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The next step of Kondo... where to start in the "household equipment" category?

More on Marie Kondo's book can be found here, here, and here.

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I'm now partway through decluttering the most baffling meta-category, what Marie Kondo (in her Life-Changng Magic of Tidying Up) calls komono.  I've already done several of the categories within it -- the ones that were easiest to select items that belonged within them -- and am about to embark on the more difficult ones.

Many items within the home... are placed, stored, and accumulate "just because," without our giving them much thought.  I call this category komono, a Japanese term that the dictionary defines variously as "small articles; miscellaneous items; accessories; gadget or small tools, parts, or attachments; an insignificant person; small fry."  It's no wonder people don't know what to do with things that fall into such a vague and all-encompassing category.  Still, it's time to bid farewell to this "just because" approach.  These items play an important part in supporting your lifestyle and therefore they, too, deserve to be handled one by one and sorted properly.

Unlike clothes or books, this category includes a diverse range of items, and the thought of trying to sort and organize them may seem daunting.  If you deal with them in the proper order, however, this task is actually quite simple.  The basic order for sorting komono is as follows:

1. CDs, DVDs ------ Done
2. Skin care products ------------ Done
3. Makeup -------------- Done
4. Accessories -------------- Done
5. Valuables (passports, credit cards, etc.) -------- Skipped; already well organized
6. Electrical equipment and appliances (digital cameras, electric cords, anything that seems vaguely "electric") ------------- Done
7. Household equipment (stationery and writing materials, sewing kits, etc.)
8. Household supplies (expendables like medicine, detergents, tissues, etc.)
9. Kitchen goods/food supplies (spatulas, pots, blenders, etc.)
10. Other (spare change, figurines, etc.)

If you have many items related to a particular interest or hobby, such as ski equipment or tea ceremony articles, treat these as a single subcategory.)   ------ I just did one of these, because I decluttered all the school supplies.

00So, I'm up to #7, "Household equipment."

I had to stop for a while and think:  What exactly does this encompass?  When I have collected all my "household equipment" together, what items will be in the pile?  In what way should they be similar to stationery and sewing kits, but not to medicine, spatulas, or figurines?

By looking at the rest of the list, I could deduce a few things.

o   "Household equipment" doesn't include JUNK.  ("These items play an important role in supporting your lifestyle.")  Or at least, it's time to get rid of the junk that may be hiding among the equipment.

o  "Household equipment" includes some kinds of tools, but not ALL tools.  The sewing kit is given as an example -- and a sewing kit includes scissors, seam rippers, needles.  Writing supplies are an example -- and that means things like pens.  But kitchen tools are excluded, as well as anything that's part of a large hobby-related collection.  (Presumably if your hobby is sewing, most sewing items  go outside "household equipment" and in with the hobby items -- I think she's thinking of a small mending kit that's employed as needed for maintenance tasks, like replacing buttons, repairing seams, and adjusting hems.)

o   "Household equipment" excludes most consumable items, but not all.  Food, detergent, medicine, tissues -- all things that get "used up" -- belong to other subcategories.   But "stationery" is also something that's used up, and it is included, along with the thread that is presumably part of a sewing kit.

o    "Household equipment" excludes items already sorted:  the other types of komono as well as clothes, books, and papers.  It also excludes sentimental items.

What I'm seeing so far is that "household equipment" means durable tools, kits, and other things that are useful.  Consumable goods are part of this only insofar as they are part of a kit or set, like the  thread in the sewing kit.   Kitchen items are not included, I presume because kitchen items are a big enough category on their own in any household; whereas in smaller households, "household equipment" might be a small enough category the deal with all at once.

So:  useful items for household tasks, but not kitchen items, not sentimental items, not related to a specific hobby, and generally not consumables.   I went through my house with a clipboard and pen and wrote down the kinds of items that I thought fell into this category, to see if I should do it all at once or if there are some subcategories to break it into.  Here's what I came up with:

    Baby care items.  Cloth diapering paraphernalia, child carriers, portable changing pads.

    Clothing care.  Laundry baskets, hangers, lingerie bags, eyeglass and jewelry repair kits, mending kit. 

    Cleaning tools.  Brooms, mops, totes, scrub brushes, rags, dishpans.

    Linens.  Bedding, towels, napkins, tablecloths.

    Quasi-furniture.  Folding chairs, stepstools, little-kid workbenches, rolling carts.

    Travel items.  Suitcases, backpacks, toiletry kits, picnic coolers.

    Board games and other gaming paraphernalia.  Cards, chess timers, extra dice.

