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lea1

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Posts posted by lea1

  1. 17 minutes ago, bethben said:

    Similar situation.  The app that guaranteed safe web access was easily foiled by my son.  His problem wasn't so much public wifi, but his ability to be secret late at night in his room.  So, we changed the wifi password, contacted the next door neighbor to password protect their guest network,  and with Verizon bought the ability to monitor his data and what he is able to access (he no longer is able to access data).  Basically, at home, he has texting (which I know has issues also depending on who you know) and calls.  We will not allow our last two children to have smart phones at this point until they are on their own.  They will get flip phones only.  We also do not allow computer usage in rooms anymore.  Heart to heart talks are good, but addiction can come on pretty quickly and sometimes we as parents need to just step in and help.  My son was struggling and wanted a way out but also didn't want us to know so while the restrictions annoy him, he hasn't put up a fight.

    In our case, we have never allowed ipads or phones in their rooms, at night or any other time.  And he downloaded the 3D application for the cool 3D effects.  He was actually not even looking for a way to bypass parental controls but it still ended up happening accidentally.  I agree, it is very addictive and, no matter how many heart to heart talks you have, you just never know how they are going to react to being faced with unexpected search results like this.  My other son definitely would have come and told me about it right away.  

    It just goes to show that you can make an effort to be very proactive and do "all the right things" and they may still end up finding a way, purposefully or accidentally, to get around it.

    • Like 2
    • Sad 1
  2. 2 hours ago, Ottakee said:

    I would suggest good heart to heart talks about inappropriate searches/usage with your kids and not just rely on external controls (although those are helpful as well).

    You can always have them turn in all electronics at 9 or 10 each night and have them charge in your bedroom.  I had one that managed to access the neighbors wifi even though we are rural.

    I have had MANY heart to heart talks with both of my sons about this subject.  The last one was just last week and one son (the one who did not do this) said, "Mom, you have already talked to us about this many times" and I said I would be talking about it many more times because it is important.

    They are timed when they play games on their ipads, 1 hour on the weekends and 30 minutes on weekdays.  ipads are locked up when not in use, so no access to these.

    The parental control software I am using allows me to control the times they can not use their phones.  They are always locked out of them from 9:00 pm to 7:00 am. The only thing they could do during those times is to make an emergency call.

    I pray with them on a regular basis.  We take them to church on a regular basis.  I read the Bible with them and teach them about what the Bible says.

    This incident definitely did not happen from a lack of parental supervision or effort.

    ETA: I truly believe that this incident also did not begin by him specifically going searching for P@rn.  He searched for "cute girls", which in his eyes (and in mine, quite frankly) is seemingly a very innocent search.

    • Sad 1
  3. 1 hour ago, Patty Joanna said:

    And yet...when you are out in public (or in our house) "free wi-fi" is provided by the city.  Even though our internet wasn't even ON after midnight, the city wi-fi never sleeps.

    A good practice for *everyone* is that the devices that don't rely on internal routers get put away before bed time.  In some other part of the house.

    And OP, I am sorry.  I can truly sympathize.

     

    You bring up a really good point.  For some reason, our sons' phones cannot access any other wi-fi except the one at our house.  They have been frustrated by this but, so far, we have not figured out why.  I am good with that for now.  

  4. I want to lock my sons in a closet until they are 20 also:).  The nice thing about the Gryphon Connect router is that, since it is at the router level, it should not make any difference which app they are using.  It SHOULD be able to catch things like this.  We actually shut our internet down where they boys can't get to it at all until we get this router installed.  It gets really good reviews on Amazon but it has not been out very long.  I hope it is everything they say it is.

    • Like 1
  5. We bought our two 12 year old sons their own cell phones a few months ago because we wanted them to be able to text with their friends, make plans with their friends, contact us if needed (if baseball practice was rained out, etc.).  I researched parental control software and ended up using Kaspersky Safe Kids, since we were using Kaspersky for virus monitoring on our laptops.  It really seemed like it was working out quite nicely.  It allowed me to restrict phone usage so they can't use their phones after 9:00pm or before 7:00am.  I make it send them a warning if they have used their phone for more than 2 hours a day.  I can restrict the app store so they can not install any app without me knowing about it.  If they do get apps from the app store, I have to allow them to use the app, depending on what kind of app it is.  And of course it also allows me to restrict any of the websites they can go to or search, or so I thought.  I receive an email anytime they try to access something they are restricted from accessing.  If they try to search for something that is considered adult content, I also receive an email that tells me what they were searching for.

