Growing Up With Technology

I wrote recently about how I am simply amazed at how quickly our girls are growing up. While one part is sentimental about it, another part of me is excited to see the people my children are becoming.

Lindsey recently got a new bit of freedom with the gift of an iPod Touch for her birthday. Wayne and I debated this purchase for several months. Is she ready? Is she mature enough to make good decisions on how she uses it? Is she responsible enough to care for it?

We ultimately decided that she was all of those things and bit the bullet, not to mention the fact that many of her friends had already received iPod Touches for THEIR 9th birthdays (yes, even parents succumb to peer pressure).

We got it several days before her birthday and spent time figuring out how to set it up. I was relieved to learn that we could set restrictions and limit which apps she can see and what she can do with it. For example, she doesn't have access to YouTube. There are too many inappropriate videos that she can access that I will only let her on the site with close parental supervision. She also doesn't have the ability to download new apps or make purchases within apps without approval.

We also discovered that in order to set up the device in many cases we needed an email address. While we could set her up with our email address, we didn't want to get her information mingled with ours, and there's something to be said for a little independence. After all, she is growing up in the digital age; I had to learn phone etiquette growing up, she has to learn email etiquette.

Lindsey recorded us singing "happy birthday" to her with her iTouch

We opened an account for her and gave her the information to log in. Her first emails were from myself and other family members who we'd given her email address to, wishing her a happy birthday. Because we monitor her account (we're basically blind copied on incoming emails, so don't email Lindsey about a surprise for her parents!) we can see some of her interactions with family members. She set up a time to FaceTime with her Wisconsin grandparents, and kept her word and called them on time.

And I don't know why, but it warmed my heart to see an email from her, my daughter, in my inbox.