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:
• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don’t hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
• Say you’re sorry when you hurt someone.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush the toilet.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life.
• Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work everyday some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder and wonderful things.
• Remember the little seed in the plastic cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are still all like that.
• Goldfish and hampsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die...So do we.
• And then remember the story book about Dick and Jane and the first important word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK!
Everything you need to know is there, from Kindergarten, somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation...Ecology and politics and sane living...Think of what a better world it would be if we all--the whole world--had cookies and milk about 3 o’clock every afternoon and then laid down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation, and all other nations, to always put things back where we found them and to clean up our own messes.
And it is still the truth, no matter who you are or how old you are, when you go out there into this world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
by Robert Fulghum
Where do we get the precepts to share with our kids? The ten commandments, the golden rule, the two greatest commandments… In short – they come from God!
You need to know the word of God!
The 2nd Building Block for Raising Good Kids
Convictions – from 8 years to 13 years
“All Scripture is given by God and is useful for… showing people what is wrong in their lives…”
elegchos (el•eng•khos)
“reproof” once
“evidence” once.
A proof, that by which a thing is proved or tested; a conviction.
In mathematics you have proofs of numerical statements. When I was in HS I took a math test where we had to prove two angles to be equal at the opposite end.
There comes a time when you want your children to begin to understand and hold their own values in their minds and hearts.
We’re not raising robots. We’re raising children who we want to become thinking, understanding, caring, compassionate, loving, sensitive, tough, dedicated, confident, upright citizens of the world and children of the Almighty God.
To do that children have to test and prove the precepts we give them against their own experiences in life. They have to try, fail, and try again to learn and build their own convictions.
I remember being told by my mother that BB guns were ok as long as you didn’t wantonly kill animals with them. That hunting for food was one thing but just killing animals was another. I also remember – vividly – my shame, horror, and sorrow when I shot a Robin with a borrowed BB gun and watched that bird labor to breathe and then die after it fell to the ground. I never shot a BB gun at an animal again – ever.
Somehow the precept of life being important and valuable become a conviction that I had tested, proved, and adopted as a personal conviction when I was perhaps 10 years of age. My friends all went to the dump near Kalkaska to engage in the sport of shooting rats with a .22 rifle and somehow I never really ever wanted to do that.
Now, I’m not against hunting or fishing. I just don’t believe that wanton killing is right.
Our kids need to gain some basic convictions – it’s wrong to steal. It’s wrong to lie. It’s wrong to cheat. It’s wrong to say one thing and do another. It’s wrong to gossip. It’s wrong to hurt people. Not our convictions – their own convictions.
It takes time and encouragement as a parent to guide your children to the gaining of their own convictions.
The 3rd Building Block for Raising Good Kids
Making Straight – from 13 – 16 years
“All Scripture is given by God and is useful for… for correcting faults…
epanorthosis (ep•an•or•tho•sis)
“correction”
restoration to an upright or right state. 2 correction, improvement of life or character.
anorthoo (an•orth• oo)
v. From 303 and a derivative of the base of 3717; GK 494; Three occurrences; AV translates as
“make straight” once
“set up” once
“lift up” once
1 to set up, make erect. 1a of a deformed person. 2 to rear again, build anew.
Orthos – right or straight. To make right or to straighten. I think about how many times my parents encouraged me to stand up and to straighten your shoulders.
It’s important to walk uprightly and with confidence in this world. Unfortunately in the teen years the one thing kids need more than anything else is confidence in themselves and the assurance that they are ok.
So much of the teen years is spent searching for acceptance from others. It seems that each generation struggles to find their own way to rebel against their parents and to gain both independence and acceptance.
Fads: There were the beatnicks and rock and roll of the Elvis years, the Beatles and the introduction of long hair, the hippies, flower children and drugs of the 70’s – today it’s bling bling and jeans that come to about 3 inches beneath the waist…
It’s all about acceptance, confidence, and assurance. Parents – it’s our main job during these chaotic years to provide a place of safety and refuge. Where we can help our kids gain that ability to stand uprightly without being smashed down.
When they fail we must provide the ways to restore the soul and discover that they really are ok.