    So I received an email indicating one of my sons tried to search for "cute girls" but was restricted.  I decided to check out their phones while they were away canoeing with their dad.  I had them leave their passwords with me so I could look through them.  One son (that did the "cute girls" search) had downloaded an app with my permission that made the stuff on his phone look 3D, like when he would swipe to go to the next screen, it would look like it was circular.  Come to find out, this seemingly innocent app that he downloaded with my permission also, unbeknownst to me, brought with it a search bar and that search bar was not controlled by Kaspersky Safe Kids.  So if he clicked on the Google app icon and did his search that way, he was restricted from certain topics/content.  But if he typed something into the search bar and searched that way, the Kaspersky app did not know about it.

    Using his phone and the search bar, I searched for "cute girls", which is a seemingly innocent search.  The results were far from innocent and totally broke my heart.  It took me 4 hours on the phone with Samsung to finally get to the bottom of where this search bar had come from (the 3D app), to get rid of it and then to get everything working again the way it should with Kaspersky Safe Kids.

    So now we are purchasing Gryphon Connect which is a router with parental control.  With this router, you don't have to load anything on all of the devices that will access your internet.  A profile is create for each person using the internet and it allows you to assign the profile rights for preschool ages, elementary, middle school, high school, 18+, and unrestricted.  They are also coming out with an upgrade that has some way of filtering the data even when the child is using their phone away from home....not sure how that works but it sounds interesting.

    Anyway, this is my cautionary tale.  We were trying to "do everything right" and still ended up feeling like I failed to protect my kids and, to some degree, my son's innocence has been stolen, or at least that is how I feel.  I am so saddened by this and wanted to share in hopes I might save someone else's child from something like this.  Also, even though my sons can not text or call friends after 9:00pm, they still receive texts from friends at 3:00 or 3:30 in the morning, which I found very shocking.

    • Like 2
    • Sad 11
  6. My kids go to a week long summer camp that does not allow phones at all.  All kid cell phones must stay home.  But the counselors take pics and load them on a secure website for parents to look at, which is fun.  I'm glad they don't allow them.  The camp would also be liable if one kid show another kid p@rn photos/videos or something very inappropriate like that.

  7. We adopted our two sons from Russia when they were 14 and 15.5 months old.  They were behind in growth/size and the older one was not walking and had a few other delays.  Both of them caught up very quickly and have been on track ever since.  Within a few months of being home, you would never have known they were not typical biological kids.  They will be 13 this fall and going into 7th grade:).  Time sure does go by fast.

  8. I have had one of these for years but I put it away because I got tired of cleaning it.  I just read on one of the reviews that if you put avocado seeds in the bowl, you won't have the slime build up.  Apparently they are antimicrobial and antibactirial, or something like that....and apparently the cats like it.  I might dig mine back out again just to try this:).

    • Like 1
  9. Thanks so much, these are good things to know.  One nice thing I have going for me is that we have a Sleep Number bed that raises and lowers at the head and foot so hopefully that will help some. 

     

    You all have really helped to bring me some peace of mind about all of this and I greatly appreciate it.  It is so much better to have some expectations set, especially with how long recovery takes and taking it easy.  I have been telling dh what you all are saying because he has a very high pain tolerance and never misses a day of work for sickness (he is a doctor:).  He does not have the most empathetic bedside manner but, fortunately, my sister will be with me and she was a nurse and just quit a couple of years ago.  She is very empathetic and such a wonderful caregiver.  I couldn't ask for a better person to be by my side during all of this so that helps a lot too.  And she is going to stay a few days to help out and possibly come back for a day or two the following week also.  I have also been telling my two sons (both 12 years old) about the limitations of my recovery time and I know they will be a big help.  Thank you all for helping to set realistic expectations.:).

    • Like 2
  10. You guys are all so awesome!  Thanks so much for responding and making me feel more at ease.  I have a very low pain tolerance so things like this get me worked up a bit.  Thanks so much for your reassurance and encouragement.  And I am definitely going to be very careful about not over-doing it after surgery....although I don't think I can go a full two weeks before driving again.  I think I can manage one week, since my sister is coming to help out and it is spring break, so no piano/guitar lessons and baseball practice maybe.  But the second week I will either have to drive or cancel a bunch of stuff.

     

    I am going to get on buying paper plates and cups and stuff and also buying some books.  I had not even thought of those things!  

     

    You all are an awesome bunch!

    • Like 1
  11. I am scheduled for a laparoscopy-assisted vaginal hysterectomy (removing uterus, cervix, ovaries and fallopian tubes) on Tuesday (staying over one night in the hospital) and I am feeling pretty anxious about it.  I go in for pre-op on Monday morning and I am sure I will receive lots of info then but the doctor's office has not provided any information to me....so, I have been searching the internet, of course, and reading tons about it, which may be making me more nervous:).

