When you’re a parent you have to get creative about keeping an eye on the kids.
It’s not so simple these days with cell phones and wireless internet to keep your children and teenagers in order.
When I was a kid, we only had a home phone so it was not easy to be sneaky. My mom knew when somebody was on the phone, and she could pick up the other line to listen in at any point. We started having the internet when I was growing up, but it was only installed on our family desktop computer. My mom had to sign us into the dial-up internet and she would check up on our activities very often. Conversely, these days every child has their own smartphone. It’s nearly impossible to keep track of them. That’s why I’ve resorted to utilizing our smart thermostat for my sneakiest mom observations. You see, I know my children will. Whenever they get home, they walk straight down the hallway and boldly change the thermostat. They have no tolerance for the indoor air temperatures that their father and I program into the thermostat for energy savings. As such, the moment that we are out of sight they run over and change the indoor air temperature settings. Unfortunately, this causes us to have much higher energy bills. Fortunately, this tells me exactly when they are and aren’t at home. I have smart thermostat notifications set up on my phone, so I always know exactly when they arrive and depart. Luckily, they still haven’t figured out my HVAC scheme.