Chapter 20
A Family Project . . . The Web Can Bring You Together
Let Your Children Teach You . . . Learning to Listen
Throughout their lives, children are being taught and lectured to by adults. Teachers, parents and family members all know more, and are constantly proving that to children. Guess what? Most of our kids know far more about the computer than we do. Proficient with computer games of problem-solving mazes with dragons and spaceships that boggle our minds, they spend hours honing their skills. Few adults have the hand-eye coordination necessary to kill off the monsters and retrieve the treasures. But our children do. They can point and click with the best of them.
Give them a chance to level the playing field. Armed with this book, so you won't appear too ignorant, sit down in a comfortable chair and let your children show you around the family computer.
If they are already online, ask them to show you their favorite online forums, chatrooms and sites. Check them out. In addition to helping you understand your child better, and giving you a good simple tour of the online world, it will help you begin to understand how to help balance your values and your children's preferences.
Even if you're an experienced websurfer, let your child lead the tour. Let them talk and teach you for a change. Make it an "us" afternoon or evening. This exercise will help you to see the computer as something that brings you together instead of something that pulls you apart.
There are two sites which might be interesting to surf together, while you're exploring with your kids. One of my favorite websites, Games Kids Play (www.corpcomm.net/~gnieboer/gamehome.htm) is a terrific and non-glossy page with lots of games (the old fashioned ones we used to play) for families to play . . . like Mother May I? Showing them what we used to do for fun (in the days of horses and buggies . . .) is a good way of sharing stories about when we were younger. It's all about communication.
The second site, Just for Kids (www.eagle.ca/~matink/kids.html), has every conceivable site any family could want to access, from animal links, to dinosaur links, to educational sites, to those "just for fun." It's a good place to explore together.
Aside from surfing together, feign interest in the newest computer game to capture your child's imagination. (Many of you have been waiting for an excuse to play these games anyway, so grab the opportunity. That way, when found playing the football game, NFL 98 for twenty consecutive hours, you can blame me and this book.)
You'll be amazed at their skill. Although there are plenty of space and sports games for simple enjoyment, there are far more problem solving games, where your children must break through levels of the game by solving problems and discovering clues. Take the joystick when it's offered. This will be one game that you won't have to let them win. You don't stand a chance against the new generation of computer-savvy kids we're raising.
When you look at their faces while they are teaching you, and their extraordinary patience with your ineptitude, you'll understand why I suggested this in the first place.
In addition, if you use parental control software, and your children want to visit sites blocked by the software or not yet rated by a PICS compatible service, take the time to visit those sites with them. It will help build trust between you.
Your Own Soapbox . . . Create a Website Together
Anyone can set up a website. You create it to say what you want to share and design it to say it the way you want. It's your own personal soap box. You can add photos, graphics, sounds and animation, and share stories about your family pets, your friends and your favorite brands of cookies. It's yours, and you can do anything you want with it. (Well . . . almost anything. Read the section about what's illegal online first.)
Personal sites comprise a large part of the Web. They range from sites that preach a political point of view to those making fun of other sites, and share things as diverse as family photos and biographical information about the website operators. While a majority of the commercial sites are designed professionally and at substantial cost, most of the personal sites are designed by the website operators themselves. Many of the website operators, especially the younger ones, have designed some very special sites, filled with the latest in Internet technology.
Building a website teaches your children to be creative and how to communicate their ideas. I've often tapped into this rich lode of creativity and graphic and design talent for technical help in designing our sites.
Family Sports—Take up Web Surfing Together
Now that you're ready to navigate around the Web, I thought I'd share my favorite family-friendly and children's sites with you. All of these are free. (There are a few family-friendly services which cost a monthly fee. I've mentioned these too, but think that with all the free children's content on the Web, no one should have to pay for it.)
You can start with a few we've recommended here, or start out on your own. But find something you can all research and learn about together. What about a family vacation you need to plan? It's a great way to plan and make sure everyone's involved.
Here are a few interesting sites.
ESPNET-Sportszone (www.espnet.sportzone.com)
ESPNET offers the most abundant site for scores, stats, and exclusive articles written by ESPN's expert analysts on the Net. On this site, all the major sports—baseball, basketball, football, and hockey—have a page devoted to the breaking stories, trades, and profiles relevant to these respective games. If the "big four" aren't the fruit of your interest, Sportszone offers similar pages from Auto Racing, Golf, and Bowling to Figure skating. Sportszone is a must "hit" for any sports fan as either a casual spectator or a subscriber and offers the best coverage of any sports page on the Net.
As a subscriber, for $4.95 a month, or $39.95 for the year, you are granted access to a multimedia library, a sports almanac, and discounts on sportscenter's fantasy leagues.
