Practicing Good Mobile Phone Etiquette

Now that technology has provided us with a means to stay in touch with our family and friends from virtually any populated area on the planet, certain rules or etiquette are being blatantly ignored.  Let’s reverse this trend.

Most people who own mobile phones are not keen on the idea of turning off their phones or leaving them behind in any circumstance.  Business professionals, in both blue collar and white collar specialties, carry mobile phones.  Elderly people know how to text, chat, surf, and speak wirelessly to their grand kids, who also carry mobile phones to school with them.  Rich people carry phones.  Poor people carry phones.  The President of the USA is going to start carrying a mobile phone.  Smart people carry phones.  Dumb people… well, you get the point!  Everybody’s got one!

The problem is that many of these people fail to analyze the situation they're in and wind up in an awkward moment where they are being very obnoxious to the people around them.  For example, movie theaters and libraries are not ideal places for ringing phone noises and elaborate ring tones.  That’s extremely rude and disruptive.  Most mobile phones have a silent or vibrate option standard. Make it a habit to either switch your phone to silent before you enter one of these areas, or just leave your phone silenced all the time and get used to living with it that way.  Also, the microphones on mobile phones are fairly efficient.  If you think you have to yell at your phone for the person on the other end to hear, you should not have answered.

Another problem area is in the retail environment on both sides of the sales counter.  I have witnessed sales associates who have spent the entire time it takes to complete my transaction talking on the phone.  I have waited through countless conversations as the people ahead of me in line focus 5% of their attention towards the transaction at hand and 95% towards hearing some juicy gossip. Make it a personal rule to hang up your mobile phones while participating in any transaction.  People will appreciate it.

Not everyone is a great driver.  Plaster a mobile phone to the side of their head and their skill level drastically reduces.  If you can avoid talking on the phone while driving, please do so.  If you absolutely cannot miss the call, at least use a hands-free device.  Whatever you do, do not EVER text and drive  That’s incredibly stupid and it's illegal!!

Making Your Car Safe for Children

Inspect your car, both inside and out on a weekly basis.  Follow all routine maintenance schedules for your car as advised by the manufacturer, including oil changes, and tire rotations.  Keep your state vehicle inspection up-to-date.  Check the tread on your tires and also check the tire pressure regularly.  Look for puddles under the car that may be indicators of serious problems.  A puddle of water from the A/C is normal, but a puddle of oil or transmission fluid is not. While you are spending some quality time with your car, go ahead and wash it and clean all of the windows to provide maximum visibility.

What's in your front seat?

Remove or secure loose objects in the car.  In the event of a wreck or roll-over, loose objects will become projectiles and can seriously injure you and your children.  This includes toys, tools, mp3 players, and anything that would hurt if thrown at your face with force.  All of these things can either be stored in the glove box or in the trunk.

Have your car checked immediately if it begins to handle differently or make any strange noises.  Extreme heat and cold are hazardous conditions for young children.  Always crank your car several minutes prior to letting your children get in and let the temperature adjust to a comfortable level.  Check all metal belt buckles and wait until they are cool to the touch before allowing your children to come in contact with them.  Do not, under any circumstances, leave your child unattended in the car for any length of time!

Buy a new car seat or booster seat from a retail store.  It’s perfectly acceptable to buy second-hand clothes and toys for your child from a consignment sale, but car seats are constantly being recalled for safety issues.  You don’t have to buy the most expensive seat available, but if you buy a used one, you have no information about the history of the seat or whether it has been involved in a crash.  Read the instructions for the new seat and install it to the best of your ability.  Then, before placing your child in the seat, drive to the nearest fire station and ask if one of their “car seat certified installers” will give your seat a proper inspection.  Keep all instruction manuals that came with the seat and check periodically for recall notices from the manufacturer.  Many manufacturers will now let you register the seat and they will send an email alert to you if a recall is issued.

Talk to your children about being safe while riding in and exiting the car.  Don’t allow fighting or yelling or anything that is distracting to the driver of the vehicle.  Buckle your children’s safety belts or harnesses the moment they get into the car and do not let them unbuckle themselves until they are exiting the car.  This may sound extreme, but there is a possibility that another car could impact your car, even while you are parked, and if your children are not buckled, they could sustain bad injuries.  If you parallel park your car, tell your children to stay in the car and then let them exit on the side opposite the street.  Do not allow children to run around in parking lots or parking garages!

Practice safe driving habits and make good choices.  Always drive at or under the speed limit and constantly check your mirrors.  If you identify a bad driver approaching you, do everything that you can to allow them to pass you and go on their way.  Avoid causing or participating in road rage.  Don’t speed up to try and make it through yellow traffic lights.  Always leave early enough to make it to your destination on-time without driving fast.  If you are going to be late, then just be late.  If you cause an accident and hurt your children because you were in too much of a hurry, you will look back and wish you had just taken your time, so always think proactively in order to avoid all of that.  If you will be driving with your children in the car at any point in a given evening, don’t drink alcohol at all!

Evaluate the cars of anyone else who will transport your child.  Give them a safety checklist and see that they follow it.  As a parent, it is your responsibility to keep your children safe, regardless of other people’s opinions or bad habits.  If someone else’s vehicle or driving habits are unsafe for your children, do not let them ride with that person, regardless of what they say or whether it hurts their feelings.  If this person loves and respects your children, they will make the effort to keep them safe too.