If the precepts is building a form/scaffold. If the convictions is the building of a child inside of those precepts. Then the making straight is the loosening of the ties and the straightening of the soul and inner being of that teenager until they can stand on their own.
Actively connect with that teenager.
The 4th Building Block for Raising Good Kids
Cultivation – from 17 – 19 years
“All Scripture is given by God and is useful for... teaching how to live right.”
paideia (pahee•di•ah)
“chastening” three times
“nurture” once
“instruction” once
“chastisement” once
The whole training and education of children (which relates to the cultivation of mind and morals, and employs for this purpose now commands and admonitions, now reproof and punishment) It also includes the training and care of the body.
Whatever in adults also cultivates the soul, esp. by correcting mistakes and curbing passions. Instruction which aims at increasing virtue. Chastisement, chastening, (of the evils with which God visits men for their amendment).
The opposite is aðáßäåõôïò (apaideutos) and it means to be uneducated, hence perceived to be stupid, ignorant, foolish
23 Stay away from foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they grow into quarrels. – 2 Timothy 2:23
Unlearned and ignorant arguments
A “cultivated” person is a person who is cultured and educated. They know things. They understand things. They stand as confident and whole people. This the stage that the scaffolding is stripped away and the person stands on their own. It is the time that the burr’s are removed. The edges are smoothed and that the surfaces are polished.
This is the toughest age for a parent for it involves the necessity of letting go as you polish and complete the task of growing an adult who is complete and whole.
Think of in terms of finishing. Putting the trim up and the last touches – it requires a light touch and a gentle hand. You’re not framing a house – you are doing the last little tasks of touching up, trimming out, and the last coats of paint before it’s done!
The apostle Paul gives additional guidance in Eph 6 and this additional counsel is given specifically to the fathers…
Fathers… Do Not Exasperate Your Children
Cultivation – not Exasperation
“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
Ephesians 6:4
Paideia – education - discipline
Noutheoteo – gentle confrontation
Fathers… Do Not Exasperate Your Children
Four Ways to Exasperate Your Children…
Ray Stedman lists three things that fathers do that can lead a child to discouragement. I’ve added a fourth.
Ignore them
A father who has no time for his children soon creates within them a deep-seated resentment. Children in these homes can grow up to feel unloved and unaccepted and may end up looking elsewhere to have their needs met.
Indulge them
These types of fathers give their children everything they want. This is not good because a child who is indulged all the time can become restless, dissatisfied, and spoiled.
Insult them
Some dads like to criticize their kids and even call them names. Sarcasm and ridicule can knock the stuffing out of a child faster than anything else.
Intimidate them
Threats and unfair expectations can filet a child’s self-esteem and scar him or her for life.
Fellow fathers, we must make it as easy as possible for our kids to obey! The way we treat them has a lot to do with their ability and willingness to fulfill their responsibility in the home.
4 Building Blocks for Raising Good Kids
“All Scripture is given by God and is useful for...”
TEACHING PRECEPTS
BUILDING CONVICTIONS
MAKING STRAIGHT
CULTIVATING
I have not given you specific steps to follow here today. This message isn’t intended to give you a blow by blow chart of activities but to give you a fundamental understanding of what your role as a parent involves.
One unifying factor – all scripture. All Scripture!!
Building Good Kids
“God made husbands and wives to become one body and one spirit for his purpose—so they would have children who are true to God.”
Malachi 2:15
Rodney
In the book, Especially for a Woman, Ann Kiemel Anderson writes about her sister Jan that taught 3 grade. One bright boy admired Jan his teacher. He enjoyed talking to her, but he did poorly in his work assignments and daily quizzes.
One day, Jan stopped, looked at him, and said, “Rodney, you are very smart. You could be doing so well in school. In fact you are one of my finest students. Before she could finish he looked up with sober large blue eyes and said: “I did not know that!”
From that moment on, Rodney began to change. His papers were neater, his spelling improved and he became one of the top students in the class. All because the teacher affirmed him. She told him something no one ever had said before. It changed his life.
No one ever became ill or died from receiving too much genuine praise and encouragement.
But there are thousands of wounded souls scattered along the highway of life because no one gave them an encouraging word. Give an encouraging word every change you get. Remember, what you sow, you will also reap!
Close and prayer time for the father’s down front.
