“My kid knows so much about technology. I could never keep up”

I hear this statement a lot from parents. Usually it is followed by “It is just so scary. I don’t even want to think about it”.

And so they don’t. Because its all too hard.

Or they think about it and make the odd rash decision to stop everything getting out of hand. They take away a device. They ban an app. They yell at their child to get off the screens because “god knows what they are up to or who they are talking to”. “And people get abducted when they post their photos online.” And then it all blows up in a “you don’t understand argument”.

There is no doubt bad stuff happens to kids with the technology.

And there is no doubt our kids know so much.

They know how to upload stuff, download music, create movies, edit photos, search for content, create virtual cities, fix grandmas phone when she’s forgotten her password again. They can do a lot.

But they are not necessarily wise like us. Now I use the term “us” very loosely referring to the adult population. Anyone who has spent anytime at all online will be well aware that there are many people online who are anything but wise. But theoretically speaking, parents by and large should be more wise. Our years of life experience, our brain development and our understanding of human behaviours, interactions and consequences of actions, ultimately puts us in a greater position to help our kids with those elements of a life online and immersed in technology.

We will never keep up with every single app our child plays on. We will never know all the rules of the games they love. We will never make sense of the terminology they use. We may never have the technological expertise that we somehow bestowed upon our offspring.

But we do need to be the ones to teach them the habits and critical thinking that become the behaviours they take with them throughout adolescence and beyond.  These are the things they need from us. And we cant afford to say it is all too hard.

What do you find hardest to keep up with when it comes to your kids and technology?

To learn more about how you can help your child with these behaviours and thinking, then my latest eBook helps parents gain perspective and understanding of the technology and the online world, with less fights and more connection.