     "Tool" tools.   Hammers, pliers, screwdrivers, twine, etc.

    Containers and organizers.  Boxes, bins, racks, bookends, baskets.    

  

Excluded from all that:  homeschooling paraphernalia, camping gear, athletic gear, fishing gear.  

In our household, most of the "tool" tools are also excluded from my responsibility, as they're stored out of sight in Mark's shop and he knows better than I do what is extraneous and what is necessary.  I can find most anything I need in there, if I look long enough.  But you will find others here and there throughout the house -- needle-nose pliers in a kitchen drawer, wire cutters in my guitar case and in the school science box, a small screwdriver that lives on my dresser, a couple of pocketknives and a set of Allen wrenches -- things I've squirreled away so that I won't have to hunt for them in Mark's shop should I need them.

What order should they be attacked in?  Marie Kondo:

[I]t is easier if you start with more personal items and clearly defined content first.

The "personal items" won't help me organize them since by now we've gotten to things that belong to "the household" rather than to any one person, although in my role as homemaker some of them (clothing care items) fall more under my domain than others (board game paraphernalia).

 So (prior to publishing the post here) I roughly sorted them from "mostly my domain" to "mostly someone else's domain."  And then I stuck "containers and organizers" at the end, because it strikes me as ridiculous to get rid of any of those until you've finished organizing everything.  I think those come right before sentimental items.

So... I guess that's what I attack next.  Baby care items.  It's about time to get rid of some of those anyway, I think.

The dangers of having "putting places."

Look closely. There's a baby in there:

 

See him now?

I have gotten more use out of this little bassinet, bought when I was pregnant with my oldest, than I ever did with the others. This guy? He is a napper. I have almost forgotten that babies can do that, after #3 (who gave up her nap entirely at age eight months) and #4 (who readily fell asleep but was such a light sleeper that despite lots of tiptoeing we could never count on the nap lasting long).

This little person takes a solid morning nap and a solid afternoon nap and usually a few little catnaps in between. A sudden loud noise, like a shouted "Moooooooooom!" or the blender turning on, or my husband talking loudly into the phone to someone's voice mail, will wake him; but ordinary conversation doesn't, and neither does picking him up (carefully) and moving him from one place to another.

Which is good, because a few days ago he rolled out of bed ("Was it the old THUMP........'WAHHH?'" asked my FB friend. Yep) and though he was not, of course, hurt, I resolved not to just leave him up there anymore.

Hence, the little bassinet in the living room.

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For this upcoming school year, I have finally purchased an item that I swore for four babies I didn't need.

(I choose not to remember ever swearing that I "would never need" such a thing. Let's hope I didn't.)

That item is a B.F.P. (big effin' playpen) like what they used to make:

 

I am particularly amused by the brand name:

 

I need a BFP like what they used to make -- one that measures a square meter inside and thus takes up a lot of valuable real estate -- because of H's twins of course. We haven't yet stuck all three babies in there yet, in part because they're all still so young that at least one of them is nursing nearly all the time and also in part because we aren't teaching intensively, it being summer. In the fall, though -- when they're eight and nine months old -- Well, let's just say that I expect them all to be very good friends.

Since the newbornhood of our babies coincided with the wild popularity of The LEGO Movie and its assorted product tie-ins, I think I am going to be glad to have another option besides the old blanket-on-the-floor trick when I need to set someone down with a toy for a minute.

 

Never say never. Some learn it after one child, some after two. I am a slow learner, I guess.

I don't use the sling as much as I did with my first two babies. I have three kids who are old enough to carry the baby themselves. My back isn't as young as it used to be (although switching to a two-shouldered carrier, when that's convenient, has relieved the discomfort enormously). And, well, I am out of practice. The habit of putting a baby down instead of taking him with you reinforces itself. He naps. I get used to walking around and doing things with both hands and all my balance. Once I was really good at, for example, one-handed onion-chopping. Now I feel helpless unless I give him to someone else so I can use both hands. This bothers me, not so much because I feel that I must carry him all the time (he is usually being held by someone, after all), but because I don't like feeling helpless. I had a skill once; it's annoying to discover it has atrophied.

A couple of weeks ago, when I realized I was losing my ability to type accurately -- a skill I have had for 25 years -- I turned off the autocorrect on my iPad. Crutches have their place, but there are drawbacks to relying on them. There doesn't seem to be a good solution to the decline of my babywearing skills, though, because I am pretty sure that the "crutches" of handing the baby off to an eager sibling or letting him nap in a nearby bassinet are here to stay.

