Digital natives are the children born today called. I, myself, am merely an immigrant into the world of technology. But what a fantastic world it is. Especially for the ones who cannot be with their families every day. Whether it is because of work, divorce, school or any other reason; it is tough not to see your children every day. It is hard to have to wait days, weeks and even months to see them. With smaller children the fear that they may not recognize you is always there. Now, however, in this wonderful wireless world, we can not only speak to our children, but see them as well. For free! Across cities, counties and countries Skype reunites mothers and daughters, father and sons, grandparents and grandchildren; you get the gist.

The benefits of using Skype are tremendous! There is a saying that says a picture is worth a thousand words. Just imagine being able to see your daughters face when she opens your birthday present, even though you are miles apart. Or for your son to the see just how proud you are of him when he tells you about the maths test he did so well on. It is so easy as well; even the oldest digital immigrant can use it. It truly unites families in a world where people are more spread out than ever. It is often not the big things that you are sad to have missed, but the daily routines and chats.… (More)

I have a section of the site devoted to long distance parenting products and books that I think are awesome. I’m interested in knowing what YOU think is awesome though.

What products do you use (webcam, cell phone apps etc) that make your long distance parenting experience easier or better?
What books have you read that gave you ideas, hope or information?
What websites do you frequent that help you with long distance parenting?
What do YOU recommend for other long distance parents?
Leave a comment on the website or the facebook page or drop me an email.

Once upon a time, when we started this long distance parenting arrangement, there were very few products that offered voice and video chat. We used netmeeting in the very beginning, which was an old Windows app and to this day, we still call his internet visitation time ‘netmeeting’. My useless tidbits quota for the day has been met.

Then came skype. I’ve recommended skype over the years (and in fact, I’m grimacing at a stack of posts from over the years that need to be updated with this new recommendation). When skype came out, it was sleek, slick and THE way to do video and voice chat. However, since that time, a whole slew of popular chat programs have added voice and video, among them yahoo, google and aim.

We stuck with skype though because they started introducing voip products (internet telephone) and it was nice to give my son his own phone number and the ability to make phone calls from his computer so that he could talk directly with his dad and his dad’s family without me needing to be involved.

However, IMO, skype hasn’t kept up. I’ve used them not only for my son’s phone but also for my business phone and I’ve had pretty bad experiences with them in the last year or so. These are my personal experiences and your mileage may vary.

• We’ve had several unexplainable technical difficulties. Because we’re paying for the product, I expect

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In this post about virtual visitation, someone asked the question “how (do you) protect your own computer’s privacy if the parties are not friendly?” And the answer is ‘sensibly’.

ANY computer should be behind a firewall and be protected by virus scan. Additionally, any computer that a child has access to should also be protected by software meant to keep them away from people and content that are not deemed ‘safe’ by the child’s parents (parental control software).

I’ve used a few pieces of parental control software in the past with mixed results. Recently, I landed upon Norton Online Families. It’s parental control software that has a lightweight client that you install on your computer(s) but otherwise, you access it’s controls online from wherever you happen to be. It’s free. It’s robust. It’s feature rich. It’s great, I think!

Here are the things I like about it :

• It’s free. Completely, 100% free. No cost.
• I manage it online. That means that if I’m at work and remember to tweak a setting, I can do it right then instead of waiting. If my son is with a sitter and the sitter calls me to say they are locked out, I can change it from my smart phone. If I want to see what he’s been up to when I’m not AT HIS COMPUTER, I can log on and see it from anywhere.
• Also a benefit

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The Virtual Visitation Handbook by Michael Gough. This book saved me money and made the quality of my virtual visitation ten times better. But the review speaks for that.