Dec. 15, 2020

Parent Life Made Easier By Smart Home Tech With Craig Williamson

#015 - Anything that can make a Parent's life easier is always welcome! With smart home tech on the rise, how can it help us parents who work from home?

In this episode, fellow Parent and Podcaster Craig Williamson joins the show to share his love of smart home tech and how he uses it every day.

Craig is the host of the Thank The Week Podcast, where you learn to be thankful for last week and excited for this week!

For transcription and show notes of this episode, visit:

https://www.workinghomeparents.com/15

Send us a DM on Instagram: @workinghomeparents

See us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/parentpacifier

Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=4WZ2HN5E8EA8W&source=url)

Transcript
Daniel Norton:

Anything that makes a parent's life easier is worth it. Right?

Amanda Norton:

For the most part. Yes.

Daniel Norton:

Yeah, I guess as long as the Price is Right,

Amanda Norton:

right, yes. Well, in

Daniel Norton:

this episode, we are joined by Craig Williamson of the thank the week podcast to share with us his tips for smart home devices for parents. Yeah. So

Amanda Norton:

if you're looking for some smart home tech, this episode is for you. Cue the intro.

Bumper:

Welcome to working home parents helping you find stability between client calls, and potty training. Because we're all figuring this out as we go. And now, your hosts, Amanda and Dan Norton.

Daniel Norton:

Welcome to Episode 15 of the podcast. And today, like we said, In the beginning, we're gonna be talking about smart home tech, and basically the goal of making a parent's life easier.

Amanda Norton:

Yeah, we can all learn from something that could help make our life easier,

Daniel Norton:

right. So that's why I'm really excited to be talking with Craig Williams today. And we're gonna he's gonna share a little bit about his podcast, which is called thank the week. And it's really a podcast about just an encouragement for the week in a year where we really, really need it. So if you're interested in hearing about that, make sure to stick around to the end of the podcast. And that's where he will be sharing some of that. So let's get into our interview.

Amanda Norton:

Hi, Craig, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you give our audience a little background to who you are and why you love Smart Home tech so much as a father?

Craig Williamson:

Yeah, I mean, there's so many things where tech can make your lives easier. I've been into tech all my life. I know when I worked as a teenager, I worked in an electronics store store called Dixon's, which is kind of like, I don't know, your best buy side equivalent and used to work with gadgets and technology there and I loved cameras, it was tip players at the time, big music stereos I always really enjoyed understanding the gadgets, how they worked, what the strengths and weaknesses were. And then when I finally got old enough to have a bit of my own money, you know, I started to work after I left University, then suddenly I could buy these things, and really enjoyed digging into the detail of, you know, I wouldn't just buy something because it looked pretty, I'd always do all the research, make sure I knew exactly what the best features were for me. And then I'd go in the store and, and feel really disappointed that the salesperson didn't really know much and, and I ended up probably educating them a little on Well, you know, I think this is probably the one I should be going for. But yeah, ever since that I've been really into tech, and then obviously, last five to 10 years, you know, smart Tech has really taken off and the number of developments there that can make our lives easier. You know, as human beings, first of all, but as parents especially, I mean, there's so many great things, and then when you throw in the working from home, you know smart Tech's got everything for us.

Daniel Norton:

Oh, yeah, yes, that's for sure. I know, we rely on some of this, some of this smart tech, but I'm sure we're not using it to the best that we could be. So that's the we're looking forward to chatting about.

Amanda Norton:

So for our listeners sake, what would you define as a smart tech? So like, some of our listeners might say, oh, what do you mean, like? So what? What do you mean by smart tech.

