Hello!

Sounds like you have a good setup. During the winter they need chilly environments -- I do not know a good hard and fast temperature rule, but right now in the major city near where they grow in nature (well, according to Wikipedia, anyway), Wilmington NC, it's, well:
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=Wilmington+North+Carolina

Looks like the high during the day this week will be the mid 50s to 70s, with lows in the mid 30s at night.

Venus Flytraps have to rest during the winter with Dormancy, that means a lower light period (18 on is probably too much) and chilly nights.

What area of the country do you live in? You might be able to put them out on the porch for the time being.

More importantly, are you aware of the rather strict water requirements for Venus Flytraps? They require very, very pure water -- Distilled, melted snow, rainwater, etc. "Drinking" or "Purified" water won't work, tap water is almost definitely flat out. What I do is buy gallon jugs of distilled water (for about $0.50 each) and use a turkey baster to water my plants, storing the baster inside the jug like a really big eyedropper.

There is a great pair of books on Carnivorous Plants here:
http://www.californiacarnivores.com/thesavagegardenbypeterdamato.aspx
http://www.sarracenia.com/cp.html

Pretty much covers everything.

And this free web FAQ has everything you'd ever want to know about growing Carnivorous Plants here:
http://www.sarracenia.com/faq.html

Other than those two things (Dormancy and Water), the other major goof is feeding a Venus Flytrap meat -- they can't digest fat, so meat, even stuff like turkey, will kill them rather quickly. Crickets or Bloodworms from a pet store would make good food. Supposedly they need stuff that wiggles to trigger the traps, so live crickets might be better than the freezedried bloodworms, but, it's something to try.

In nature they can live off as little as one bug a month -- they're still plants, so sun will keep them going just fine -- so don't worry too much about feeding them.

Some people even grow fruit flies for their VFTs, I haven't had much luck with that, but... yeah. http://carnivorousplantnursery.com/ has a good Wingless Fruit Fly growing kit.

Where did you buy the plant, btw? I've been considering getting a Red Dragon too, but since I am in Idaho I am waiting to see if the plants I currently have outside will survive.

Your new Venus Flytrap may or may not be dormant already, or it might not be ready for dormancy -- I hear that it's better to skip a year of dormancy than shock the plant by forcing the plant into dormancy out of the blue, for example.

Oh, and other plants to consider adding to you and your son's collection would be a Cape Sundew (definitely a cape sundew, they grow year round -- no dormancy -- and are cool looking) and maybe an American Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia) like a Purple Pitcher Plant or...

One thing to add.

Were they shipped bare root or potted?

Some nurseries shipped plants bare root to save on shipping costs.

If they were shipped bare root, they must be planted in a media 50/50 sphagnum peat moss & perlite. Avoid premixed potting soil even if some of the ingredients say it contains perlite & sphagnum moss. They also contain mulch and fertilizer, deadly to carnivorous plants. Make sure the peat moss say sphagnum & make sure it does not contain additives like wetting agent or fertilizer. So the off chance you potted them in regular potting soil. Dig them out and plant them on the media I described above.

Keep the temperature at least 80 will keep your plants from going dormant; lowering photoperiod is also a trigger for dormancy.

But like mcantrell said, its hard to know if your plant are already dormant. One way to know is that the summer traps usually go sluggish and are beginning to die back, also their growth slows down considerably and new leaves are smaller and sluggish to close.

Follow mcantrell advice looking up for these books, you donÂt have to buy them. You can borrow them from your local library; these are very popular books.

Good luck and happy growing!