facebook

Many people are concerned that allowing unlimited time on multimedia will cause children to become addicted.

- Based on the book Are You Hungry by Hirschmann and Zaphiropoulos, unlimited can lead to moderation.

- If the child is under stress, then dealing with the source of the stress (e.g. a troubled marriage or unhealthy parenting) is more fundamental than multimedia time.

- If real life has interesting, hands-on opportunities to explore things, then children will generally prefer that to spending all of their time on multimedia, if given a genuine choice between unlimited multimedia and doing fun things. (And if the emotional stresses are resolved.)

But that's not why I'm here today.  That was just the intro.  My daughter has a facebook page.  The rules are to only accept friends she knows in real life.  (An exception is a girl she met online and whom we have met on facetime or whatever app it is these days after asking her to get her mother's permission, and are thus convinced she is who she says she is.)

Whoops, I'm getting distracted.  This is not a post on my multimedia policies for preteens.  Educate yourself and be smart.  (My personal refrain to my daughter is: "Assume the person you are talking to might be a 30 year old pedophile.")

What I wanted to say is that facebook chat has been nice for unschooling Ivrit.  I speak (halting American) Hebrew to my kids.  When writing Chana a note, it's been more complicated because she isn't nearly as good at reading as she is at listening comprehension.  The first thing I did when she got her computer and her ipad (both earned herself) was put Hebrew language on.  With gchat, I used to type in Hebrew, too, but I'm just finding with fb chat that she understands me better and is even trying to type Hebrew when she can.  Maybe because she is older now.