I will just have to force myself to carry him more often than I need to if I want to stay capable enough to carry him whenever I want to.

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It's all Greek to an optical character recognition program. Well, Greek is, anyway.

A couple of days ago Melanie commented that she'd gotten a weird image in the anti-spam verification box here:

Seriously, my first captcha had Greek letters! I don't know how to do that on my keyboard. Was I supposed to transliterate to English?

I've never seen Greek letters, but the question led me to idly click around to find out exactly what the captcha program, which is called reCAPTCHA, is doing.  I had a vague memory that it was supposed to be using the human entries to digitize scanned content, but I didn't know how it worked and had wondered:  if the content hasn't been digitized yet, how does it know if your entry is correct?

The explanation is on the reCAPTCHA website and also in a 2008 article that appeared in Science (pdf), and it explains why you get two words.  

• One of the two words is already known to the software, and it serves as the shibboleth that proves you are human (which lets you post your comment) and verifies that you can probably decipher a distorted word in print. 
• The other word is unknown to the software and represents a part of a scanned document that optical character recognition (OCR) has failed to decode satisfactorily. 

Or, as the reCAPTCHA people put it,  

Each new word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is given to a user in conjunction with another word for which the answer is already known. The user is then asked to read both words. If they solve the one for which the answer is known, the system assumes their answer is correct for the new one. The system then gives the new image to a number of other people to determine, with higher confidence, whether the original answer was correct.

There, isn't that interesting?  And this explains how Greek letters made it in, probably via one of the unknown words:  the reason OCR couldn't recognize it wasn't because it was distorted, but because it was in the Greek alphabet.

Clearly I need more sleep.

My cell phone alarm goes off at six so that I can take my temperature.  You know the drill.

This morning, when the digital thermometer beeped, I took it out of my mouth and squinted at it, using the light from my cell phone screen to read it.

(My last thermometer had a backlight, but it was a crappy pink baseball bat of a Walgreens thermometer that I threw out after two cycles.  The one I replaced it with was Canadian, and you have to push the buttons twice to get Fahrenheit, and it doesn't have a backlight, but it's better than the Walgreens one.)

Anyway, this morning.  This morning my thoughts, on squinting at my thermometer, went like this:

"....uh.  how disappointing.  i was expecting a higher temperature."

"....wait a minute."

"....this doesn't make sense."

"....i really hope this thermometer is not broken."

"....i can't even read this. my eyes are so blurry."  *squint harder* "why so many numbers?"

Several more seconds passed before I realized what I was trying to read was the lot and model number from the back of the thermometer, plus the words "Made in India."

Yeah, you guessed it.  Disgusted, I went back to sleep.  Good thing it has a last-temp-recall.

Real work.

Given a plastic toy "workbench" by a distant relative for one's second birthday, complete with plastic hammer and plastic saw and plastic wrench and an array of sound effects that ring out when one pounds the plastic pegs or cranks the plastic bolt or saws the plastic wood in the plastic slot --

-- obviously, it is much more interesting and worthwhile to locate the real recessed screws that hold it together, and then toddle off to find Mommy's real Phillips-head screwdriver so you can take the thing apart.

Wouldn't you?

My gym bag.

A long time ago, when I was fairly new to regular exercise, I wrote a post entitled "My swim bag" in which I described, um, my swim bag.

After I finished taking a year of swimming lessons a few years ago, and started trying to swim for fitness, I only managed to do it a couple of times a month. Part of doing it more frequently has been developing a well-stocked, ready-to-go swim bag.

I started with the bare bones. My bag had

• one lap suit from the local sporting goods store
• one ugly old beach towel (I wanted one I wouldn't miss if I kept it in my bag), big enough to wrap up in
• ordinary Speedo swim goggles from the local sporting goods store
• one ordinary black latex cap from the local sporting goods store
• my YMCA membership card

This is, I think, the minimum that anyone needs to swim for fitness. About 2 minutes into my first swimming lesson, I discovered that the swimsuit I bought a few years back mainly because it flattered my figure was no good for lap swimming; it wouldn't stay put. So I bought a proper lap suit on sale for about $45. It took a few more lessons before I finally admitted that I would be more comfortable with goggles and a swim cap (if your hair is very short, a swim cap is optional). The towel goes without saying. My "Y" card represents, of course, access to a pool or body of water in which to swim.

As I decided I needed them, I acquired a few more things to stuff in my bag. Much would be good for any exerciser, not just swimmers. Let me stress, though, that none of this is necessary -- I could get a good workout with nothing more than suit, goggles, and towel.