Craig Williamson:

So I think anything that's smart has got a bit more intelligence in it. So it does something a bit more above the standard functionality. So if you're wearing headphones right now that they're technology, you've got some headphones, if you've got that connected to your mobile phone, and then you can make calls to it, it's getting a bit smarter. If you can then access the smarter system through your mobile phone, then it's now a fully fledged piece of smart tech. So anything that goes above and beyond its standard functionality and can do something else that makes your life a bit easier. Or sometimes it's just something that makes people go wow, that's that's really cool. You know, you might not have a great use for it. But Wow, that's that's fantastic smart tech,

Daniel Norton:

can you tell us about a time where like smart you know, any kind of smart home Tech has been helpful for you as as a parent,

Craig Williamson:

the biggest one for me is the busy sign. I really recommend this for anyone with children, anyone working from home, have some way of indicating that you're busy. And you should not be disturbed because you may be speaking on a video call to someone really important. You don't want your kids coming in in the background. You don't want any loud noises banging, because you're on a an important call. So having some way of indicating to everyone else in the household, your spouse as well as your children that you're busy. So that there are obviously simple ways you could do it. You could just hang a little sign on on the door if you've got an office door. That's not very smart and there's no tech involved. So what you know, I'm not that interested in that. But what what I actually use is I have a smart bulb outside in the hallway so my office is upstairs, I've got closed door. I've got smart bulb in the hallway just outside and then I can switch that on from my office in a deep red glow. So colored lights are always good to get attention. So what happens is the kids, they come home from school, in my case, or if they're already downstairs and they come rushing up like a herd of elephants making lots of noise, they'll see that red glow from a distance. And they'll think, oh, that is on something important here. Maybe they don't always recognize that they should be quiet, or they should not come in. But most of the time that that's really effective, and it's something so simple. And you know, you could just have a little lamp outside with with a red bulb, and that could be quite an inexpensive solution. I like something a bit higher tech. So I've got Philips Hue light bulbs around my house, you need a little Smart Hub connected to your router, that's maybe 40 $50. And then the bulbs with color, and maybe $40 there abouts. So a nice one of those. And then you can trigger that and I can talk a bit more about how you might trigger it with other smart tech. But yeah, that's been really effective for me and my red lights on right now as I'm speaking so hopefully, they don't make me eat my words and come in and

Daniel Norton:

I love that because the red I mean, it's something you could see. Yeah, it's bright. It's not just a little like taped on sign in the door cuz I, Amanda leaves notes all over the place. little sticky notes. I don't see them. And if I don't see our kids, or you might take it and play with it. But uh, yeah, I really like that. I really like those those kind of lights. Mm hmm. I eventually want to be able to have them all over the place. So you can control them in one. Yeah, from one.

Amanda Norton:

Somehow he's gonna try to get Alexa hooked up on it. So he just says what? Oh, yes, she goes.

Daniel Norton:

Yeah, this is probably gonna be one of those trigger warning episodes. I'm sure we're gonna be saying that. So if you're listening, and you're near one, sorry.

Craig Williamson:

Yeah, the other great thing about this, the smart lights is I have one in my room as well. So what you could do is if you want to go that next step with your voice assistant, you say, so I've got one that says, I won't say its name, but I speak to it. And I'll tell it, it's meeting time, it switches on my life outside with a red light. And then it also switches a bright light on in my office to illuminate my face or illuminate the background, which just makes it a bit nice, of course. So you can get a few more kind of smarts built into that as well, once you once you get a bit more advanced with the smart tech routines.

Daniel Norton:

Wow. Yeah, that's great. I set it up for my parents. Yeah, with where if you say Merry Christmas and the name of it, it'll turn on all the trees and lights and all that stuff. I don't even know you did that. Yeah,

Amanda Norton:

that's amazing.

Daniel Norton:

And it's a timer timer thing too. But it's just a plug, you know. So you just plug that in, we do that with our setup as well. Well, I guess what mine because I do have a lot of meetings or record videos. In my studio space. I've got two lights, LED lights and some backdrop lights. And I just call it studio lights. So I ask it to turn studio lights on. But that's the extent like I need to get more of this. And this is cool and do more of that. So So how are some ways that you connect, you connect more of this stuff.

