mortois asked:

Juliet works the iphone, and annabel makes **** noises with a glass.

Etienne A. Gibbs, MSW asked:


Nowadays, staying safe online has become a never-ending battle – for children as well as adults. Because cybercriminals are becoming smarter and more sophisticated in their operations, they are real threats to your personal security and privacy. Your money, your computer, your family, and your business are all at risk.

However, with a little common sense and some knowledge about what to do and not do, one can surf the ‘net unscathed. Here is a great set of rules for kids while they are online. I found these rules at safekids.com. Parents, Employers, and Managers, you can take some notes from these rules, too:

1. I will not give out personal information such as my address, telephone number, parents’ work address/telephone number, or the name and location of my school without my parents’ permission.

2. I will tell my parents right away if I come across any information that makes me feel uncomfortable.

3. I will never agree to get together with someone I “meet” online without first checking with my parents. If my parents agree to the meeting, I will be sure that it is in a public place and bring my mother or father along.

4. I will never send a person my picture or anything else without first checking with my parents.

5. I will not respond to any messages that are mean or in any way make me feel uncomfortable. It is not my fault if I get a message like that. If I do I will tell my parents right away so that they can contact the service provider.

6. I will talk with my parents so that we can set up rules for going online. We will decide upon the time of day that I can be online, the length of time I can be online and appropriate areas for me to visit. I will not access other areas or break these rules without their permission.

7. I will not give out my Internet password to anyone (even my best friends) other than my parents.

8. I will check with my parents before downloading or installing software or doing anything that could possibly hurt our computer or jeopardize my family’s privacy

9. I will be a good online citizen and not do anything that hurts other people or is against the law.

10. I will help my parents understand how to have fun and learn things online and teach them things about the Internet, computers and other technology.

Although you may follow the rules religiously, you, your computer, and your family might still be at risk because cybercriminals leave you with three choices:

1. Do nothing and hope their attacks, risks, and threats don’t occur on your computer.

2. Do research and get training to protect yourself, your family, and your business.

3. Get professional help to lockdown your system from all their attacks, risks, and threats.

Remember: When you say “No!” to hackers and spyware, everyone wins! When you don’t, we all lose!

Jill Brennan asked:


The experts all agree that children learn by exploring the world around them and one way that they do this is through the creativeness of play. If you’ve watched any young children at play then you’ll know that they don’t necessarily need childrens toys to interact with to learn. The most obscure object can become a source of entertainment and amusement. However, childrens toys act as stimulants encouraging your child to discover and develop new skills and have new experiences. It makes sense then to focus on toys that help your child learn in a constructive way. But how do you decide which children’s educational toys are best for your child?

The kind of stimulating educational toys that your little one will respond to best are those that allow him or her to discover and encourage their own personal learning style. Some children like to concentrate on one activity and explore all they can around that while others like to have a wide variety of choices so that they can easily move from one to another. For example, a child that likes to concentrate for long periods will probably enjoy a complicated puzzle (appropriate to their age) but a child who gets distracted easily would probably learn more with a range of simpler puzzles that get increasingly difficult.

Have you ever stopped to think about how you like to learn? Each of us has a favorite way of discovering new things. If you take a book of fiction for example, you would find that some people prefer audio books because they can more easily take in information aurally, while others need to have a book in their hands to be able to assimilate the words. Others would rather watch a play or movie of the book than read it. And others would prefer to plot out what happened in a logical way through a mind map or linear drawing rather than trudge through the detail of what occurred. While children are still developing, their educational styles change depending on their skill level, however, most have a preference for a particular way of learning.

If you can’t quite work out whether your child responds best to visual, aural, touch or logical styles of education then the best thing to do is take time to observe how they interact with the learning toys around them. Do you have to ask them repeatedly to do things or do they pick it up faster if you write it down or if you show them first exactly what to do? Or perhaps they need to know what will happen if they don’t do something before they will do it?

Once you understand what they like you can introduce a few learning toys that are focussed on that particular mode of learning. And then see how they react. Do they embrace it? Do they struggle? Once you have tested a few different childrens learning toys you will then have a much better idea of what works for your child and what doesn’t. The next step is to hunt out the kind of educational toys your child has shown a preference for. However, it is important to bear in mind that your child’s educational style is not locked in and may alter as their skills develop and their interests change.