Raising Grandchildren in a Digital age

Written for those Grandparents who have the awesome responsibility of raising their grandchildren.

Do you remember the telephone that was connected to the wall by a cord? How about having to stick your finger into a little hole in the phone base and rotate 6-3-7-3-3-6-9 and waiting till the rotary dial returned back to 0 after every number. Do you remember penpals in elementary school from what we thought was the other side of the world? How amazing it was to get a letter from say Arkansas. Times have changed.

Those who are grandparents today grew up in an age when communication was at a much slower pace than it is today. Can we even name all the various methods of communication today? There are the oldies; e-mail, web pages and personal blogs. Now we have My Space, Facebook, you-tube, deli.cio.us, twitter, flickr, dig. FEED, RSS. Pounce, dig…. These are all on the internet. This does not include the all consuming use of text messaging.

We of the grandparent age are being left in the digital dust. Can we keep up with our grandchildren’s generation? It has been and will be very difficult for us. The children of today are being raised on the computer. They have computers in their classes at school and have access to many various modes of communication. Their social network is getting larger and larger. It is not uncommon to chat (have a live online conversation) with someone from another country. I personally have a friend in Kenya that I communicate with occasionally. Our grandchildren are speaking a different language. A language of symbols J, :) and shortened words ( b/c = because).

What are we to do? Grandparents and parents are “digital immigrants.” Computers, text messages, even e-mailing is all difficult and unfamiliar to us. Some in the older generations may even refuse to enter these modes of communication. This is all understandable but we need to understand our grandchildren are “natives of this digital age.” All this is technology is second hand to them. The generation gap is great and growing in some families.

We as grandparents raising our grandchildren have a more difficult challenge. We need to try and communicate with our grandchildren on a level that most grandparents do not have to. Today’s parents are finding it difficult to speak with their children. As grandparents walking in a parent’s role we are facing a greater challenge. We have to be able to hear our grandchildren’s problems and help them through their hard times. We are challenged because they are talking a digitally different language. We are at the verge of losing them. If we do not press into their circle or at least understand where they are coming from they will slip further into the digital culture without us. Have you seen the comic strip zits where the young people are in the same room and do not even speak to each other but they hold a conversation texting on their cell phones?

What can we do? How can we get a foot into the door of their daily lives? Ask them to explain their modes of communication. Try and use these methods of communication if we can. Monitor how it affects them. Look over their shoulder with curiosity not criticism. Limit them if it proves necessary. Watch the you-tube video with them. Learn the language. Urbandictionary.com can give a definition of our grandchildren’s slang. What does btw mean? (by the way). How about K? (ok) There are many such expressions used especially when text messaging.

Can we text them occasionally and tell them we are thinking of them? Can we facebook chat with them and help them through a stressful situation at a babysitting job? Can we try and be there for them and tell them we love them by entering into a little bit of their culture without criticism?

Can I hope again?

Days have gone by and yes weeks have gone by still they do not come. Yesterday I was sure that they would be here. I had been disappointed the day before for the hundredth time. Now certainly, certainly today is the day. How could they delay one more day. Surely they could see the need to come today. My back was turned. I did not want to look. My hopes had been dashed too many times. It was hard to gather the courage to look again. I slowly turned just because I wanted to. Not necessarily because I expected anything different than I had seen many times before.

There, there it was. The small speck in the distance. Could it be? Could it really be? Were my eyes pulling tricks on me? Could I have just a little faith? Could I still hope? I stretched my my faith out one more time. I leaned toward the window. I pushed my hope to what I thought was the limit. The little speck had disappeared. I pressed my nose to the window. The glass was very cold. I shook the immediate thoughts of despair away. I held on to what was so long in coming. Yes. I would hope I would have faith. I would not doubt.

Then I saw it again. The speck had become a small cloud just above the horizon. It was approaching getting bigger every moment. My faith had turned to sight. There was no doubt anymore. Today was the day. They were coming. I was so excited I was almost paralyzed. I flung myself away from the window. I ran down the three flights of stairs and flew open the door.

This time I would not have to shut the door and walk up the stairs hopeless again. This time they were coming. I could see the outlines of a vehicle now. The cloud of dust was much larger. They had said they would come for me. They had made specific plans but the plans had been dashed again and again. It had not been safe, they said. My fathers assassins were still at large. Things needed to settle down a little more. But now they were coming. I could go home.

Or could I. Doubts entered my mind again. Was this them or was this the assassins? I did not know? I could not find out. I wanted to shrink back. I wanted to hide. But I was the princess. I was not afraid. Mine was the kingdom. If it was not them it was too late anyway. So I stood. I stood straight and tall and royal. just like my father had taught me. I was a princess.

They pulled up beside me. The door opened and there stepping out of the car was.....