     

    I have had laparoscopic surgery to remove my gallbladder and have had sinus surgery (both out-patient though) so I'm not so much worried about surgery in general, but more the details specific to this surgery.  Such as, I read that I might have to have a catheter. I've never had one before and it sounds like it would be very uncomfortable and/or painful/embarrassing, especially when they put it in and take it out.  I'm worried about the shaving of hair "down there" and whether they have to do that or not....just the general embarrassment of it and how uncomfortable it might be growing back in.  I also read that some people have to do a bowl prep the day before.  Nobody has mentioned this to me yet and I am hoping this does not apply to me, but worried because I had an extremely miserable time with this for my last colonoscopy and swore I would never do it again.

     

    I am having this surgery due to periodic bleeding for which I already had a D&C (not sure what they call that these days) a few years ago.  They have done an ultrasound and believe they will be able to do the surgery without a full abdominal incision and we have no reason to suspect cancer.  Just providing as much info as possible so maybe it will help others to be able to provide more informative answers.

     

    I am 55 years old (went through menopause in my mid-forties) and never had any biological children (2 adopted from Russia), never went through delivering a baby, so I am just a bit uncomfortable with all of this stuff and it is making me nervous.  I want to know what to expect but it is too late for me to get any info from my doctor's office until Monday morning, when I will go for pre-op anyway.  So, I am turning to Dr. Hive for information and encouragement.  Let me hear your good stories (no bad ones please...I have watched too many medical shows in the past so I already have enough bad stories going through my mind).

  12. We have had our Sienna now for about 10 or 11 years.  We have had issues with both sliding doors and the rear door and had them all fixed but that's about it for things going wrong.  It has been a great vehicle.  We are planning to replace it with another minivan in the fall and I was debating whether to stay with Toyota or move to Honda.  We just received our new Consumer Reports car buying magazine and the Sienna gets the best rating for reliability and also the best overall average rating so we will be staying with the Sienna.

     

    Dh and I definitely prefer leather and will go out of our way to find it (we buy used - hopefully not more than a year or year and a half old).  We found our current Sienna on Autotrader.com and dh flew to Louisville, KY (from Oklahoma) to purchase it and drive it back.  It was such a good deal that it was worth it.  We found his current Toyota Camry on Autotrader also and it was an excellent deal in OKC, so much closer thankfully.

    • Like 1
  13. Pascal was actually the language of choice for classes when I was in college.  Fortran was doable but I'm pretty sure COBOL was designed by an English major because you practically had to write a book for each command.  C was cutting edge, so I had minimal exposure to it.  However, I was able to program in assembler and I did watch A LOT of Star Trek so I must have one of those special brains.  It's okay I don't mind being special. 

     

    Of course now that I've "retired" from IT to homeschool, I can't even keep up with the current lingo let alone actually program anything. Half the time I have to have my kids come fix my printing issues because I can't even seem to be able to make the two machines talk to each other.

     

    Good luck on the test!

    Yep, me too.  I took Fortran, Cobol, Assembler, etc. also.  That was a long time ago.  Now days, I have a hard time figuring out my laptop and my phone and have to ask my husband to fix things for me:).  The times they are a-changing.

    • Like 1
  14. Dh is an urgent care doctor and says it worse than it has been for the past 10 years.  The urgent cares where he works ended up doubling up the doctors for the evening shifts because they were so busy.  He recently broke his old record of number of patients seen in a day.  They are not all flu cases of course but many, many of them are.

    • Like 1
  15. Not the quoted poster but I painted my kitchen cabinets 6-7 years ago, all on my own.  And I'm about to paint them a new color... :p  (Long story short, my floor needs replacing and we're going wood, which will make my kitchen super-dark with our  current barn-red cabinets....so I'm lightening them up to gray or white.)

     

    It wasn't that big of a deal, honestly.  I had cheap-o builders grade cabinets.  My tips are:

    Cover floor and counters.

    Degrease with some cleaning product.

    Rough them up just a little bit with sandpaper, just a little.  

    Prime

    Paint using a dense foam roller (the small ones) and do small bits with a brush.

     

    Obviously, remove the doors before you paint them.  Remove the hardware.

    Make yourself a painting/drying station - somewhere you can prop doors while you are painting them/drying.

    If you have a lot of doors, keep track of where they came from.

     

    Thanks for this; it is very reassuring!

  16. We mostly have builders-grade (more accurately, flippers-grade) beige-ish walls.  We're well overdue for a paint job and gearing up to do it this spring (a pale, earthy green) but it's going to be a giant pain with our vaulted ceilings and tons of odd shaped/sized windows. Sigh.