Craig Williamson:

So I think we talked about it already. But the smart assistant is really the thing that you need. So smart speaker in your house is an absolute must. And you can always get something quite this level and quite inexpensive. I know Amazon's cheapest one you can often get for $25 2020 pounds. And the Google nest mini often runs again 20 $25 or there abouts. Everyone should have a smart speaker at this point, if you don't have one. Obviously, people have privacy concerns. And I understand that. But if you can get get yourself past the point of worrying about how much information you're potentially giving out there, then the smart speaker, especially from working from home, I find, you know, having one in my office, it's simple things you know, you'll start off, you can listen to music, which is quite nice. If you're able to do that with your job, you can listen to a bit of music in your room. But then you can start to trigger some of these smart, smart actions as we've talked about, kind of get the lights on, you might have a difficult maths question that you can ask it, you might need to know how to spell a word and you can ask it, it's just all those. All those Yeah, those those really basic things that make it a smart speaker, really useful. And I think my other tip for the smart speakers is, you know, one is great. And having one in your office is really useful. But having them in every room is obviously ideal, but having just a few more that you can have around the house. Because there are great features. I don't know whether you use the intercom feature, for example. So having, you know, we've got speakers in most of our rooms. So when it's dinner time, you know, we can shout up the stairs, but that gets a bit old. So you can just do a little intercom announcement Dinner is ready. When when my son doesn't want to get out of bed, you can run the gauntlet of going into his room and trying to wake him up or you can ask your smart speaker to wake him up. And that kind of takes that that blame away from you. So there's there's a host of things once once you've got more of these things around the house, I guess it's like what you were saying with lighting if you ideally you get your whole house hooked up but then it does end up being quite expensive. Doesn't it? I gotta

Amanda Norton:

do the sleep one for you.

Daniel Norton:

Yeah, definitely struggling site. I do a lot of late night work. So

Amanda Norton:

yeah, so it's hard for me to get up in the morning. Maybe I'll do a new trick and use that. Yeah.

Craig Williamson:

There's no blame, because it's a it's a voice. It's not your voice. Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Norton:

Do you use a lot of routines with these where they're automatically set?

Craig Williamson:

I do for a few things. My daughter has one that rings downstairs when it's time for her to come upstairs and we'll read a story before her bedtime. She likes a really structured routine. She's 10 years old. But she really likes that routine. So we can be downstairs chatting, watching TV, listening to music, and then that goes off. And then it's like, okay, it's storytime, we come upstairs. And then she goes off and reads for a little while in in my bedroom she likes laying on on our bed, we've got quite a nice mattress, I guess. And then another alarm goes off in there, which which says, you know, now it's time for bed. And she really likes that routine that it kind of triggers for her to do these things. But then the Yeah, with the bulbs, we have them come on in the morning. So when you get up downstairs, there's there's lamps on, and then they come on just before sunset at night. So you've got the nice ambient lighting in the living area. So it just kind of makes it a bit easier. I mean, I know we were sounding a bit lazy now that flicking a switch. And our fingers losing all their muscle now it because we just don't use it that way. But it's just so convenient. You know, you never have to think about switching the lights on in the morning. And similarly at night, you know, we go to bed, leave the lights on downstairs, and they're time to go off. So you know, it's good for security as well in that even when you're not in there in the home, people are seeing these lights come on regularly and switch off regularly. So it kind of removes that elements. Yeah, so security is another good side benefit.

Daniel Norton:

Yeah, that's really good. I like that. I mean, we've talked a number of times with different people have come on, and even with the sleep experts we've talked about and how important routine is. Yeah, and how hard that is to set up with your kids sometimes. And I think this is a really great way, especially how you're explaining like, when there are routines set up, it works for me, obviously, it depends on the kid and depends if they want to and are able to as they grow up, but but this being able to set a routine, I think really is is helpful, especially in this kind of working home scenario where, you know, I blend together every Yeah, you don't, you can't tell what time it is. And you don't even know if it's like five o'clock or whatever time you get off work. But having something that sets your structure like that, I think that's really good. Because, you know, in an office setting, you might not necessarily turn on the lights. So it might be an automatic thing or whatever. So having that within your own office structure or home. I think that that's really smart.

