(NAPSA)—If any of America’s estimated 70 million schoolchildren is yours, you maybe glad to learn about four steps toward making the morning rusha little morerelaxed. 1.First, the best thing you can do for the morning is to start the night before. Pack everyone’s lunch, pick out the next day’s outfit and makesureit’s got all its buttons and that the socks match, make sure homeworkis in the backpack and review the next day’s schedule. GROUND RULES Laying Down The Law ts ppeerya with rules — for how their kids use their smartphone — 7 * 17% parents have differentrules for weekdays versus weekends Gk) 4 LIKELIHOODOF RULES BY LOCATION Dr wn Cities , Suburban @ Rural / ‘Small Town 12-14 YEARS-OLD AgeParents Feel Comfortable Giving Kids a Smartphone Yovos i 7% eas PE fae years-old ~ 7-8 years-old Pao years-old | ea none of the above 4 I ee City Kids are morelikely to receive a gesnD Most kids get their first smartphone when they’re between 9 and 14 yearsold. are available—from wireless carriers and app stores—that help parents track their kids’ location and monitor content of their text messages and e-mail, photos, and Web history. Family apps available from Sprint include Sprint Mobile Controls, Sprint Family Locator and Sprint Drive First. Here are a few more facts on smartphones, from a survey by Sprint and Techlicious, that may be of interest to parents and children: Thirty-two percent of parents About one in three families has rules governing how kids can use smartphones. 2.You don’t have to do it all yourself. Assign simple tasks. Teach your kids to plan the breakfast menu, set the table for break- fast and maketheir own beds. 3.Keep a binder or bulletin board for important papers— permission slips, test entry cards and the like—that kids bring home from school so you never have to search for them. 4. If yours are like most kids these days, they have their own mobile phones, tablets, music players and so on. If so, make sure everything they want to take with them is properly charged. You should also be sure yourchildren understand about responsible mobile phone and computer use and wireless commonsense. For one thing, no one should ever send or read texts or e-mail while driving, biking or walkingacross thestreet. For another, you and your child should have a pin or password that locks the screen. It may also be a good idea to download parental monitoring and control apps. A wide variety set rules for how their kids use their smartphone. Seventeen percent of parents have different rules for how kids use smartphones on weekdays compared to how they use them on weekends. eCity parents are more inclined to give kids smartphone rules and use monitoring apps than are suburbanites. Seventy-seven percent of kids know parents use parental monitoring apps. Older parentsarefarless likely than youngerones totell their kids they’re monitoring them. Parents who have Apple devices use parental monitoring more often than Android users do. *Twelve- to 14-year-olds top the list for first-time smartphone ownership. However, in cities, parents are morelikely to give kids a smartphoneat ages 9-11. *Dads are more likely to give kids smartphones in elementary school while momsare morelikely to give kids smartphones in middle school. Learn More For further information on kids and smartphones, visit https://fam ilysafety.sprint.com and www.4Net Safety.com.