• A pair of "flip flop" sandals to get me from the locker room to the pool to the shower. It's safer to navigate the stairs (yes, there are stairs at my Y between the locker rooms and the pool) and shower room with something on your feet. Also, I can slip them on to pick up a child from swimming lessons without breaking the no-street-shoes-on-the-pool-deck rule.
• A second towel, one of those super-thirsty super-compact PackTowls, to help get my hair dry faster (or even to wear on my head out of the locker room in a winter hurry). I still use the ugly old beach towel too.
• A mesh hanging bag, full of all the stuff I need to shower and get presentable in the morning: shampoo and conditioner, facial cleanser, moisturizer, anti-perspirant, razor and extra blades, toothbrush and toothpaste, comb, and a handful of hair clips and a bandana for tying my hair up or back if necessary. If I was a makeup wearer, I'd have that too. None of this is actually necessary for most workouts -- a good rinse in the shower is enough to get most of the chlorine out -- but it's extremely convenient to have it, especially for early morning. Who wants to get ready twice when once will do? (A nice bonus: with all this stuff pre-packed, it's a snap to prepare an overnight bag on short notice.)
• A waterproofed workout plan:
  • The plan. It's a piece of paper on which I've written out the drills and laps I want to do in the order I want to do them. Ideally I would make a new one for each session, but it's good to have a sort of "default" plan ready to go. Mine is pretty simple and fits on a 3x5 piece of paper. Having a plan makes the workout more interesting, and more beneficial than just "oh, I'll swim for 40 minutes and stop."
  • The waterproofing. You can laminate the plan -- very effective but perhaps time consuming if you don't own a laminator. You can put it in a page protector -- not too bad but bigger than I need. You can put it in a Ziploc bag -- an excellent and easy solution. Or (my favorite solution) you can recycle old Tyvek envelopes: Cut them up and write on the scraps, wet or dry, with a #2 pencil.
• A one-touch lap counter. This little toy was a bit of a splurge, but I love it for timed workouts. I always lose count and then I don't know how far I swam.
• A combination lock.

All these things live permanently in the bag. When I get home from swimming, I take the bag right to the laundry room, where I either put the towels and suit into the next basket of laundry waiting to be washed or hang them up to dry and be re-used; the bag stays in the laundry room until the towels and suit are dry and I can repack it.

A lot of this is still true, but I thought it was high time for an update, seeing as now I am not just a swimmer but a runner, and I have been for a long time.

First of all, some time ago I upgraded the bag to a bigger one with multiple pockets. Now I also keep in the bag enough items to swim or run, so that either workout is possible wherever I go. The bag, therefore, contains:

• Running shoes. It's definitely worthwhile to have a dedicated pair of running shoes. There is a different pair that I wear with ordinary clothes for walking around (what they are, actually, is an old but still nice-enough-looking pair of running shoes). I run in cross-country flats now that I have switched to forefoot-striking.
• A complete set of running clothes, including socks, running bra, and clean underwear. I have two sets of running clothes so that one can be in the laundry while the other is in the bag, but I don't unpack one until the clean one is available; it's more important to be ready for a workout than to have freshly cleaned workout clothes.
• A set of headphones. I don't keep my iPod in the bag all the time, but I try always to have headphones. The treadmills at the gym have built-in TVs that take them. And if I think about it, of course, I can bring the iPod. Maybe someday I will have a dedicated mp3 player for the gym bag.
• Something to hold my hair out of my face. A bandana is the default choice.
• A "wrist wallet" to carry necessary items like a car key or cell phone.
• A couple of cold-weather items like a hat, a light hoodie, and a neck gaiter.

I still have it always packed with a complete set of toiletries, and because of this it doubles as an overnight bag -- I can even sleep in the workout clothes, or wear them the next day if I'm really in a hurry!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portable: Pseudo-pain au chocolat.

On Tuesdays I leave the house by eight in the morning, to drive out to the suburbs so we can spend our co-schooling days with Hannah's family.  This school year I've been driving even a bit earlier, picking up the daughters of another family as well before swinging north.  The trip is not quite an hour long.

The kids have to eat, of course, and usually in the car.  Normally if someone won't eat breakfast I shrug and say "Guess you'll be hungry later, then," but I had to put my foot down some time ago about refusing to eat breakfast on Tuesday mornings.  Hannah is happy to feed hungry kids a snack, but I wasn't so happy about my children snarfing up all her bread and milk once a week.

Furthermore, my daughter is one of those people who can't bear to look at food before about 10:00, so her breakfast has to come along and be saved till later.  

