Parenting – Page 5 – Mediocre Mum

How to set time limits on an iPad

Worried about your kids spending too much time on iPads?

I haven’t found the perfect solution for setting time limits on an iPad yet. I was hoping for an app, that as soon as my 7-year old picked it up and started playing a timer would start and lock her out after a set period of time. In an ideal world, I should be monitoring her use more closely, but like all busy parents I get distracted and lose track of time.

However, I have found a work around that will suffice until I find something better. You will have to manually set the timer and it’s App specific. In my case I wanted to limit the amount of time that she spends on Minecraft.

How to Set Time Limits

1) Firstly, you will need iOS 8 as it has the Guided Access Feature. Go to Settings>General>Accessibility and turn on the Guided Access feature.

2) Now when your child is in the game/app/website, if you triple click the Home Button on the Device a menu for setting the time limit will appear in the bottom right hand corner. Simply choose the amount of time you are happy for them to have.

3) They will be given a warning when they are about to run out of time.

4) Then a black screen will appear letting them know that they have run out of time.

5) At this point, it’s up to your discretion whether you want to give them more time.

Do you have any other solutions to this? Are there any good apps you have used that would be better? Please do leave a comment below.

Do you let your kids stay up till Midnight on New Year’s Eve?

Celebrating New Years Eve with Kids

I have absolutely no problem with people allowing their kids to stay up till Big Ben tolls. In fact, I’m jealous of those that can keep their kids up and then they sleep in the following morning. This would be a win win.

The Dilemma

However, this is not the case with my 7 year old daughter. If I keep her up late she still gets up at the same time. Then I have to deal with a tired grumpy child whilst nursing my own hangover.

So how could we ring in the New Year and avoid a disastrous New Year’s Day?

And the answer popped into my FB timeline.

I personally think it’s a genius idea, so I nicked it and this year we celebrated a Thai New Year which is at 5pm our time. It wasn’t particularly authentic but good fun.

What you will need to celebrate a Thai New Year

Invite a couple friends around
Pre-order a Thai Take-away
Find a Countdown Clock Online for Bangkok
Check out YouTube for video of previous years fireworks in Bangkok
Download a version of Auld Lang Syne from iTunes
Scour the house for things that are vaguely Thai, no one will notice that your elephant candle holders are actually African Elephants and not Asian ones and your table runner is from South America.
Order silly little miniature Buddha figurines from Amazon, then research the meaning of the different ones with your kids.
Slightly naughty but order a few Eco Friendly Chinese Lanterns and set them off with the kids and get them to make a wish for the coming year or to remember those who are no longer with us.

The beauty was, we did everything you would normally do on New Years but we all crashed by 10pm and we had a lovely New Years Day.

Next year I reckon we head to India.

Happy New Year and all the best in 2015

Christmas Garland Made from Recycled Cards

How to Recycle your Christmas Cards

I have mixed feelings about Christmas Cards. On one hand I love hearing from old friends, but they quickly begin to take over all the surfaces in the house. This year with a bit of blue tac I managed to keep on top of them.

Shortly after Christmas, that urge to de-Christmas my house set in, but what do you do with all the old cards? There are local schemes that recycle them for you, but as we had a few more days off school, I was looking for an activity to entertain my 7 year old.

Over the years we have made Mosaic Placemats with them, Thank you cards and Christmas tags. I had a quick look on Pinterest and came across an idea from Party Planning Center for creating Christmas Garland with them. I have a personal hatred of the store bought shiny garland so this was a perfect solution and it was relatively easy.

The most difficult part was locating a 2″ Circular Craft Punch, like any other time we decide to craft it always results in a trip to the shops as we aren’t well stocked in the craft department. I managed to find one at Hobbycraft.

I think they’re fairly self explanatory but the full instructions can be found at the link below.

How to Make Christmas Decorations with Recycle Paper

Now that we have the circular punch, we thought we’d do a few Thank you cards while we were at it.

What do you do with all your old Christmas Cards? Do you have any other craft activities I can use my punch for?

The Loss of Innocence at Halloween

We were just baking some Halloween Biscuits?

It such a shame that as adults we lose our sense of innocence as we’re sharpened by experience and shaped by reality.

I was baking with my daughter this afternoon, a sure sign that Half-term has broken me, as I find baking incredibly stressful.

‘Don’t get shells in there, Stop flicking the batter everywhere and Don’t lick your fingers if you have raw egg on them’

Like any good mum, we hit Google images (filtered of course) and found some Halloween themed biscuits AKA cookies that looked easy enough.

We were happily attacking one of those just add water baking kits, when it all of a sudden dawned on me I wouldn’t be able to post pictures of them online. It would come across brash and incentive with recent news reports.

If you’re wondering, we made headless gingerbread men and skeletons. How could I be so intensive with the recent IS attacks and yes, I did guiltily think about the reference to eating disorders! Insane!

Luckily, I had a friend reeled me back in and reminded me that for my 7 year old it was just baking and she’s oblivious to the IS beheadings.

‘Hey, she’s just a child and she doesn’t need to be aware – she’s happy doing her baking and that’s what childhood should be about’.

I’ve decided that I would rather live my life through the eyes of a child.

Do I worry too much?

Child-friendly Radio Stations

Radio for Kids

I was on the hunt for a children’s radio station to have on in the background while my daughter was playing. I don’t want to shelter her from the rest of the world but find some of the current news is a bit graphic for a 7 year old and many topics I’m not quite ready to discuss. You just have to look at a few of the current Headlines ‘8 Dead in Florida House Shooting’, ‘Islamic State Plots to Behead’ and ‘Suspect Murdered his Wife’ to see what I mean.

I don’t tend to pay attention to a lot of lyrics in songs and happily sing along not having a clue what it’s about and I’m sure my daughter is the same, but I’d rather not have her singing things like “stay up all night to get lucky” and “I know you want it”. Call me old fashioned!

After a quick Google search I came across Fun Kids, which seems perfect, good selection of tunes old and new and slightly censored news. They have iphone and ipad apps but as I have a Sonos Stereo I simply searched for it using the Sonos Software and then added it to my favourites, so my daughter can easily access it via an iPad.

Happy Listening!