Locking down life...

Ok, we have never been a family that restricts things, for we have always felt that restricting things made the tempation worse. This is why we never thought to limit: TV, computers, internet, etc. This was all fine and good until recently....

Our house is two levels...upstairs (main level) is the bedrooms, bathroom, living room and kitchen. The adults spend most of their time up here. The downstairs has a music room, family room, playroom, and school room/laundry room. This is where the children spend most of their time; don't get me wrong we all spend time as a family a lot but where as most kids go to their room to play ours go downstairs.

The family room downstairs has a TV, DVD, XBox, Wii and 2 computers (one for each kid...dh works in computers). This has never been an issue for the children are well aware that they must ask before using anything in the family room or risk losing it forever. This rule has always worked in our house even with visitors until recently.

We have a 7yr old boy that is advanced for his age and a 3yr old that is also advanced for his age. Given that the 3yr old is the second child he wasn't as "watched" as the first one was and has been allowed to "go play" on his own since he could make it down the stairs alone (it is child proofed). Over the past 2 months our 7 yr old has found I Carly and Hanna Montana, along with a few other shows of this level. Where we don't care so much if the 7yr old watches these shows it isn't ok for the 3yr old.

D just doesn't get the humor or understand what is happening so he ends up saying things he saw on the shows and it is never good. Most of the time D only remember half of what was said and when he tries to repeat it, it comes out totally wrong making it sound like he was watching something very inapproprate for children in general.

To stop this from happening I decided to activate the V-Chip in the downstairs TV. This was not a happy day in our house. For niether child was happy and niether was I. I didn't want to do this but I can't have the 3yr old watching those shows with out us there with him. We explained this to J and he suggested just not watching those shows around his brother. We thought that would work but it didn't for J doesn't pay enough attention to who is and isn't in the room when the TV is on.

Now, we have the V-Chip on and set so only things rated TV-Y and G are allowed. This kills most shows they like but oh well. I have told them if they want to watch things that are blocked you will need to do it in my bedroom or in the living room with mom or dad. They don't like this so much but are getting use to it.

What is the downfall????

Just like we thought before...limit people and they will try harder to get it. We locked down the TV just to find J going to the places on his computer instead. Again...don't care if J goes to these places but NOT with D around and J never pays attention if the computer is on. SO, now I"m trying to find an ok program to limit the web. All I really want to do is block a few sites but the things I keep finding limit so much more than that.

I don't know maybe I should just stop all of this and go to a rule of NO ELECTRONICS unless mom or dad are in the same room with you. Not sure that will help things since then we would always hear...."will you come watch me on the computer?" or "can we watch .... together?"

Not fun at all...maybe there is another answer that just hasn't come up yet!