The emergency food is granola bars, of course, which I keep in my car.  And if we are really desperate (defined by:  I somehow wasn't able to secure a cup of coffee any other way), I am not above hitting a drive-through.  But I really do prefer making a portable real food.

Now if it was  just me, it would be easy.  I love hardboiled eggs, that quintessential portable protein, or sticks of string cheese; and in the summer I would be perfectly happy to drop a pint jar of hulled strawberries and almonds into my cupholder (one of the cupholders; the other one has my coffee) and go.  Kids:  not so much.  Eating what's available because you have to get yourself fed is apparently a learned skill.

Muffins are one solution; they are a bit crumbly, sure, but there are already so many crumbs in my car that I don't worry about it.  At least they don't drip, unless they are chocolate-chip.  I used to make them fresh on Tuesday morning, but these days I tend to bake them the night before.   I used to be intimidated by muffins, but now I can make them practically in my sleep.

Another is quesadillas or their cousin, breakfast burritos.  I typically make plain cheese for one child, egg-cheese-salsa for another (and for me), and a pepperoni-and-cheese quesadilla for another.  They don't take very long and they are all right even after they have gone cold.

I don't favor peanut butter sandwiches because the crusts tend to get left behind in the seats and then get smooshed.  Also, then everyone wants milk.  Which is banned from my car.

Here is a new idea I haven't tried yet, and a new idea I tried this morning.

First:  stuffed buns.  Yes, I know, there is nothing particularly creative about what is basically a sandwich.  Still, I like her nifty method of sealing the bun to keep things from falling out of it.  Check it out at The Big Red Kitchen (where there be photos):

Go to your nearest bakery that bakes up the freshest and most tender Kaiser Rolls. Slice the rolls open leaving one edge intact- like a clam shell, and pull out some of the tender innards saving them for another recipe. Now here is the trick to getting those buns put back together and holding the filling inside. Ready for this?

Fill the bottom well with your filling of choice and pipe beaten egg whites around the lip of the bottom bun, close bun, press lightly to be sure that glue has sealed the bun closed, and top with a slice of cheese of choice. Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 8 minutes. The meringue will seal your fillings in the bun.... 

Brilliant.  Just brilliant.  I am a little bit afraid to try it first with a fresh, tender Kaiser roll, however, because I fear that if the kids get a hold of that, they will never eat one made of a leftover whole wheat dinner roll, which is exactly how I would do this for breakfast.   

Now, on to my other new thing, with a little background.  The bread machine is sniffed at by many "real" bakers, including, sadly, some otherwise inspiring cookbook writers (Mark Bittman, I'm talking to you).  Yes, yes, if you are the sort of person who tosses about  "poolish" and "sponge" without a thought, or even if you are a devotee of the considerably more convenient no-knead Dutch oven breads or Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, then perhaps bread machine bread will never be up to your standards.  But hey, if your family eats sandwiches or toast, especially if they eat a LOT of sandwiches and toast, it's hard to beat a constant supply of homemade sandwich loaves.  I think at this point I would do without my microwave, food processor, and blender all together before I would give up my bread machine.  

So, given that I have a bread machine, it's really pretty easy to have fresh breakfast buns of all sorts, because the dough can be ready to shape when you get up.  I stumble down the stairs, turn on the oven, shape the buns or what have you to the sound of the coffee maker starting to hiss and burble, set them on top of the warming oven to rise, and stumble back up the stairs (it's harder than going down; try it sometime) to get dressed or shower or nurse the baby or whatever.  Twenty or thirty minutes later I come down, pop the pan in the oven, and drink a cup of coffee.  Most yeast buns only take ten minutes or so to bake, so breakfast is ready.  And since that (and maybe a cup of milk) is all the kids need to eat, well, it's actually pretty simple.  I think you can maybe get a similar effect with certain doughs that will willingly rise in the refrigerator overnight, but it takes longer for them to do their second rise.

This morning I tried a version of pain au chocolat.   Yes, yes, it is traditionally made with croissant-type pastry, but my children don't know that, do they?  Milo was inspired to ask about it yesterday when we were reading a book called Let's Eat:  What Children Eat Around the World.  One of the children was a French boy, and a photo showed him and his restauranteur-parents sitting around the breakfast table drinking hot chocolate out of bowls.  "Why aren't they using a mug?" asked Milo, and I read the caption to him, which indicated that the family had dipped their pain au chocolat in the hot chocolate and then when the pain was done they drank the hot chocolate from the bowl, much as we order our kids to finish their milk after they have spooned up all the cereal.