Craig Williamson:

Yeah, and the alarms as well. But you can set to go off regular times, I think it was, I've got lots of Google assistants around my house. And I think it was only in the last couple of months, they introduced these regular alarms that you can set for different times. And I think it was because a lot of students were starting to have to work from or learn from home. So especially in the US, you know, we had our kids studying at home from March till July, and it would have been great then because you could then set school bells. So the idea is you have a bell that rings at the start of school. You know, to get your kids into that structure of learning, you can have belts for break belts for lunch belts, the finishing time, and all those kind of things bring that really nice bit of structure into homeschooling, which you know, as parents, we, you know, we really need through these times, if you do have your kids at home.

Amanda Norton:

Yeah, what made you guys realize, like, I think we need to vamp up our tech support in the home, like you said, the school bells and stuff like that. And where did you get these ideas?

Craig Williamson:

I think for me, it's just I've got an interest in the tech. So I would normally buy the tech before I knew exactly what I was wanting to use it for. So then then you go out and find out the reasons why you'd be able to use it. And actually, you know that that sounds a bit flippant. But all the Smart Home tech, I guess I've upgraded a few things since since this year. But I had a lot of it already in the home. And I was using it for various other reasons. But then as time goes on, and I think as you use it, you start to develop more ideas of how it might be useful. So for example, I talked about my daughter's alarms. She's grown up with a smart speaker in a bedroom, she talks to it, and it's just normal for her she switches on a light with it. And she's just grown up with that. So for her it's quite intuitive to say oh, well we'll just get the speaker to tell me when it's time to read my story and then we'll we'll tell it when it's time for me to go to bed. And I think often you surround yourself with that tech and then it just becomes part of your fabric and and then you start to find out the ways that you can use it that you wouldn't have even imagined when you're in the store or when you are browsing online and and getting excited about some smart tech.

Daniel Norton:

Yeah, that's the way I kind of felt with that because I was I wasn't really big into the you know, the smart speaker stuff. We got obviously we got the echo show And at first I was like, Oh, do I want to get it, but it was on sale and it came with a plug. So I was like, Alright, I gotta get it. Yeah, we already have iPhones and they're already listening to us. So at that point, am I really worried whether we have it on or off? So I got it. And I'm like, well, we'll see. We'll see kind of what it is. And it's something that, that we've deaf ear one, you have to really be playing with it to really understand what you could do with it. And I think that makes a lot of sense. It's hard to like, go into it saying, alright, I'm going to come up with this and this and this unless you've experienced using one before.

Craig Williamson:

Yeah. And it's a real good way to the things like you said, You've got the echo show. So you've got the display. Have you got a ring doorbell?

Daniel Norton:

Yes. Yeah.

Craig Williamson:

See, it snowballs, doesn't it? It's like, yeah, I've got I've got the smart speaker, oh, it's got a display, oh, I could get a doorbell. And actually, that's one of my big tips for working from home as well. I don't know about you guys. So I've got, as I said, I've got Google around. So I've got a nest Hello, doorbell, you know, similar to the ring product. But that is such a great thing to have when you're working from home. Because I don't like waiting for a package to arrive. If I know a package is arriving. I'm in my office upstairs. And I'm constantly up and down always that someone at the door, I think I'm not sure if I heard it. Whereas I've got a smart display in my office. I know as soon as they ring the bell, that's going to alert me so I don't have to worry about hearing a tiny little bell in the hallway downstairs. I've got it there. But also what I can do is if I want to prevent them arriving, or if I just keep hearing noises outside and it's distracting me from work, and I keep getting up and looking outside was that event is that my delivery? Well, I just put the stream from the doorbell on my display on my desk that I'm working happily. And I can just glance down look at the screen. If I hear a noise, or the there's no van there. Or there is you know, it's so flexible. And I use it also for when the kids are coming home from school just to have their that you know that they're coming. And you can kind of keep an eye on what the time is. Oh, yeah, I think they should be coming soon. And then you can just be ready so that you're not kind of taken by surprise. You're in the middle of some deep train of thought. And then the doorbell calls in Oh, gosh, what's what's going on? I was trying to focus on something here. Yeah. So yeah, the smart doorbell really works well with the smart display. And, and yeah, it just keeps you going and going. What would what would integrate Well, next? Yeah.

Daniel Norton:

Well, and that's the thing, I can't remember what it's like to have to be like, was that someone at the door? Like, it's so you know, it's sort of like guess when cell phones, you know, came in? And it's like you don't you forget what it was like that you couldn't message somebody without having to go to a computer, you know, or that you had to go answer the phone on the wall or something? Yeah, absolutely. So it's different similar way with the door? Yeah, it's the similar way. It's like you when no one was out the door, you know, cuz you know this, or then when the times it goes off in there? Isn't anyone there and you're like with someone standing?

Amanda Norton:

So we talked a lot about the things that are the most helpful for you and your family? What what are some tech things that are just not that helpful? Or what are some things that you've come across that were just dud, like dud products and just not worth your time and money that you that you spend?

Craig Williamson:

So for me, I think you finding out No, I like to buy things before I quite understand what I'm going to use them for. So what I did was, I went all in on Samsung SmartThings, which is a smart home network system. So you you set a little hub that you connect to your router, and then you can have all these sensors around your houses. So it can tell you when a door opens. Or it can tell you when there's motion in the hallway. They do have smart plugs as well. So it all links to that. But it's so advanced, there's so much you can do with it. And I lost, you know, a few weeks of my life with this thing, programming, programming it to get all these complex things. So when the garage door was left open, it would send me an alert, but then the connection was a bit flaky. And then it would send me the alert, but then it wouldn't quite trigger on my phone. And it you know that that was one thing that I invested a lot of money, I thought I'm going to go fully into this. And when I started using it, it was just far too complicated. Even for someone quite techie like me, it was far too complicated. And yes, I'm sure for some people it does a terrific job because it does things that you just can't do with with the basic Amazon or Google kit. But their simplicity is almost you know that one of their big strengths. You know, they don't try and do too many things. So what they do, they do extremely well. The Samsung SmartThings is hugely capable, there's so much you can do with it. But in the end I had to return it thankfully I was in a return period. So I kind of reluctantly boxed all the different sensors up and sent it off back and yeah, that was quite an experience. I think that was during the start of lockdown as well. So it was one of these lockdown projects and and that was me thinking maybe I can use this to help the family navigate this time and give me something to enjoy and And, you know, I did have a good time looking back. But yeah, just the tech didn't quite do it for me.

Daniel Norton:

That's really good to know. Yeah. But yeah, it's like you said, like once you kind of get into everything you want to keep going and more and more, but sometimes it could just get way over complicated, right? Yeah. When we were in Puerto Rico, and we met up with john Lee Dumas, who has a really popular podcast, and he, we met up in a little, what do you call it a little town center or something. And his house is up on the top of a like mountainside on on the end of the island there. And we saw him and he was like, Hey, you want to see my house and you just press the button on his phone in his entire house lit up a one in one light? And we were like, well, that's cool. It's, it's pretty awesome.

Craig Williamson:

As an example, air button. And yeah, a good example of using tech to impress people as well. I mean, I'm sure are useful. But it is so nice when you can whip out your phone and do something like that and have people Oh, that's cool.

Daniel Norton:

Yeah. It's I mean, obviously, when when we can have parties again, that's kind of like a fun party trick if you've got something with your phone and be able to see everything kind of turned on or set an interesting alarm or routine.

Craig Williamson:

Actually, those doorbells, you know, we talked about how useful they are when you're in the house, but when you're out of the house, which obviously isn't happening quite as much recently, but they're so useful to be able to see what's going on someone's ringing the bell, if it's a guy with a package, you can ask them nicely and politely please, you know, hide it somewhere for me. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, that's, that's just a huge, huge bonus. Yeah,

Daniel Norton:

yeah, the microphones back and forth. It's such a simple, it's such a simple thing. But it was so useful that it's like being able to talk go back and talk. And, and with our kids and being able to like keep track of, you know, people coming in or when those kids are coming in or guess when they get older. Yeah. We're

Craig Williamson:

keeping that bringing in. Yeah.

Amanda Norton:

When,

Daniel Norton:

as far from being a teenager, yeah, but we are both youth counselors with our church. So we've had 10 years of experience with teenagers. Knowing that it's like, yeah, I think that can be really, really helpful. Yeah.

Craig Williamson:

Absolutely. I think the experience of working with teenagers for 10 years will be incredibly useful for you. At that point, I wish I had that 10 years experience we're approaching. Yeah, don't feel I'm ready. There's no tech in the world that can make you ready.

Unknown:

Yeah, wait, right.

Amanda Norton:

That's all my questions.

Daniel Norton:

So is there any any other tech that stands out to you that you would, that you

Amanda Norton:

would suggest or share for parents? homers, anything else?

Craig Williamson:

I think the other thing is something fairly basic and simple, but it's a smart button. Now, it depends on what setup you've got. I'm not fully aware of one that would work with the Amazon setup you described. But with my Philips Hue lights, Philips Hue have a range of buttons and dimmers, so you could use them as a traditional light switch and dim your light with them. But they've also got a little round button, which is about the size of a quarter coin. And they so useful. So you could have that situated at your desk. And I told you about having the routine that switches on the outdoor light to warn people in switch or indoor light, you could actually just have have that link to the button. And I could just press the button and run that routine. Also, I've got one by the bed. So what I use that for is switching on my bedside light. And then I can also use it to change the brightness of the light. But then when we go to bed, I can hold it and do a long press, I guess you can you can program it different ways. But when I do the long press, as well as switching our bedroom lights off, it switches all the lights off in the house. So every light that the children have left on during the day in all the various rooms with the smart lights, everything is switched off. So you know, you just press that button before you go to bed. And it's done. So yeah, a lot of smart person and relatively inexpensive $20 will get you something if you're in the Philips Hue system, the the Samsung SmartThings have buttons which could do even more complex things. And yet, there are other things there's something called the flick, fly See, which is a smart button that you can use without any additional devices. You know, it doesn't need a particular system to work with. My understanding is it's a bit more complex in terms of setting up but again, it's just a nice little button you could have one at your desk one at your bedside and just trigger some of these fun routines. Or maybe those those little calls to say bedtime kids, you know, stopped watching TV now it's time for bed movie.

Daniel Norton:

Yeah.

Amanda Norton:

Oh, yeah. Do you have anything for the TVs to make sure they're all shut off?

Craig Williamson:

I don't and yeah, I've had smart remotes at various points but not found one that was too satisfying. I think the probably the easiest way to do that would be to have one connected to a smart plug. That might be the simplest thing and then you can just switch off the power to a power strip. Something at the end of the day and make sure that the power is off to those devices. Yeah,

Daniel Norton:

I love that any anything that can help make parents lives easier, or maybe a little less stressful or be able to just be just that one thing, like you said, like press one button and all the lights can go out. That's just kind of like a one thing where it's like, I don't have to worry, if I'm exhausted, I'm tired from all this stuff. During the day, I could just kind of do it as much as it may feel lazy, it does make sense, because it's like, at least I don't have to stress about it. Because that's one of the weird things pop into your head when you're sitting there, you know, and you're trying to go to sleep. And it's like, did I turn off? That? Did I turn it you know, or when you leave the house to? I know, when I was commuting all the time? I was always thinking like, Alright, did I unplug this skill? it? Did I you know, like, it doesn't come into your mind while you're getting ready, or you're in the house. And then each day doesn't come in your way until you leave. And you can have it on your phone.

Craig Williamson:

Yeah, and the great thing about the smart buttons is I talked about our fingers losing muscle mass. I'm not flicking switches. Well, at least you're working them on the button. So yeah, the thing for finger muscle.

Daniel Norton:

Yeah, do you have all that connected to your phone as well like all the apps so you can control it that way?

Craig Williamson:

Ideally, it's actually quite rare. Now that I use the app, the one thing I did use the app for today was we I mentioned we have the Philips Hue bulbs. And today we put up our Christmas tree and set up the Christmas lights and the lights are connected to a smart plug. So all I had to do was to add the plug to the room, which normally switches on our downstairs lights at sunset, and also switches them on in the morning as well. So all I did was just check a box that says Add Christmas lights to this room. And now they will switch off tonight when everything else which is often they'll switch on again in the morning. And like Like you said, Dan, I called them Christmas as well. So I can just ask the smart assistant turn on Christmas. And again. And obviously if the kids have been badly behaved, I can say turn off Christmas. switch them off and give that little element of fear. Yeah,

Daniel Norton:

that's the nice part.

Amanda Norton:

Do you ever prank your kids with technology in the house? Have you heard anything like that?

Craig Williamson:

No, I can remember, I think they're too smart now. And it's actually my daughter that that is my daughter that pranks me. I was listening to music downstairs. And what happens when you've got a speaker in every room is it pops up on your mobile phone to say someone's streaming music in this room. So my daughter picked up a phone and saw that he streaming some music downstairs. I'll pause that. And then I'll press play again. I'm thinking oh, you know, there's something wrong with my music streaming. And, you know, being the tech guy. It's like, Oh, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to look at the router configuration. Maybe there's some problem with AI. And then it happened again. And then it happened again, I don't like what's going on here. I've really frustrated. And then my daughter comes down and just in conversation. Oh, Daddy, did you see me pausing your music earlier? It's like, what? I was too relieved that I didn't have to, you know, resolve any issues with the Wi Fi. So I didn't punish him for that. But But yeah, I think the kids are so far ahead of us. I say that they've grown up with this tech now. And they know how it works. And I think pranking them would be extremely difficult at this point.

Daniel Norton:

Yeah, even with our three year old, it's tough. So like, we'll set a timer. So that's one of the things that we do a lot with him as a toddler. It's like, Alright, well, you've got only a few more minutes left to play. So we'll set a timer on the, you know, on the echo. And it's hard not to say the name without triggering her. You know, we say well, you know, yeah, five more minutes, you know, whatever. And then the timer will go off, then he'll come over and however set another timer. So just like even as he'll go set another timer, or, yeah, it's all those different things, but it is nice when we've get he does kind of get interested. You know, he'll ask how to say certain words in Spanish, which is nice. So like, he's able to like learn by asking, you know, like, oh, how do you say read in Spanish, and he's learning it in his preschool right now. But which is which is cool. So he's able to still come home and be able to then hear it. Hear it said that way, and he'll just keep asking you, it'll keep him busy while we're doing something else. He just keeps asking that are getting to play different songs and music.

Craig Williamson:

Yeah, the educational side of them is fantastic. And I often hear my children asking Spelling's or maths or my son had some science homework. And he was asking a question about some aspect of science. And yeah, I mean, you know, in our day, we would look in a textbook, so I don't see as cheating. Not so much as unless they had some maths and they were supposed to be doing it without a calculator. Obviously, that would be great. Yeah. But generally, it's helping them learn. And it's, it's another way of accessing information that, you know, to them. It's just second nature.

Amanda Norton:

Yes, the new Google it's like, well, it is. It's the new like, you don't even have to type encyclopedia. You know, the New Encyclopedia exactly,

Daniel Norton:

because it's kind of what it was whether the encyclopedia book or the disk. You have to put in Yeah, get a new one every year. But yeah, I think all of this stuff is is really amazing. I think we could probably talk a whole lot more about it too. But I also want to be able to talk about your podcast. Yeah. Because I think it's really good for parents as well. When you think about being grateful or thankful for your, you know, for your day, and having some sense of positivity in what we may be consumed in a lot of negativity in our news outlets and all that. And can you explain a little bit about your show and and and what you do on your podcast?

Craig Williamson:

Yeah, so it's called thank the week. So the idea is to look back at last week, and think about what was great, and try and chunk our lives down into weeks. So if you think back, there was always something great that did happen last week, even if you felt like you had a bit of a sucky week at the end of it. And that might be something global. You know, in the UK, we had the first vaccine, that's, that's huge. That's really, really big news that everyone should be really happy and excited about. But it might also be some something personal. So for me, you know, this last week, my daughter is in Girl Guides, and she did her promise, which is when she kind of pledges that, you know, pledges to the queen and all the rest of it. And, and that was just a really positive thing for her. And we were really proud of her as her parents. So I try and pick out good things that have happened last week, both personal but but global as well. And then look forward to next week. And I think having something to look forward to has been so difficult of the last few months, you know, the big things people have planned holidays, family gatherings, a lot of that's gone. So I wanted to try and for myself, as well as hopefully the listeners just think about, well, what good is coming up next week? What can I really look forward to? Well, my football teams playing on TV on on Wednesday evening, I can watch that, actually, that I really enjoy that that's a fantastic thing that I really like to do. And, you know, maybe my my daughter has a netball match at the weekend. And she's really excited about that. And that's something good for me. Maybe today we did a test testing, you know, we're getting up to Christmas. And as a family we and you might not know what these are. Do you know what mince pies are? No. I don't even know whether I should describe them. It is strange, but they're so popular here in the UK. But most of the places haven't heard of them. But they're kind of a like a pastry with minced meat inside, which is kind of stewed fruits like little raisins and things like that. But they're a huge thing in the UK for Christmas. Anyway, I'm digressing, what we did was we did a little family taste test where we bought a few different brands, there was a magazine here that gave its verdict on what the best mince pies were. So again, that was something we were looking forward to, we went out and we bought what they said was the best what they said there was was the worst. And we thought Oh, that'd be a nice fun thing to do as a family. So I recorded that that will go out. I think on the 21st of December for me my episodes come out every Monday. So it's just trying to look for those little things in life. It doesn't have to be the the huge foreign holiday in the sunshine. You know, it doesn't have to be the the wedding or the big celebration that you're going to this so much that we've got to be thankful for. And there's so much that we've got to look forward to so so that's in essence, what the podcast is I get to give a bit of a roundup from a global and personal perspective on on those things, looking at news, sport, entertainment and things, obviously texting there as well. And your your podcasts will get mentioned because for me, this is something I've looked forward to all week. And I'm really excited to be speaking with you guys. And I'll be sure to share that with my listeners, you know, something that I've looked forward to, and something I've really enjoyed during the week. So yeah, so the podcast called think the week and everything is out there in your favorite podcast player and the website, thank the week.com

Daniel Norton:

I love it. I love it. You know, there's so many good things that are happening. But it's you know, even if we have 100 good things that happen one bad thing can drown those things out so much. So having a podcast like yours as a really strong reminder, something that we could kind of kick the week off with and you know, you've already teased that next episode coming out which is going to be awesome when you get to hear that next week, depending on when you're listening to this. But awesome, I'm so I'm glad for that because I'm definitely gonna be listening to your, your podcast more and, and be able to have that because I think for parents, that's something that we all need.

Amanda Norton:

Yeah, we need to be the the motivator of positivity and joy in our family. Especially during this crazy time in the world, our parent, our kids are looking up to us. So we need to be exhibiting that joy and that positivity and that love and excitement for what's to come next. Because Yeah, if you turn on TV, the news, that's probably why we kind of stopped watching some things, even though our son takes over with Disney plus right now. But it's like you need to be that positivity because they can easily turn on the TV and feel extremely discouraged. So I'm thankful for your podcast. I'm excited. So congrats. That's awesome.

Craig Williamson:

That's great. Thank you and yeah We do rub off on our children like that, don't we? So if we have that positive attitude, and we exude that, and we share that with our children, hopefully we we, we breed and grow up to be really positive members of the community.

Daniel Norton:

Absolutely perfect. So yeah, so thank the week.com and podcasts and how best if anyone wanted to reach out to you what would be the best way?

Craig Williamson:

Yeah, I'm on Twitter at thank the week. And I've got a Facebook page as well called thank the week and I'm on Instagram, and you'll be surprised to hear my handle is thank that week.

Daniel Norton:

Well, thank you, Craig, for joining us here on episode 15 of working home parents, and thank you for listening. If you'd like show notes or transcription about this episode, go to working home parents.com slash 15. You'll find it all there. And if you enjoyed this, would you consider leaving us an honest review at Apple iTunes, that would really help us out and we'd love to know what you're thinking. And if you haven't already, remember to hit subscribe in the podcast app of your choice so that you get these episodes delivered to you every single Tuesday. We look forward to chatting with you in our next episode.

Bumper:

Thank you for listening to working home parents find show notes links mentioned and more at working home parents.com