Kids.com (www.aha-kids.com)
Kids.com is a site engineered for kids between the ages of two and twelve. By providing links to stories, games, and challenges separated by skill, Kids.com proved to be a winner among other sites. "Emmy award-winning producer, Al Hyslop (Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, and 3-2-1 Contact), has brought forth a bright and fun web site for kids of different age groups," claimed Parentsoup, itself a premier site geared at finding safe and fun places for kids on the Net. Aside from providing a toy department (ugh!) so that kids may purchase their favorite Kids.com merchandise online, they provide a parents link so that parents can review the basis and content of the site before they allow their children to become a regular visitors
For children between the ages of two and five, Kids.com presents DDog, your child's "first online host". In this section your children can select one of a number of options, including DDog's diary and Cowboy Jim Bob's "read to me" bedtime stories.
For children between the ages of six to twelve, Kids.com offers Mia Miaow's Mysteries and Wuhnik's Science for kids. Mia Miaow is in the tradition of the old serial stories, where a continuation will be posted every week. Aside from offering a standard tale of mystery, Mia's tales are also interactive, allowing your child to pick the designated route for the characters. Wuhnik's Science for kids offers daily questions to which your children can post their answers and presents photos in a "guess what this is" format.
Certain magazines, like Parenting, (www.parenttime.com) Family PC (www.familypc.com) and Home PC (www.homepc.com) have great site lists too, broken into age levels. Try a few of those. Then explore. Try checking out sites linked to from those sites, and sites those sites link to, and so on and so forth. Whenever you find a site you like, remember to bookmark it (I've explained how in Part 1) so you can go back and visit them again.
If you find a site you really enjoy, write a brief review telling other families why they'd like the site and e-mail it to us at the www.familyguidebook.com site. We'll post them so they can be shared with other families.
Familiar brand name sites . . . for ages 1 to 100
With the thousands of sites now up on the Web, there is something for everyone, regardless of age. It's like a big game that you never grow out of. Also, many sites are designed especially for family use and are meant to be viewed by parents and kids alike. Often, they are put up and managed by well known corporations such as Disney, Nickelodeon, and Fox so you are guaranteed G-rated material.
Disney's site is located at www.disney.com. It offers many pictures, sounds, and movie clips of Disney movies and TV shows. Many of these multimedia downloads require one or more plug-ins. (Plug-ins are additions to your web browser that allow you to get the most out of special multimedia online). Also, many of these clips and sound bytes are quite large and require a long time to download.
This site is especially loved by young children—even if they can't read yet, they'll be able to identify with the cartoon characters on the screen. Disney also runs another site at www.family.com which provides parents and children with different activities and games that the family can do together, which I've also reviewed.
Nickelodeon's cable TV content is devoted to kids (as you probably already know); their site at www.nick.com is no different. The site does use a cookie, but it is only used by the same site. Many of the games and areas require VRML and Macromedia's Shockwave plug-ins but are worth the download time.
There are pictures and clips from Nickelodeon's shows for younger children and games for slightly older ones. The trivia games ask questions covering a large range of topics. Thus, they teach as well as entertain. All of the areas are brightly colored (as in a cartoon) and cover topics that interest kids: jokes, snacks, TV shows, problems, etc. There are even places that kids can hear and trade other kids' jokes.
Even cereal companies like Kellogg's have kid's sites. At www.kelloggs.com, the kids' areas have games that focus around their cereal products. Many of these games also require the Macromedia Shockwave plug-in and load a cookie but the games are worth it. Although adults may find that these shoot-the-Corn Pops are pointless, kids seem to love them.
Fox is another TV Network that has a great site for kids. While Fox's site is www.fox.com, they run a separate site, www.foxkids.com, for kids. This site revolves around the kids' shows on the Fox Network and have downloadable pictures, sounds bytes, movies clips, etc. about these shows.
The Family Channel (www.familychannel.com) has some interesting features, along with resources for parents. In addition the ABC Network has a wonderful site at www.abc.com. The site is available on AOL (keyword "ABC") and on the Web. The site has content from a myriad of shows from the ABC Network.
Many of our family and kid reviews recommended these sites. Here's a review, as described by the mother of Karylie, a five year-old girl.
Karylie's favorites, by her mom
My oldest daughter's name is Karylie and she just turned six in May. She has been using the computer since she was 5. She mostly uses the Paint program or the interactive storybook programs. She is quite competent at manipulating the mouse and knows where she is going with it. We have just recently found Nickelodeon on-line and Disney on-line. She said what she likes best about Nick on-line, is being able to pull up the pictures of the people or characters from the show—Keenan and Kel for example. She loves being able to access them at her own will. She can't read too well yet, so almost everything she accesses is from the picture clues on the home page.
With Disney on-line, she has been able to explore, in depth, due again to the picture icons. Disney also has a lot of interactive activity. She especially likes being able to print the colorful pictures that present themselves. She enjoys the ability to access all of the Disney stories and movies.
Older kids and teenagers may wish to visit the regular TV network sites. The only trouble is that since many of these TV shows are aimed at more mature audiences, the material at the site also contains material that may be inappropriate for younger children. Of course, there's no hardcore sexual content at any of these sites. But, anything that might be said or shown on TV might turn up at the site.