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I know that many have counseled putting the computer(s) in a common area of the house or even a high traffic area. Pornography is truly a scourge. It’s obvious that the information children might share over the internet needs monitoring.
On the other hand, Pdad works at home and has his office in an isolated corner of the basement so that I don’t have a painful, always-shushing-my-children kind of life. He is on the telephone most of the day and the tones of little voices–raised either in happy play or in sibling ire–just do not provide a good background for his important business calls. Also, he travels, spending many nights in hotels. Realistically speaking, if his resolve to avoid pornography depends on a fear of family members walking by, he’s in big trouble, because usually there won’t be a family member walking by. It isn’t possible to un-isolate his computer unless we are prepared to move back to company headquarters.
So–no-brainer right? If we can’t move Pdad’s computer, we can’t. But what about the kids’ computer? Children are still developing their judgment. They need to be monitored. We handled this for a while by having one computer with the internet (use for children by permission only) and one for homework. But what made sense in theory didn’t work in practice. How do we look up words? At Merriam-Webster.com. How do we check which books are in at the library? On their internet site. How do we research which new books we want? At Amazon. How does Amelia find images of the Sphinx for her big school project? With Google.
So for a while now, the kids have had relatively unfettered access to an internet-enabled computer in the family room. The problem: our family room is a very public part of our house. It is where all the toys are. It can be very difficult to focus on your homework when smaller monkeys are whooping and hollering and having fun, or even targeting you for distraction. Because of Amelia’s motor issues, she must type all her homework on the computer. How do I get her the quiet she needs while also having her computer in an area where it can be monitored?
Again, where is your computer and why?
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5 Responses to “Where is your computer? Why?”
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Our family PC is in the family room because of the advice to have computers in high-traffic areas, but I was just thinking the other day that once everyone’s using laptops (like my four youngest siblings all do) then the issue will have to be re-thought. And I sympathize with your reasoning; I’ve often wished I could tuck my unsightly desk into a less-visible area, and it’s true that their are distractions when the kids do homework.
(I guess I didn’t have any answers, just more questions.)
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Because we have an in-house LAN, we can shut off the internet to certain computers at certain times of the day or manually at any time. That’s the only thing that works getting my teenager to go to bed…internet goes off at 10:30. Each of our children has his/her own computer, but all three are together in the playroom and they’re constantly looking at each other’s screens. Teenager has been trying to get us to give her internet in her bedroom for years. I think she’s finally given up.
My children are older than yours, however, so the noise problem is not such a factor. And if one is having a particularly hard time concentrating, they can (politely, I hope) request the others to be quiet and it usually happens.
We have a computer in the main area in the kitchen as well as computers for the kids down stairs in the play room. Normally when Madison it doing homework, she can use the computer in the kitchen where there are less distractions, but if they are playing games they play downstairs. Both are pretty high traffic areas.
I know several families with a computer in the kitchen — where Mom is often found in the after-school hours. Our one and only family access computer is in the same office space John uses. As a result, the kids have very little access to computer. It didn’t hurt me too much, But then again I never did PowerPoint presentations in grade school…
I had to get the computer out of the kitchen because it was too much of a distraction for me. I was always interrupting my cleaning or cooking to just check a blog real quick or look something up that popped into my brain. So now I have the computer up in the playroom/schoolroom.