Well.  Hot chocolate with chocolate-stuffed bread sounded like a fine breakfast to Milo, so that's what's on the menu this morning.  And I mention this in the "portable" category because without the hot chocolate, the chocolate-stuffed bread is indeed quite portable, as you will see.

(A side note before we go on:  Why haven't I ever thought before about serving, say, cookies and milk with the milk in a bowl instead of a cup?  Whenever they're going to dunk something in the milk?  It would be a lot less messy and it doesn't impede the drinking afterwards.)

I searched for "bread machine pain au chocolat" and found this lovely British recipe, with the flour measured in grammes, and adapted it.  (The quantity of yeast looked ridiculously small, so I used the amount of yeast I would normally put in a cinnamon-roll type dough).

Here's what I put in my bread machine for six pains.  Next time I'll increase it by fifty percent, I think, and try using a bit more whole wheat, since it turned out nicely with 40% whole wheat.

• 2 eggs beaten (right in the machine pan) with 3 Tbsp milk
• 2 Tbsp sugar
• 2 Tbsp butter
• Pinch salt
• 150 g bread flour (sorry; I have a scale, so I went with her grammes)
• 100 g Dakota Maid whole wheat flour (DM is a finely ground, hard winter wheat that is excellent for bread.  I don't think this would work with a coarse whole wheat)
• 1 tsp bread machine yeast

I cut the dough, which was smooth and elastic, into six pieces, rolled each gently out into an oval, and deposited eight Ghirardelli 60%-cocoa chocolate chips (that's a quarter of an ounce; I think a bit more would have worked okay) into the center of each.  Then I folded them over (like a business letter), pinched them to seal, and tucked the ends under like a little loaf of bread.

I put four of them in mini-loaf pans as suggested in the recipe, and put two on a baking sheet to see if that worked okay.  Then I covered them and let them rise 20 minutes before baking 10 minutes at 425 degrees F.  

Results:

Aren't they cute?  They looked just a teeny bit overly browned; I might try 400 degrees next time.  And I don't really think that they needed the mini-loaf pans, as they all look about the same.  

(Slight mistake:  I probably should have put them seam side down.  I was worried about the chocolate leaking.  I think seam side down would look nicer, although mine turned out kind of interestingly rustic-looking.)

Of course anytime you have something stuffed with chocolate, you should have an interior shot.  Here is one that I managed to catch with my cell phone before Mark ate the other half.

 

I thought the rich bread was lovely, but the chocolate was a bit much for seven in the morning.  Chocolate is good for you, insisted Mark, as he ate one and a half buns plus the chocolatey middle of mine.   Maybe next time I will fill my little bun with something else, like plum jam or cream cheese.

Once they cool completely, the chocolate will solidify, and it will be a very nice, not-messy, quite portable breakfast bun.  

 

UPDATE:  Oh yes.  Well-received.  And not perfectly un-messy, but not bad either.

 

Internet contract for kids.

After I wrote the Internet safety lesson I described in a previous post, I learned that my good friend IRL The Road Scholar had put up a lot of good links related to Internet use in the homeschool.  This included a set of "10 digital commandments for kids" in the form of a contract for kids to go over with their parents and sign.  (The Road Scholar's commandments were, in turn, adapted from a set found at Komando.com.)

I thought the contract was a great idea.  And no, I don't think it's overkill.  Whenever there are complicated permission structures, where the rules are many and detailed, having "the rules" in a written form is good for everybody, so that we can refer back to it to remember exactly what we previously agreed upon.   Also, going over the rules carefully is a way to have a conversation about what the rules should be.  Parents do have authority over their kids, but sometimes kids have good ideas that should be incorporated into the agreement. 

It's particularly important in areas where kids and teens are learning to exercise freedom responsibly:  internet use, staying home alone, learning to drive a car. In situations like that, we want them to stretch a little bit, so that they can gain experience and (it's to be hoped) wisdom; but we do not want them to stretch dangerously beyond their capabilities faster than their maturity can keep up.   That is complicated and subjective, and in a bigger family it's hard to keep track of where everybody is at a given time.

Furthermore, I think it's important to include items that protect the child's interests as well.  At some point, I think a parent needs to demonstrate respect for a child's privacy by agreeing to limit blogging about them or writing about them on FB.  So note below that the contract includes language that could let my child ask me to remove or modify blog posts about him.  And I think it's so important that a child be honest about what he or she encounters online, that I think it's reasonable to agree up front that if the child tells us promptly about a potentially dangerous encounter, he will not be punished (though privileges might be reduced; changes in privileges should not be construed as punishments).

