My oldest son recently received his own PC. It plays a large role in his non-traditional education as well as in a bit of his free time. Before and upon it entering the household, we shared many discussions (or as my son sees them, lectures from his parents,) about the importance of respecting it as a tool, which includes understanding it’s cost, purpose, and capabilities to be both effective and detrimental depending the choices he makes while using it.
The above conversations were expected on behalf of his father and myself. What I personally did not expect, is how many times we would need to address the topics of patience and process. I naively believed or more truthfully, never gave a thought to the fact that just because he successfully engaged these processes when using his dad’s computer (for the last 2 years,) did not mean he would transfer and apply those same skills of engagement when it came to using his own computer.
At first I approached it both mentally and verbally as follows: I mean come on buddy, your almost 8 years old. And… you know that when you turn on your computer, you must wait for it to fully turn on. When you purchase a game, you know you must wait for it to download and install before you can play it. Oh, and please stop turning off the computer by simply pressing the power button. You really need to go through the proper shut down process. It’s part of taking care of this machine that you know is expensive and needs to last you for a good bit of time.
And then… I got an idea! I was going to write a blog. I was going do a thing. I was ready to go! Except, I needed to purchase a better computer, find a hosting site, pick a theme, set up the site itself, find appropriate media etc… Yep. I had to turn on the process and wait. Find a way to express my vision and wait for it to download and install, and go through so many shutdowns and reboots already! We won’t even talk about starting up a thought process, and how long that takes to download, (and hopefully not shut down mid run.)
I mean come on me, you’re forty. You know this. Maybe not this specifically pertaining to a blog, but you know this as a life practice. You have had much longer than 2 years of engaging these skills and this knowledge. If you want it to work for you for a good bit of time, it might get a bit expensive and you’ve got to take good care of it.
Get it together! Or… Better yet, offer yourself and others some grace.
