Computers at Home

While many of your child's interactions with educational technology are going to take place at school and will, for the most part, be determined by his or her school's policies, home computing is one area where you are entirely in charge.

This section of "How Can I Help My Child?" is designed to help you answer some of the questions that you may have about home computing and your child. Here are just a few of the questions that usually come up:

1. Should I buy a computer for my child?
   
2. My child wants a laptop computer. Is this really a good idea?
3. How can I make good decisions about purchasing educational software?
4. Should I install Internet filtering software, and just how well does filtering software actually work?
5. How can I keep my child safe on the Internet?
6. Should there be household rules governing computer use?
7. Should I place time limits on my child's computer use?

Just click on the above questions for tips and suggestions on how you might want to go about answering each of them. As you will see, there are some definite "dos" and "don'ts"—especially when it comes to Web safety—but there is still a lot of room for parents to set their own policies.

Time Limits

Yes, we've been expounding on the importance of computer literacy throughout this Web site, but you can have too much of a good thing. Computer skills are an important component of a child's education, but they remain only a component and should be balanced by other kinds of activities, including exercise and time spent with friends. If it seems like your child spends every waking minute surfing the Internet or playing games (and ignoring homework, family, and friends), you may want to consider making the computer off-limits during certain parts of the day.

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