iPhones
In this house, every one of us has one. this is our family touchstone. we use our phones to stay in contact at all times, via apps, calendars, emails, group texting, gps locating, find my friends, photo and photo sharing, social media, games, evernote, music and more.
We don't have a regular phone anymore and basically just use our iPhones for everything. It is so much more than just a phone, and a way to stay connected. It is our device for almost everything. Sorting our notes, our calendars, our contacts, our emails, our businesses, our homework, a good chunk of our photos and photography, all of our contact with friends and family.
Group texting.
This is something that was unexpected for us as parents, but turned out to be a huge thing for our family. We created a texting group for the 5 of us years ago, so that we could keep in contact through the day on things like "grammy is coming for dinner, be home promptly" or "the time has changed for the party on saturday, please plan accordingly", basically, to make sure everyone knew the important things at all times.
It is still this today, but so much more.
Now it includes small touches throughout the day:
"the bus driver was such a jerk this morning"
"look at this photo, it reminds me of that conversation last night at the dinner table"
"i love this youtube video, watch how awesome this is"
"i aced my math test"
"lucy pooped all over the living room, hurry home so you can help me clean it"
"guys, i am having a rough day, anyone want to come eat lunch with me"
"where is everyone, i got home and no one was here"
"who wants to see the new marvel movie with me this weekend"
"i'm excited to go to disney tomorrow, who else is"
"can we have tacos for dinner"
It has basically become the touchstone for our family. The central meeting place for when we are not at home. If we are not face to face, in each other's company, we are texting each other all the time. We genuinely enjoy one another's company and miss each other when we are apart and connect through our group text.
Calendars.
our shared family calendar is accessible to everyone, on all of their devices, most notably the phones. Everyone knows what is happening on what day, all the time.
Nice.
Find My Friends.
since the phones are GPS available, we keep track of one another and can find them all the time. Super important to us as parents. And actually quite helpful to the kids to know when we are coming home. wink.
Photos.
access to our shared photo libraries is super important and a basic stable for us. I've written a post about it here, but essentially, it is our modern form of memory keeping. It has become incredibly important to our family. We all love to take photos and share them constantly.
Music.
we love music. we share a family music account, but all have individual accounts on our phones. we love to create and share playlists together. we play a lot of music in our house and in our cars. most of the time the kids are the DJs and get to decide what they are playing. in the morning, during breakfast and other meal times we usually have a playlist going. Jack always always is listening to music in the car, on the bus, while he is waiting for anything. Headphones in, music playing. and he has the most interesting taste in music. I love it.
Games.
we each have our favorites. Things that keep us busy while we are waiting, while we are looking to be entertained, while we are bored, or exercising our minds. Some of them we all play together and challenge one another on, like Disney Tsum Tsum, and others are solely just that person. The kids download apps and games and uninstall them as their fancy changes while Jeffrey and I are more of the longevity kind of people. Jeffrey does a Crossword a day, and I attempt to conquer the bears on Candy Crush Jelly.
Social media.
we have own special rules regarding social media. This is a subject for another post, but, touching on it lightly here, we have limited social media in our family. Some of us have a little bit, and some of us have none. Yes, I said none. Some that have a little, don't check it very often if at all, and the few that the teens do have maybe they check everyday. There is no Facebook or Snapchat and limited Twitter and Instagram.
The Homework App.
all of the kids have and use the Homework App to track their work. Arianna was the first to use this app while she was in high school and she loved it. She is also an organizational freak. It worked well for her, so we installed it for Jack and Halle jumped on board. We'll see how it sticks for these younger two, but so far, its better for them than keeping a Planner or a journal.
Evernote and other productivity apps
we love these syncing apps that allows us to take notes and do things on the go. Jeffrey and I are the biggest users of these apps.
We didn't always use our phones to such an extent, and obviously are not the only family out there using them like this. Technology has changed so much since the time that we first originally purchased cell phones for our children. We got cellphones for the girls when they were still in elementary school, as we were leaving them at soccer practice or dance class. By the time they were in these places there was no such thing as a payphone anymore. We needed to make sure that our kids could get in touch with us if they needed us, needed to be picked up early or something was happening to them.
Now, as the world knows, there is so much more to the cell phone and how we live our lives. We try to make the best of the evolving technology and put it to good use for our teenagers. We use it in ways that helps our family stay connected. It helps us communicate and be good to one another. To be more present in each other's lives. To share our days and our photos.
