Speaking Fluent Internet ...

A while ago, a particular phone conversation with my mum was a ‘challenge’. After fruitless explanations over the phone, I drove around to my mum’s house to sit with her at their PC to teach her how to attach a Word document to an email. After silently asking myself why on earth they have a computer in the first place, the exercise was a success. My mum can now type and send letters via email to her heart’s content.

Driving home I realised how much I could teach my mum when it was only in my late teens that I actually learned to use a computer. Yes, I now have 20 years of computer experience under my belt, yet to me it feels like a new language that I studied as an adult. I still don’t have the right accent, I can’t necessarily determine different dialects and I can’t talk as fast as a native. Natives, of course, being those who were taught from infancy. This is the case with my daughter.

With computers being an integral part of learning, as much as English and maths, it’s hard not to feel like you are always lagging sluggishly behind the natives. That’s how my mother felt today and that’s how I sometimes feel when my daughter spouts ‘computer speak’ that I never learned in school (but of course she doesn’t know that!).

Susan wrote a very good blog titled Zero Tolerance in May last year. As she says, it is essential to know and understand the culture that our children are growing up in. Like the language barrier in a new country, with computer literacy you can often miss verbal transactions if you’re not fluent or at least one step ahead, especially when the internet is thrown into the mix. A parent’s primary role is to love, feed and shelter absolutely, but it is also to lead. If we do not understand what they are learning or the pace at which they are learning, how can we lead and guide them smartly and safely through the internet labyrinth.

Have a read of Susan’s blog Zero Tolerance and polish up on your computer skills. Yes, I know, I can hear you groaning, but a little hard stretch now can save you a big snap later.

Michaela