Word Brains

By Marlin Rollins

 Every parent has an anxiety attack whenever they hear a report of a missing or abducted child in the news. They pray it never happens to them and rightly so because it is a parent’s worst nightmare.

Unfortunately, teenagers do not always get that same attention or elicit the same feelings as the missing or abducted child. Teens are almost automatically considered runaways rather than missing children.

And teens that are reported as runaways do not grab people’s attention. The police do not actively search for runaways. It is not a crime to run away from home.

However, in many cases when a teen is missing a crime has been committed. By the police not actively pursuing the conditions surrounding the teen’s disappearance, the crime goes undetected and unpunished.

If some adult lures your teenager and they run away from home and you did not know they were talked into leaving, then the police will not know it either. The police will assume your teen is a runaway and will add it to all the other runaways to be on the lookout for, but will not actively pursue the case because they do not know a crime has been committed.

We all have seen Dateline NBC where they entrap guys who want to have sex with teenagers, then arrest them once they get to the rendezvous point. That’s all well and good that they are out there hunting the hunters and preying on the predators. I applaud their effort.

However, that does nothing for the teen that is considered a runaway because no one knows she or he met someone on the Internet who talked them into running away from home.

The time has come for every parent who has a teenager who uses a computer to start monitoring his or her activities. Teens will scream about their privacy, but you need to know that if they do run away from home that they were lured away.

You need to know and the police need to know because if they were talked into leaving by an adult, then a crime has been committed and the police can put more resources into finding them.

There is software that will allow you to not only block your children and teenagers from accessing inappropriate content on the web, it will also log everything your child or teen does on the computer so you have a record. That record includes online chatroom conversations, email, instant messaging, and websites visited.

The software will even send you a message on your cell phone or to your email whenever your child or teen accesses inappropriate content.

You cannot afford to let your child or teenager decide for themselves what is or is not ok to do on the web. The predators are smarter than they are no matter what they tell you. Your teenager may be smarter than you may when it comes to the computer, but you know what is or is not good for them when it comes to their safety.

Do not be intimidated if you do not know a lot about computers. Do not let that be your excuse for not monitoring your children and teenagers. In the footer of this article you will find resources that can help you monitor everyone who uses your computer. I recommend you start doing it today before IU have to go out and search for your runaway or lured-away teen.

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The Financial Considerations of Staying at Home

By Marlin Rollins

 From the moment I learned I was pregnant, I knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. That feeling only strengthened when my beautiful son was born. I took one look at him and wondered how I could ever give up the opportunity to spend each and every day with him, watching him grow and learn, and exploring the world for the first time through his eyes. But there was a problem. We were a two-income family. How could we possibly afford to eliminate one of those incomes? Well, there are a lot of answers to that question and I’d like to share the ones I found with you.

The first thing I looked at when determining “what we can afford” is how much money we made. I was wrong. What I really needed to examine was our expenses. So, the first step I took in my quest to stay home was to list the expenses I would incur in order to work, versus staying home. This is what I came up with: professional clothing (your kids don’t mind that you wear sweats!); transportation costs: fuel, tolls, public transit, parking, etc.; those “must-have” coffee and/or donut stops each morning; lunches with coworkers; gifts for coworkers (holidays and special occasions); CHILDCARE - it’s in bold print for a reason. If you haven’t priced this one out yet, do it now. This will easily be your greatest expense. And, it only goes up with each child.

Go ahead and add up all these expenses. Don’t be too depressed, because there’s good news: these expenses represent your “instant rebate” for staying home. You’ve essentially just eliminated the need for a good portion (if not all) of your income. Need more savings? Keep reading!

How many times per week are you dining out at restaurants, getting take out, ordering in, etc? By staying at home, you have the time to go to the grocery store and prepare a wholesome and much more economical meal for your family.

Eliminate (or at least cut back) on your little luxuries. Manicures, pedicures, massages, hair highlights, 300 television channels, 2000 cell phone minutes. You get the picture.

Clip coupons. I actually started buying the Sunday paper each week just for the coupons! You may have never seen the need to do this while you were working, but if you take the time, it will save you money. There are also plenty of online sites that provide coupons.

Examine your bills carefully. When we had 2 fulltime incomes, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I rarely looked at any bill in detail. If there was an amount due, I paid it. I never looked at it, never questioned it. Now I go over every health insurance summary, utility statement, etc. with a magnifying glass. And, I can honestly say in the past 2 years I have caught almost $1000 in billing errors. That’s $1000 more for my family.

Make this a team effort. If staying home only appeals to you and not your partner, your chances of success are greatly diminished. Making adjustments to the family budget will affect the lifestyle of all those involved. This transition will be much smoother with the support of your significant other.

And last, but certainly not least, follow your heart! If you feel called to stay home with your children, then do it! All it takes is the determination to succeed and the willingness to reduce expenses. Best of luck to you!

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Your Source For Online Education

Why Your Teen Should Learn to Use a Computer

By Marlin Rollins

 The teens want computer skills in order to become competitive in their upcoming careers and to give them ease in their day-to-day activities. Computers become indispensable tools to the teenagers. Parents must understand that the teens want different computer skills such as word processing programs to make various types of invitations, make reports, format documents, write resumes, accomplish their assignments and write research papers. The teens also want to be updated with new information as well as to make new friends from around the globe. Even at their young age, they have to gain insights and abilities on the complexities of life especially in finding a lucrative job. In this way, they are much prepared when they finished their studies and start to pursue their own career.

The teens want attractive and eye bulging reports which are created using special software. These teens know that an ability to properly present their propositions would spell a difference between winning and losing. In classes involving mathematical problems, the teenagers must learn spreadsheets, data entry and other skills.

The teens want to use the internet. Hundreds of tools are available to teenagers to allow them unlimited use of their creativity. Through the internet, the teens learn to surf to their favorite websites, make the required reports at a shorter period, learn and explore new trends and developments with ease. Among the favorites of teens are chat rooms, games, blog and other interactive sites. Free downloads are also available such as music, software, skills training and others. Through the internet, the teenagers are freed from spending so much money in purchasing their favorite music and movies, as well as in gaining knowledge in tradecraft and other profitable skills.

The parents must broaden their understanding on why their teens must be skilled in properly navigating the internet to browse the sites that they need. Lack of the necessary skills and know how would make the teenagers land on sites that are not suited to them. By chance, they might be able to view scenes which are not good.

The good news is that thousands of jobs could be accessed through the internet. These jobs include data entry, web and logo design, computer programming and so on. Landing on high paying jobs require the needed knowledge and skills in computers and computer applications. Of course, this knowledge could be acquired through formal education, but to the freelancers, learning through the internet is profitable and worthwhile.

Having learned some computer literacy skills could make the teenagers become useful citizens by applying what they know for personal, career growth and community building.

The teens want these computer literacy skills to prepare them for a bright future, but most important they also need the encouragement and motivation coming from people they trust.

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