Screen Time Management with Circle Home Plus

Screen time. This is such a hot topic. Over the last year, has your family’s screen time increased or decreased? I would venture a guess that all of us would say that it has increased. Ours has. More time at home tends to mean more screen time. Studies have shown that screen time has increased by 500% for children since the pandemic started. That. Is. Crazy. Nearly half of American children spend 6+ hours a day in front of a screen. Throw in distance learning, and we have a huge problem. That makes me sick. I would venture a guess that most of us parents are wanting to change that for our families, but how? Where do we start with breaking the habit of screens?

Circle Home Plus is the #1 comprehension screen time management solution. Circle wants to make families’ lives better both online and off. They help us set healthy limits for screen time, allowing us to build good habits. We can get wonderful experiences from our time online rather than being completely consumed by it. Circle has become the easiest way to manage all of our family’s devices from anywhere and keep them safe while online. You, as the parent, can control and filter content for all internet-connected devices. This includes smart phones, TVs, tablets, and gaming consoles.

I received this product for free from Moms Meet (momsmeet.com) to use and post my honest opinions. Compensation for this post was provided and this page may contain affiliate links.

One of my favorite features of the Circle Home Plus app is the Bedtime feature. Screens go off at the time you set, and don’t come on until the time you set. Every profile can be set to specific times, making arguing over it a thing of the past. When it is bed time, your screen turns off for the night and that is it. End of story. I love this feature for myself also! I am forced to put my phone away and relax at the time I set. Mama needs a screen detox also. We can’t just point fingers at the kids. You can check out Circle’s sleep hacks here.

Did you know that technology is often what stands between our children and a good night’s sleep? Blue light from our phones and computers disrupts our sleep cycle. That is pretty well known. But, have you ever thought about how many times you reach for your phone to check it throughout the night? Teenagers do this even more. Notifications go off that wake us up, and we *obviously* have to check it. Late-night scrolling is such an issue for all ages. The Bedtime setting puts an end to all of that nonsense.

Circle Home Plus not only helps to manage screen time, but can also make screen time safer. You can set age appropriate filters for websites and apps– even blocking some all together. Time limits can be set for individual apps as well as categories of content (social media, games, etc.) You can also Pause or temporarily turn off the internet for the whole family or just a single family member. Focus Time can be set to help kids stay on track while doing research or distance learning. No more browsing the web instead of focusing on school. How cool is that?

Circle has so many different features. You can locate a family member’s device using the location feature. The history feature allows you to see a family member’s history. This allows you to see sites that have been visited as well as content that Circle has filtered out. From there, you can select to have a website allowed, not allowed, or unmanaged. There is also the ability to see a family member’s usage– where they are spending most of their time while online.

As if all of that isn’t cool enough, you can also send rewards to family members. If someone earns extra screen time or a later bedtime, you can do that all from the Circle Home Plus app. Misbehavior cause a reward to be taken away? That can also be done from the app! My circle app has a passcode, so no one can log onto the app and send themselves rewards or edit the time they are allowed. I have the control, and it is so easy and reassuring.

Reducing screen time enriches our family’s lives. Instead of sitting and watching TV, scrolling social media, and playing video games, we have more time for each other. Board games come out more often. We spend more time outdoors playing together. We explore our state and see so much more than the TV or phone screen.

We only get 18 years with our children. EIGHTEEN. My kids are 10, 9, and 6– all very close to their next birthdays. I feel that clock ticking down more rapidly with every passing year. I CERTAINLY am not going to look back on these years and be thankful for all of the dumb screen time. I want a thriving life with my family. I want to play while they want to play. I want to braid hair and read books. I want to see art and visit museums and explore. I want them to know that they matter to me more than anything in this world. They aren’t going to know that if I am staring at my phone. I want to know their hearts, their fears, and their dreams. I won’t get to know any of that if they spend their time on tablets and watching TV. That is not a fulfilling life. I want to LIVE LIFE, and Circle helps keep us all accountable.

Save 20% on your purchase of a Circle Home Plus device + 1 year app subscription or Circle Home Plus device + lifetime app subscription at momsmeet.link/circlehomeplusshop with promo code MOMSMEET2021. Valid until 10/15/21. One promo code use per person. Circle Home Plus typically retails at $69 for a three month subscription, $129 for a one-year subscription, or $299 for a lifetime subscription. All plans include the Circle Home Plus Device and Circle App access.

“Escaped Duck Causes Chaos”

Do you like that headline? It’s like a fun news story.

We had beautiful weather two weekends in a row– both weekends that I worked at the library and projects that required two sets of hands couldn’t be completed. Then, a weekend off. A rain, cold weekend off. Scott and I did what we could on Friday evening while it was nice, but Saturday was gross out. We went to Menards (again..) and picked up the last of what we needed to complete the coop. We think.

Sunday morning, we got up to get ready for church. I was getting dressed and coming out to make breakfast when I heard Scott call for “anyone” to come help. He just tells me to follow him. I go downstairs where we have a duck running around free. Apparently she figured out how to flutter enough to fly over the side of the brooder. We caught her and put her back in the brooder.. and made the call that we were about to have the most miserable Sunday. haha! We had our ducks in a large brooder space in our basement (cellar, whatever you want to call it). Our furnace, water pump, etc. are also downstairs and having a duck wandering whenever she pleases is not even close to safe for any involved.

I guess I need to back up. The chicken run shouldn’t affect the duck run, right? We finished the duck house and run many weeks ago. It was at the same time that a friend asked if we could take one of her bantam hens that was escaping their yard. I said yes, absolutely. We knew she would be just fine in the duck house and run while we finished the chicken coop and run. But, when the ducks suddenly need their space, Carmel (the hen) can no longer hang out in the duck area. She is very small, and the ducks are very curious. So, that is why we had to rush to finish the chicken run in order for the ducks to be able to come outside full time.

We spent our entire Sunday building the chicken run. We honestly thought the run was going to be easy. All we needed to do was build the walls for the run and screw on the hardware cloth. W.R.O.N.G. The walls went up so quickly. Framing the door was tricky and took a little longer, but still not terrible. Getting the hardware cloth pulled tight without any slack was a whole different ballgame. We bought an old barn door on FB marketplace that we needed to cut down and reinforce because it had definitely seen better days.

We got the door to the coop put on after dark and filled the coop with pine shavings and moved Carmel over to her new and permanent home. The ducks came outside, also in the dark, and enjoyed their first cozy night in their house. Everyone seems very happy in their new locations. The ducks forage and munch all day. I take our 10 chicks out during the day to hang out with Carmel. It is still getting in the 30s at night, which is too cold for 9 week old chicks. They go back in the brooder at night.

Here is a picture of the coop– it stopped raining while we ate dinner. The picture is so deceiving and makes it look like we had a beautiful day.

We were honestly so cold. We wore our Carhartt overalls over our clothes. We had our hats and coats on with work gloves. We were soaked to the core. I felt like we would never be dry or warm. But, we did it! I am SO proud of Scott. He planned this completely on his own. We built it from the ground up.

Once we get it 100% completed, I will share more pictures and hopefully rope Scott into writing up the plans so we can share them here. We still need to paint the rest of the wood, build a true roost, and bury hardware cloth. None of those will take much time. This weekend, we plan to work up the ground for our big garden– which I think we will call our potager. Potager means “kitchen garden”, which feels fitting. It is great fun, and while we certainly would have preferred a dry day to finish this project, we are thankful to have it almost completed!