So I took the contract and adapted it for my own family, in which there is an almost-11-year-old boy who is just now getting expanded access to the Internet.  I thought I'd post the text of my adapted contract here.  Feel free to use it or adapt it for your own family.

Comments are welcome.  We haven't gone over the contract with him yet, so please tell me if you have any feedback or suggestions!  I can still make changes.

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Internet and Computer Contract for Kids Under 18

 
When I use computers, mobile devices, phones, and the Internet, I promise to follow these rules to keep my family, my friends and myself safe.   I will discuss these rules with my parents and initial each section as we discuss them.

--

1.  My parents will decide when I am allowed to use the computer, cell phone, Wii or other game system, and the Internet.

• I will only visit sites they say I can.
• I will only do things we agree are appropriate.
• I will log out when they ask me to log out.
• I will not allow my siblings to log in on my account or use my “time” without permission.
• I will respect the rules that my friends' parents set for them.  I will not help them break their parents' rules.
• If I use the Internet while I am away from my parents or at a friend's house, I will let my parents know that I did.  I will tell them about any new games I played.  
• If I or one of my friends brings a new game or video into the house, I will show it to my parents.
• I will tell my parents if I accidentally use a device, play a game, or  visit a site I  think they might not want me to use.  I know that my parents will not punish me for accidentally doing this as long as I tell them right away.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

2.   I will never tell anyone secure information without getting my parent’s permission first.

• I will not say when I am alone or when the house is empty or tell my family's schedule.
• I will not tell my family's last name, address, workplaces, passwords, or phone numbers.  
• I will keep this information about my friends as private as I keep my own information.
• I will not use the Internet to show, spread, or tell anything private.
• If I am not sure whether something should be kept private, I will ask my parents.
• If I want help keeping something private, I can ask my parents.
• I know that if I ask my parents to keep private a story or a picture that features me, they will respect my wishes.  I can ask my parents to remove information that they have shared about me from social media.
• I know that it is very easy for secrets to spread once they are in electronic form.
• I know that any electronic message on the Internet could be read or seen by anyone, forever.
• If I accidentally reveal information, I will tell my parents the same day so they can act to protect our family.  I know my parents will not punish me if I tell them right away.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

3.   I will not participate in mean, physically dangerous, or morally wrong activities online.

• If anyone does or says anything that bothers me, I will tell my parents.
• I will show my parents if I see material or play a game that 
  • is obscene 
  • depicts real and severe violence or simulates realistic and severe violence
  • shows nudity, meaning pictures of people who are naked or who are showing the parts of their bodies usually covered by bathing suits
  • is cruel
  • encourages people to do things that are wrong or illegal
  • frightens or disturbs me
  • tries to trick me into revealing personal information or do something wrong
  • seems to be a lie
• I know that my parents will not punish me for accidentally seeing such material if I tell my parents right away.
• I will not do, say, send, or show anything obscene, illegal, immoral, frightening, or cruel.
• I know that it is not lying if I use a fake name to protect my identity or if I refuse to tell information to a person who has no right to know it.  I know that it is always okay for a kid to refuse to tell any information over the Internet.
• I know that search engines and online information sources such as Wikipedia could lead me to sites that are obscene, cruel, dangerous, frightening, or tricky.
• I know that much of the information on the Internet is untrue or misleading.
• If I want to search for information on the Internet at home, I will let my parents know before I start.  I will always search on the computer in the living room where they can observe me and help me.
• If I want to use the computers in the library to search, I will use the computers set aside for kids in my age group (“kids” or “teens.”)

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

4.   I will never post or send pictures of myself, my family or friends without my parents' permission.

• If I set up a blog or online profile, I will tell my parents where it is and how they can read it.
• If I join a social network, mailing list, file or sharing site, or group of any kind, I will invite my parents to join.
• I will work with my parents to set privacy and sharing settings that satisfy them.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

5.   I will never, ever meet with anyone I've talked with online without first talking to my parents.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

6.   If my parents ask for my password, I will give it to them.

• I will never give out any passwords I know to any others, not even friends or siblings.
• If I find out a password that belongs to my parents, I will tell them that I know it.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

7.   If I want to download anything, I will ask for permission FIRST.

• I know that some applications, games, music, movies, or programs are unsafe to download.
• I know that I must pay for these things and that the cost is sometimes hidden.
• I know that sometimes “free” content is really stolen.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

