September’s the month to plot your back-to-school survival strategy. For parents, the school year requires the management skills of a Fortune 500 CEO, the planning skills of General Patton, and the negotiation skills of King Solomon himself. And that’s just what you need before the year officially gets started. The joys, of course, are well worth it.

Where does technology fit into the back-to-school equation? Friend or foe? Solution or problem? It’s all a matter of how you choose to use it. Here are a few things I’ve learned about technology in my years of getting ready for the start of the school year.

1. Set Screen-Time Limits: I can guarantee that if your child is at the computer for hours each evening they’re doing more than just homework. If you’re having 12 IM sessions while doing your math problems, it doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out that your homework will take longer. And don’t let your child get into the habit of doing their homework in front an active TV screen. (Can’t you predict the winner in a contest for attention between geometry and “Lost”?) If you find that setting limits isn’t doing the job, there are a number of hardware devices on the market like BOB, a physical switch box that cuts off the computer or TV at the appointed time. Most parental control software lets you control screen time as well.
2. Get Ergonomic: Research proves that kids who study in well-lit, well-vented areas do better. In a perfect world, they should be sitting up on a chair of the right size and height and that has good support. The computer keyboard should be level with their forearms in the typing position. Sure, it’s OK to slouch down with a book every once and awhile, but for the important homework milestones they should head to the desk.
3. Know Your School’s Tech Policy: Does your school allow cellphones and iPods? Are there restrictions about when they can be used? Can your child take pictures with their cameras in school and then post those photos from home? Can kids record class onto devices and post it? If the school has no rules, what rules do you want? Be explicit about your ground rules (no Facebook until you’re 16, no IM during homework hours) so you can all enjoy the technology instead of arguing about it.
4. Check Options and Preferences: Whatever software you use, I’ll bet it can be made safer with a few clicks on your part. Take Google, an application you’ve probably all used. Did you know that Google has a safe search as one of its options? Toggling the safe search to on means that your kids will not get inappropriate sites or images during a web search. In the same vein, instant messaging programs have blockers to keep out unsanctioned guests, music sites can block explicit lyrics, and multiplayer games have settings to limit who can play with you. Sit down with your child, review the various options, and you’ll be a lot safer.
5. Balancing Computer With Non-Computer: Here’s a familiar scenario: The kids get an assignment to write an essay describing three causes of the Civil War. Five hours later your child is still in front of the computer and hasn’t written a word. Instead, they’ve been surfing the web, taking virtual tours of the Appomattox, or watching The Simpsons episode tagged “Civil War” on YouTube. The Internet is great for chewing up time that should have been spent on the task. I like to take kids away from the computer, plot a roadmap for what they need, talk about more targeted searching, and then send them back to their work with a real-life lesson of how distracting the web can be.
6. Create a Folder System: A hard drive can be a hard place to find what you’re looking for if you have no organization scheme. Sit down with pencil and paper and make a list of all of your child’s classes and extracurricular activities. Then create corresponding folders for each class. Kids should get in the habit of not just hitting “save,” but also saving their file with a system that will help them retrieve it.
7. Proofread on Paper: Everyone knows that it’s easy to let your eye skip over mistakes on the screen that you’d easily catch on the printed page. Print a draft copy of reports and edit on paper.
8. Bookmark Heavily Used Sites: Whether it’s a calculator, dictionary, reference guide, news alerts, or your school’s website, make sure that you’ve got the tools at your fingertips by bookmarking them. You’ll save time and stay on track.
9. Buy in Bulk: At the start of the school year, buy some tech supplies along with the notebooks and pencils. A few reams of paper, batteries, and printer ink will come in handy (these always run out at 10 p.m. when the kids are ready to print their final report and every store is closed). Use the web to do comparison shopping. Look for student discounts. Microsoft, for example, offers student discounts on its expensive Office package.
10. A Little Multimedia Goes a Long Way: Some educators lament that kids can’t even write a paper anymore. The kids, they say, use their word processors to pad the margins and pump up the text size. Other educators are attuned to the benefit of multimedia (photos, music, video) to create reports that leap off the page. They say that multimedia is the new language of learning, and that photos, videos, music, and narration are the building blocks for the 21st century learner. Kids will cultivate an important life skill when they’re able to learn to communicate in the style an individual teacher prefers.
11. Cyberbullying: Cyberbullying (being hurtful or malicious using online tools) has become increasingly prevalent. Make sure your kids know that they can turn to you if they, or someone they know, feels threatened online. Make sure you know who all of their online friends are and that the online friends are, in fact, people your child knows.
12. Delay, Moderate, and Be There. Technology is a great tool, but it still doesn’t come close to the tool we have between our ears. As parents, our job is to moderate and delay risky behavior. When it comes to technology, we need to be just as vigilant about risky behavior as we are with other dangerous acts.