Common Mom

What, exactly, is the computer age? I remember when I was a kid at school and the first experience with a computer was to copy two lines of code from a book to change some dots on a screen to a different color. I’d have to say I was in 6th grade. I do remember starting college and being amazed by all the computer stuff out there. We got Jason some fun preschool computer games when he was 3, and outside of having trouble with the mouse, he did great and loved them.

But just this past weekend, Jason gave me a wake up call. Now, I’m a technical writer and work with computers every day, so it wasn’t the computer stuff that was the wake up call. The wake up call came when he said “Mom, I really want to do my country report in PowerPoint this time. Can you help me?”

OK, first, he’s 6 and doing a country report on Zambia. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t doing THAT when I was 6. Second, he’s REQUESTING to do this report in POWERPOINT! I 100% attribute that the fact that last month, some of the upper elementary kids did their reports in PowerPoint, but still - a 6 year old asking to do a report in PowerPoint?!

Of course I couldn’t say no. So he runs downstairs “to turn the computer on” while I finish cleaning up the kitchen. When I get down there, he’s Googled Zambia, accessed the maps for Zambia and saved them to his My Documents folder, accessed the CIA country Web site, and started searching for the information he needed (population, land area, religions, etc.). Did I mention that he’s 6?!

I get him going in PowerPoint and show him how to type text and put graphics on the pages, etc. He spent 2 hours organizing his information and typing it - dang! Time for bed, so on Sunday we go down to finish. This time I decide to be nice and show him copy and paste - I have to tell you that at that point he believed I was the coolest mom on the planet - no more typing! And really, do you know how difficult it is for a writer to watch a 6 year old peck at a keyboard for 4 hours?! So he completes his 12 slides on Zambia and the African Wild Dog in a mere 4 hours. I then created a monster when I showed him how to change the text color and add transitions and sound to his slides. You would have thought I just told him he could eat candy and drink soda every day for the rest of his life!

He practiced his report over and over for me and Dan - I’m pretty sure the goal was to hear the “laser” sound every time he changed slides - but practicing reading large numbers is good

We’re very proud of Jason, just as all parents are proud of their children. I’m just amazed at what they’re doing in school, and I’m grateful that he’s excited about it and wants us to help him learn new things. This is just one more thing that makes me realize my little dude is growing up, way too fast for my taste!

Now I’m off to the kitchen to make some sweet potato cookies with lemon glaze from Zambia for the monthly continent feast at school!

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