     

    I did paint my kitchen cabinets gray.

     

    The kids rooms were painted (blue, and pink and purple) years ago because they're simple boxes.  They need to be redone.

    One bathroom (also a box with no window) is a blue/gray.

     

    (sorry, off topic)  Did you do that yourself?  Were they painted or stained before you repainted them?  Did you have to sand them down first?  We have a lot of cabinetry that is currently stained a medium-dark wood color.  I either want to re-stain them with other colors or (preferably) paint them but the job is so huge, I can't imagine ever actually finishing it on my own....just the sanding alone would defeat me.  And dh doesn't want to pay the enormous cost of having it done.  Our builder did not use a good polyurethane on them so they ding and scratch very easily and they look terrible after 6.5 years.  Any tips you have would be appreciated.

  17. I stand corrected then... I thought they had to go through a formal program, unlike emotional support dogs. 

     

    SIL has had multiple service dogs that she has trained herself.  She is an excellent trainer.  Her service dogs have to pass a test (not given by her) and they do receive official papers.  When the dog is working, it wears a vest with a short handle, like a guide dog, and nobody is allowed to pet it.  It is very well trained and knows it's job and what is expected of it in every environment.  As she is training a dog to be a service dog, but before it is trained well enough to pass those tests, she has them pass a test to be a therapy dog, so she can take them to nursing homes and hospitals.  They have to pass a test and be certified to be therapy dogs too.  She lives in Arizona, so maybe each state has different laws regarding dog training/certification, I don't know.

     

    She came to visit us this past summer. Her service dog flew with her on the plane, laying next to her feet.  She took her dog with her, wearing the vest clearly identifying it as a service dog, everywhere we went and it behave exceptionally one hundred percent of the time.  We went to the zoo one day and she had to go into the office and show the dog's official service papers in order for her to be allowed to bring it into the zoo.  They are getting strict because so many people bring their emotional support pets with them and they no longer allow that at the zoo.  In order to bring in a dog, it must be a service dog and it must have the official papers.  She had to show the papers to bring the dog on the plane too, since it was a large dog and was not crated, but lying at her feet.

    • Like 2
  18. After the hand shaking today I had one of my sons go out and find one of those little bottles of hand sanitizer and we all used it (but my two sons are 12 year olds).  I am keeping it in my purse from now on.  I am always in wait and see mode for the 2 to 3 days after we go to church to see if we are going to catch anything.  So far we have avoided the flu thankfully, and dh is an urgent care doctor so he is exposed to it a lot.

  19. Huge shake up here.  Both boys (12 year old 6th graders; always homeschooled) just started a University Model school.  They attend Tuesday and Thursday and work from home on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  We are still adjusting and probably will be for a while but I needed the accountability, they needed to start moving toward a bit more independence and I really don't want to teach high school.  So the teaching is done at the school and I am more of a tutor, when needed, and a monitor of work, provider of encouragement,, etc.  Starting in 7th grade, they will go 3 days per week because their electives will be on a separate day.

     

    This is a new, very small Christian school (their class has 6 students) and I am very impressed with the teachers. It is growing very fast though.  I am hopeful this will be a long term solution for us.  Their plan is for high school students to take dual enrollment so they graduate high school with an associates degree.

     

    So far, one boy loves it and the other has mixed feelings but, overall, is excited to be going.

  20. I don't think that's what "Reformed" means, at least not in the context that it was asked.  Reformed theology is a specific subset of protestant theology, associated with John Calvin and Presbyterians.  There are plenty of Protestant denominations that have different theology.  

     

    I don't think most people dislike the word "Protestant", because it's an umbrella term that encompasses a lot of specific groups, and most of the time people use the more specific label.  Generally, for example, I'd be more likely to tell people that my family is "Episcopalian", rather than "Protestant", for the same reason that someone might say that they're "French" rather than "European".   

     

    Having said that, I work in a Catholic school, and I'll will make the comment that I'm "Protestant" or "was raised Protestant", if I'm responding to something where I think the Catholic church's teaching is pretty unique.  For example, recently a kid asked me a question about Saints.  Since the Catholic church's teaching on Saints is pretty distinct from the teaching of all Protestant denominations, I told the kid "You know, that's a question where you'll want a specific Catholic answer, so ask Ms. Z.  I was raised Protestant, so my answer might not match."  

    Excellent response.  I have never disliked Protestant and have used the term in the past, although it is not very specific.  I always thought that Protestant was basically any Christian church that is not Catholic, but I have never viewed it as a negative term at all.  I was raised in a Baptist church and we have always referred to ourselves as Protestant, when distinguishing from Catholic, for instance.

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