8.  I will not try to win free things or buy things on a phone or on the Internet. 

• If I get a message that I have won something, I will show my parents.
• If I get an email asking me to enter a password or other information, I will tell my parents.
• I will not forward messages that tell me bad stuff will happen to me if I do not forward them.
• I will not click on any advertisements.  If I accidentally click on an advertisement, I will close any new windows that appear and go “back” to the last page I was viewing.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

9.   I will not change settings, install software, or open my parents' files without permission.

•  If I think I might have accidentally done this, I will tell my parents right away so they can fix it.
• I know that my parents will not punish me for accidentally doing this as long as I tell my parents right away.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

10.   I understand that my parents allow me to use the Internet, computers, and games on the condition that I do not hide from them what I do. 

• My parents may examine the computer, my phone or any other device that they or I own.
• They may see where I have gone on the Internet, what emails and text messages I’ve sent and received, the things I’ve downloaded, or what I do. 
• I will not erase my browsing history or record of sent messages without permission.
• I will BCC one of my parents on every email I send until they set different rules for me.
• I promise not to turn off or alter any parental-controls settings or software installed by my parents.
• I will not close a window when my parents come into the room to hide something I’m viewing.
• If I use code words or abbreviations, I will tell my parents what they mean.
• If I think I may have accidentally done something I am not supposed to, I will tell my parents right away.
• If I want to do something that I am not sure my parents would approve of, I will ask them first.

Initial here:   Kid _____     Parent _____

 

For the child:

• I have read the above, and I will follow these rules.     
• If I do not follow these rules, I understand that my parents might reduce my privileges or punish me.
• I understand that “reducing my privileges” is not necessarily a punishment.  My parents might reduce my privileges for any reason in order to keep our family safe.
• I also understand that even if my parents do not punish me, my actions on the Internet might have consequences from which my parents might not be able to protect me or from which they might choose not to protect me.

_____________________________________

Child's signature                                 Date

For the parents:

• I agree to let my child use electronic devices as long as they follow these rules.  
• I agree to answer any of my child's questions that will help him or her use the Internet safely and responsibly.   
• I agree to make changes to the rules clearly and in writing, and keep them with this contract, so that my child always knows what the rules are.
• I agree not to punish a child for accidentally breaking a rule, as explained above, as long as he promptly tells  a parent about it.
• I agree to discuss my child's ideas for safely increasing privileges as the child learns to use the Internet responsibly.

____________________________________

Parent's signature                               Date


_____________________________________

Parent's signature                                Date                 

 

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It's not just your Rice Krispies.

The breast pump is talking.... but what is it saying?!?!

Co-schooling via Skype.

Hannah's 8yo threw up this morning while she was loading the car, so we tried something new today:  co-schooling via Skype.  

After a few technical glitches, we agreed to connect at 12:30 and try to run through some of the older boys' schoolwork.  I moved one of my cool school desks in front of the computer desk to provide more table room.

First Hannah went over the grammar lesson with our 10- and 11-y-olds.

Then I taught Latin.  And finally we set the boys to working together over the connection on their history.

Overall, I'd say it worked better than we thought it would.  But we learned a few things.

(1) It really required supervision from both of us on both ends.  Which meant that it was kind of tough to keep tabs on what the other kids were doing at the same time as the 10 and 11 year old boys were having their learning time.  Even while Hannah was teaching, my 4yo and 7yo were wandering around feral, and eventually I set them up with Netflix to keep them out of my hair.

(2) Which means that the best strategy on a Skype-co-schooling day is probably to do all the non-Skype schoolwork in the morning, and then settle down for a Skype session after lunch, without trying to do anything else at the same time.

(3) And we have to have all the necessary papers printed out ahead of time and right at the ready.  Fortunately we both pulled it together well enough to email each other copies of all the stuff we'd be using.

(4) It takes a few minutes for the silly faces and noises to stop. 

(5) Little girls can also practice their nursery-rhyme recitations over Skype, by "challenging" each other to recite their memorized poems.

(6) But we're not sure this would work at all with seven- and eight-year-old boys.  Based solely on the amount of silly faces and jumping and such that occurred every time one entered the frame.

(7) It was even possible for us to sit down "together" and have our ritual of tea-and-how-did-the-teaching-go-for-you at the end.  Nice!

I think we'll try it again on Thursday, as I fully expect Hannah's family to have several days of The Christmas Bug That Swept The Nation.  This time, I'll be more ready for the disruption.

 ADDED:  I have posted on "missed days" of co-schooling before -- here is a long list of different things to do when one family has to cancel.