it seemed that we’d had success. We didn’t. And after you read the rest of this story, you might think it was meant to be like I did.

He was really discouraged about this. I was too. When I asked which books we had tried to purchase (because that was over two months ago and I’d forgotten) he replied:

‘Scorch Trials and The Death Cure..’.

OHHHHH, THOSE...

Let me back up just a bit. Just so happens, this weekend the library called me and when I excitedly told him that his requested books were in (I didn’t know what they were) he said that he couldn’t get them because ’The Sissies’ said he couldn’t read them yet (at his age).

'The Sissies' are his 17 & 13 year old sisters and they watch out for him (and regulate everything he does if my back is turned-Hallelujah). In this case he had taken a walk to the library with his oldest sister and asked the librarian to get those books for him from another location. He must have told ’The Sissies' what he requested (or knowing ’The Sissies’...they asked him). In the meantime, they nixed his choice, citing the books were too ‘whatever’ for him.

I thoroughly appreciate their ‘motherly ways’ most days. They know my parenting style and their little brother's temperament. Also, after seeing a movie with someone else when he wasn’t ready to watch it, he got scared and had terrible nightmares, so we take extra special care to prevent that from happening again.

Now, since I was sort of responsible for turning him onto this series, I had to take blame that he wanted the next books in the series. So I owed it to him to investigate the kibosh from ‘The Sissies’.

I didn’t know what to look up to find out if the books were appropriate, so I just typed in "The Scorch Trials review” into Google, and low and behold, look what I found! Common Sense Media had kid reviews on the book, from all ages!

This was both good and bad news:
Good for me, Bad for him.

When one 14 year old said the book was ‘nightmare worthy’ I had to agree with ‘The Sissies’, and when another child (about 11 years old) said it was gory and much scarier than the first book, I had to say I agreed 100% and my darling little boy would have to wait until he was older.

He was very disappointed...but glad that we cared about his mental state and sleeping ability :)

I did tell him that his honesty about what ‘The Sissies’ said about the books (and library book request) was worth something special. So we will be taking a trip to the Lego store for a little something over spring break.

I like to reward honesty, especially when my child's gut and conscience will lead them to speak up right away and keep themselves from harm. I told him I appreciated it, and that it showed that he respected his sisters, me and most importantly, himself.

Use Common Sense Media for books, TV programs, movies, games, apps, music and even websites!

Green Punch Buggy....!!!!

Green Punch Buggy...No Punch Back! As I was writing this blog post, my son came to me showing off his Lego creation. And don't you know I got hit at least five times since on my computer screen was displaying at least five different punch buggies, of five different colors thanks to Google Images. (Bad timing I'm thinking...) How can we possibly have world peace with these silly cars in the world!? ;) Don't the owners of these cute-but-obnoxious-cars understand that driving these things around town promotes violence!? ;) Anyhow.... The original purpose of this blog was to ask parents everywhere this question: Do you find yourself saying 'PUNCH BUGGY *BLANK-COLOR*! ' to yourself, even when the kids are not in the car??? I do! Isn't it funny how those games we used to play as a child are still around? I bet our parents say the same thing.... HAPPY FRIIIIIIDAAAAYYYY! P.S. I got hit at least ten more times, since as my son stood beside

Back to School Anxiety: Bullying

Download “School Boy Being Stressed” by David Castillo Dominici via freedigitalphotos.net I recently wrote about how to help your child if they’re struggling with going back to school because they were bullied. My biggest most important tip was to listen, because I honestly could not write a ‘How-to-make-them-not-afraid’ column. Frankly I thought that was absurd. Fear is sometimes real. Anxiety is sometimes truly there, and for a good reason. Our job as parents isn’t to try to make it go away, it’s to try to find out the true source of those worrisome feelings. If you’d like to read more, click here. And if you’re child is struggling to find excitement about the new school year, don’t deny it, just accept it and move forward gently. Here’s some more on bullying: Family Matters Links: A Touching Story/Song Bullying: A thing of the past A Peace Poem By My Teenage Daughter A Deeper Insight into My Thoughts on People Who Bring Harm to Others Other Links: Stop Bul

Good Customer Service At Home

Over the years, my careers have mainly been customer service based. I started in a family business and then moved on up through the rungs from waitress, to hostess, to sales associate, manager and eventually the GM of a hotel. In all my years, my training taught me that you should always do your best to take your customer all the way to what they need, make them happy, and never leave them until they are done with you. I pride myself on my customer service abilities. Though the other day, I think I failed at customer service in my own home! I was getting ready to cut my daughter's hair and because of how long it had gotten (she's been growing it out for a year!) I felt this time it would be best if instead of me spritzing it with water, she could wash and condition it real quick. She was fully clothed so I just suggested she run into the bathroom and wash her hair in the tub. She’s fourteen. I suppose I just assumed that she knew how to kneel over the tub and do it.

Search This Blog