Raising Digital Natives

by Richard Reeve on September 11, 2009

in Sand Box

Digital Natives 4I6X8765.jpg
Image by nudevinyl via Flickr

Parenting a digital native…hmm.  My thoughts aren’t real clear on this subject, but I know it’s important.  This past weekend we secured our son’s name.com and set up his first WordPress blog.

Over the past two years we’ve been playing with the unconnected tools: cameras, gps, video, audio.  He’s assembled quite a gear bag.  But now it’s time to introduce him to the on-line reality not just as a consumer (he loves the star wars site) but as a producer.

Though his interest in posting will probably come and go (he’s seven), what’s most important to me as a parent is to impress upon him the public aspect of these actions.

A surprisingly good tool for this has been to share with him videos of web visitor behavior on this blog through my ClickTale account.  He also is finding the WP Stats plugin fascinating.  And stories always work.  I shared with him how a friend I hadn’t heard from for nearly five years found me easily earlier this week on Google.  A year ago, Google would not have served me up.

I’m interested in what you think parent’s need to do for their kids in relationship to this space.  What’s your priority list look like?

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  • I'm no parent, so feel sorta unqualified but..

    #1 Sound's like we are already off to a kick ass start here. How many kids growing up are lucky enough to have parents who understand this space and help give them the literacy in this stuff, and help nurture them through it.. when we all know how bad the schools are relative to this? So sounds awesome to me so far.

    I suppose it depends on the child.. some kids like structures.. others, like myself, needed to follow there bliss so to speak. My prejudice is that all kids should go that way.. and then as a parent you try to introduce them to the possibilities, issues of dangers, and whatever.. and just kinda facilitate there own becoming.

    I'm just such a believe in following your own inner voice that I think to often the voice of the authority for kids is a bit like the roll of the english empire in various african tribal regions once upon a time.. where they lost there ability to have there big dreams cause that's what the english were for, right?

    LOL, that might be one of the biggest things to try and protect them from.. school's systems instinct to turn them into a good little cog of a machine that won't even be around by the time they get there!

    I imagine in someway, as adults, we need to somehow dream big.. to understand the world our kids are going to live in will be so different then our own.. and when we inculcate our values.. to try and go through that viveka type discrimination process of discriminating between what are the values of our time, our world.. what are the eternal values, and what maybe things will look like for them. I think the good news is you're already engaged in that bigger dreaming..

    But I imagine the values are like the parameters really.. at least till adolescence sets in. LOL, then it's all about faith, and praying a lot.
  • Your sense that the system will strip away the creative potential is
    valid. It's strange how embedded the puritanical sense of utility

    shapes the system, whereas the pragmatic posture of usefulness widens

    out (while building upon the same base no doubt), into a recognition

    that meaninfulness, not productivity, is the bottom line issue...
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