Always Remember to Remove Your Baby from the Car

I am heartbroken each time I watch the news and learn that another parent has forgotten their baby in the car and returned to find that something horrible has happened. I will be a parent soon and these are the things that keep me awake at night. After careful thought, I would like to offer some free and relatively easy solutions that may help new parents to overcome unexpected diversions that too often direct your attention away from your baby.

Develop a new routine to always check the back seat of a vehicle before you leave it, whether it is yours or not. Another important thing to do when you approach a vehicle is to look completely around it for hidden obstructions like children or toys. When you reach your destination and exit the vehicle, immediately open the back door and look into the back seat. Do this whether you know that you have your baby in the car or not. It is imperative that this becomes a habit for both parents and for anyone who will ever transport your child. If you are certain that you dropped the child off at the daycare or if you know that today is not your day to drive them, remember... making a careless mistake on the wrong day has needlessly cost the lives of too many young children.

If you are an employer, you have the ability and should make it a priority to watch after employees who transport young children prior to coming to work. Designate several rows of parking spaces for parents only. Have a few people routinely walk through the parking lot each morning to check those cars for forgotten children. This is a perfect job for security guards whose job is to patrol the parking lot anyway. Offer them an incentive to perform these checks. Also, post signs in the entrance of your building with a reminder about leaving small children in vehicles unattended.

Become better acquainted with your co-workers and develop a habit of asking other parents of young children how their children were doing this morning and what color shirt did their teacher have on this morning. Just that type of reminder may cause a person to remember that they never actually dropped the child off. Pay attention to small details. When you walk into the building from the parking lot, keep an eye out for car seats and casually look into cars as you walk past.

For the parents of small children who take them to daycare daily, be sure that your daycare has a list of emergency numbers, including several work numbers. Ask that they call each number and let someone know if you have not dropped your child off with them after a certain time. Check your cell phone each morning after arriving at work to be sure nobody has left messages for you. If you use Microsoft Outlook, set daily reminders asking whether you remembered your child. If you carry a briefcase with you to work, always put it in the back seat in the floor beside your child's car seat. That way, you will have to open the back door to retrieve it and you may discover an important surprise when you least expect it.

Hopefully, some of these tips will help parents to remember what is most important. If work becomes too stressful and you have difficulty focusing on the things that you are supposed to do, stop for a moment. Take a deep breath. Exhale slowly and ask yourself, "Why am I at work?" Your most obvious response is "to make money." Why do you need money? To take care of your family because they are important to you. Do not forget this! Take an extra 10 seconds out of your hectic morning commute to simply check the back seat of your car!

If you are a parent and you are reading this article at work, stop what you are doing and go check your car. Do it right now! Tell your boss that you need a breath of fresh air. If this article helps save just one child, then it will be the most important thing I've ever written for this website.

Tips & Warnings

• Your family should be your top priority!
• Protect them and think of them every minute of the day!
• If you carry any one particular item with you to work that you will need throughout the day, be sure to place it in the floorboard in the back seat, beside your child's car seat.
• If you are a parent and you think that this could never happen to you... you are WRONG!
• Be sure that your daycare has multiple emergency numbers and that they know what time to start calling them. Take a sick day sometime and put them to the test.

Building a Kid-friendly Computer

Do you worry about your children using your computer? What trouble can they get into on the Internet? What harm could they do to your important data? Why not build them a computer of their own?

Build your children a computer using some inexpensive parts that you buy online or recycle an older computer. The child’s computer doesn’t have to be very powerful or loaded with memory. Just build something functional that they can call their own. If the hard drive is used, format it in order to wipe it completely clean. Install an operating system that you are familiar with. For this example, we will use Windows XP. Once the operating system is installed, remove all applications that your child doesn’t need. This should free up quite a bit of space and remove a lot of distracting icons. Install some fun children’s learning games and create shortcuts for them on the desktop.

Customize the computer to match your child’s tastes. Apply cool stickers to the computer case or even paint it a wild color. Adjust the screen resolution so that the text and icons are larger and easy to see. Change the background on the desktop to a colorful splash with some familiar cartoon characters that your children will recognize. Once you have everything set the way you like it, create a store point using System Restore. This is found by clicking the “START” button and going to All Programs>Accessories>System Tools>System Restore. Chose the option for creating a restore point and name the restore point description something easy to identify, like the current date. Now, if your child changes a critical setting by accident, you can restore the computer to perfect working order.

Take control of your child’s online experience. Buy a router and configure it with policies that restrict the times that they can access the Internet. For even more control, purchase Internet monitoring software that will block websites based on your criteria. Use Windows Remote Assistance software or one of many available remote access programs to monitor your children’s activities if they are located in another room or if their monitor isn’t visible to you. You can also configure your router to save a log file of the pages they visit that they cannot delete unless they have access to the router.

Password-protect your own computer and leave it logged off when you are away from it to encourage your children to use their own computer. Check the permissions on your computer and turn off sharing to the root of your hard drive. You will not have to worry about them accidentally deleting your files or infecting your computer with any malicious viruses. Let them have all the fun they want with their computer and if they mess it up, just reformat it and start all over.