<p>Hello fellow parents and knowledgeable students. Having our sons home for the summer has been insightful. I see, almost daily, that one or the other will check into some internet reading and/or gaming and suddenly the day is gone. </p>
<p>I know that often S intends to get on to certain tasks -- and is surprised at how much time has passed. I have suggested Ye Olde Kitchen Timer as a way to have a designated time frame for an internet "break" but that suggestion seems to be too pre-Cambrian for serious consideration. </p>
<p>So, is there a nifty program out there that turns the screen into . . . I don't know, happy faces or flying toasters or something else that says "HEY. TWO HOURS ARE GONE"?</p>
<p>What techniques do people use (other than the all-purpose "Ballastic Mother Mode") to extract themselves from the computer?</p>
<p>Let me know if you find a solution. I just watched S2 scam my H into buying him a Windows based laptop and a large desktop monitor. Then he said “Dad, since I don’t have any school work yet, I had to see how everything worked so I downloaded the online version of computer game X.” Oh dear!</p>
<p>At home he has me to pull the plug after a couple hours. I know he has to find his own work/play balance, but I am nervous. Good luck to all of us!</p>
<p>I am going to bump this thread up to see if there are some more things to learn here.
This morning I came up with a name for the program: “The Black Momda” (The Black Mamda is the world’s fastest snake and is extremely poisonous – it is a creature to be immensely respected). </p>
<p>At any rate, one could have the computer clock give the gamer an hour before a hissing snake starts zipping across the screen, trailing signs like “Bills paid?” “How’s the Laundry going?” You’d have three minutes to finish up before snake starts biting holes in the graphics . . . </p>
<p>When our son first left for college,we gave him a small laptop to bring that didn’t support video games, at least not in the manner to which he had become accustomed. 3 yr later, we have given him an upgrade, but no-gaming had already become part of his school-time routine (less so when he’s home tho).</p>
<p>Sigh. S has some dollars in the bank and wants to upgrade his computer so it can do MORE gaming. I’ve always taken the notion that “if you earned the money, you can spend it your way” – we may need to revisit that line of thought.</p>
<p>My younger son is going off to college in a couple of weeks and I went to the electronics store and bought a small laptop that has a single processor. The sales person asked me “Do you really want this computer because it is not support computer video games?” “That is exactly what I was looking for” I replied.</p>
<p>Well, I use a program called Freedom, which cuts online access for as many minutes as I ask it to. Now I do have to have enough self-control to turn it on myself…</p>
<p>Only works for online games, but absolutely worth many times the $10!</p>
<p>^ Thank you for that tip about the Freedom program. I just looked it up. Finally a way to stay off CC when I have to get work done! Here is the link if anyone is interested…</p>
<p>well, no offense, this bug should have been bitten long before now. He needs to learn that work always comes before games, as one shouldn’t relay so much on technology.</p>