Building Good Kids Series

Microsoft’s Big Bear Can Watch Your Kids

Prototype ’Teddy’ keeps an eye on the youngsters

Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 15 Mar 2005

Young children could be watched over by remote control teddy bears with swivelling heads that track every move, thanks to a research project from Microsoft.

’Teddy’ is a prototype bear of the future being developed in Microsoft’s US laboratories. It has stereovision eyes, built-in Wi-Fi and a microphone.

Motion tracking and facial recognition technologies allows the bear to identify specific children and keep them under surveillance as they move around a room.

"In the future, computers won’t just live in your home office or on your desk at work," said a Microsoft spokesperson.

"They will take on many different forms: the wall of your living room, your refrigerator door, or even your child’s stuffed animal. You won’t have to click a mouse or type on a keyboard to interact with your new computer; just touching, talking and moving will do the trick."

The idea is that parents at work could keep a watch over their children remotely and warn them if they are in danger. Microsoft hopes that, as software gets more advanced, the bear could play games with the child as well.

Does this seem like a good idea to you?

Building Good Kids is Job One for a Parent

All your children will ever be, they are now becoming…

Let’s be honest: If you’re like any parent I have ever met you want your child to be the star in his or her own life -- the soloist in the choir, the quarterback on the football team, the lead in the play, the beauty queen, the honor roll student or the one in the best schools.

Not only that, you also want your children to be happy, secure, self-assured and confident people. You want to protect your child from getting shoved in the playground, picked on by bullies or molested by sickos, safe from failure and adversity and from social and interpersonal pain in general.

On top of it all, you want your children to love you, accept you, respect and admire you.

You are Raising Adults – not Children

“Train children how to live right, and when they are old, they will not change.”

Proverbs 22:6

What you do with them today, when they are two, three, four, five, six or sixteen years of age, will determine what they will do at age twenty-four, thirty-four or forty-four.

You are raising adults. Right now, they are under construction, like a new house being built from the ground up.

Once that house gets completed, it is subjected to the forces of nature and the wear and tear of life. Will its foundation crack, or its roof leak? Will it hold up or cave in?

The Bible is the Instruction Book

“All Scripture is given by God and is useful for teaching, for showing people what is wrong in their lives, for correcting faults, and for teaching how to live right. Using the Scriptures, the person who serves God will be capable, having all that is needed to do every good work.”

2 Timothy 3:16-17

All that is needed… is given to us by God. We have all we need.

In fact what the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy identifies 4 critical building blocks for raising good kids.

In my own experience I have found that these building blocks are each important elements that come into play in different ways at different times in the development of a child.

The 1st Building Block for Raising Good Kids

Precepts – from birth to 8 years

“All Scripture is given by God and is useful for teaching…

didaskalia (did•as•kal•ee•ah)

“doctrine” 19 times

“teaching” once

“learning” once

2 teaching. 2a that which is taught, doctrine. 2b teachings, precepts.

Precepts for living…

My kids laugh what they call my Rickisms… Precepts that I’ve learned from my parents… I’d like to think that many of these Rickisms are rooted in the word of God…

• Rule #1: Dad is always right

• Do the yucky stuff first

• Life isn’t fair

• Be a duck – Go with the Flow

• Don’t sweat the small stuff

• Don’t start something you can’t finish

• I’ve figured it out, my children are the ones who make the mess

• Find out what your boss wants, then give it to them.

Basic and fundamental rules about life

All I Ever Really Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum

Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not found at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned: