Back to School: No TV before your homework's done

In honor of the new school year, we’re running a series about how Staples Connect can solve your back-to-school needs. Today, we’ll see how Staples Connect can help you enforce the house rules about TV and homework.

“Did you do your homework yet?”

Of course your child hasn’t. Homework isn’t as fun as sitting on the couch and watching a favorite TV show or playing Xbox. This isn’t a hard decision.

“You need to finish your homework before you can watch TV.”

Of course these are the rules. You’re their parent. You’re concerned about their long-term well-being and vegging on the couch isn’t a step toward that. The homework needs to be done first.

“What if there was a way to make this decision easier?”

Of course there is. Its’s called Staples Connect. Today, we’re going to show you how to take the decision out of your kids’ hands and make sure they do their homework!

Normally, we try to focus on the positive side of things with Staples Connect: ways you can make your life easier, something you might not have thought of before, how to make things faster, etc. Today, though, we’re going to focus on a House Rules issue—but in a way that makes your life easier.

Instead of having to enforce the “TV is off until you do your homework” rule yourself, Staples Connect can enforce it for you with the Aeotec Smart Strip. The Smart Strip is a power strip where you can turn the individual outlets on and off. It’s one of our most-requested devices because everyone has a different use for it. Some people want to use it with hard-to-reach areas. Others want to use it with their Christmas lights. We’re going to use it with our home theater setup.

Once you’ve connected your Smart Strip to Staples Connect and plugged all your home theater devices into it, you can turn them on and off as you’d like. This is useful if you want to get the TV going while you’re making popcorn before the movie.

It’s also useful when your kid needs to stop watching TV or playing video games and do his or her homework. If they won’t get up and do it, you can simply turn the TV or console off from your phone or tablet.

You can even program the TV and Xbox outlets on the Smart Strip to be off for a couple hours after school when your kids should be doing their homework. To do that, you’d need—you guessed it, an Activity. See if you can program this one yourself. Let us know how you do.

None of us love enforcing the rules with our kids. Hopefully it won’t ever come to this. But if it does, you’ll be ready.

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